Psalm 29:66
He maketh them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn.(KJV)
He makes Lebanon skip like a calf, and Sirion like a young wild ox. (NRS)
Job 30:29
I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.(KJV)
I am a brother of jackals, and a companion of ostriches. (NRS)
Job 39:9-12
9Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib?
10Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee?
11Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great? or wilt thou leave thy labour to him?
12Wilt thou believe him, that he will bring home thy seed, and gather it into thy barn(KJ)
9"Is the wild ox willing to serve you? Will it spend the night at your crib? 10Can you tie it in the furrow with ropes, or will it harrow the valleys after you? 11Will you depend on it because its strength is great, and will you hand over your labor to it? 12Do you have faith in it that it will return, and bring your grain to your threshing floor? (NRS)
Job 40: 15-24, Job 41:1-34
15Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox.
16Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly.
17He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together.
18His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron.
19He is the chief of the ways of God: he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him.
20Surely the mountains bring him forth food, where all the beasts of the field play.
21He lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed, and fens.
22The shady trees cover him with their shadow; the willows of the brook compass him about.
23Behold, he drinketh up a river, and hasteth not: he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth.
24He taketh it with his eyes: his nose pierceth through snares.
Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down?
2Canst thou put an hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn?
3Will he make many supplications unto thee? will he speak soft words unto thee?
4Will he make a covenant with thee? wilt thou take him for a servant for ever?
5Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens?
6Shall the companions make a banquet of him? shall they part him among the merchants?
7Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? or his head with fish spears?
8Lay thine hand upon him, remember the battle, do no more.
9Behold, the hope of him is in vain: shall not one be cast down even at the sight of him?
10None is so fierce that dare stir him up: who then is able to stand before me?
11Who hath prevented me, that I should repay him? whatsoever is under the whole heaven is mine.
12I will not conceal his parts, nor his power, nor his comely proportion.
13Who can discover the face of his garment? or who can come to him with his double bridle?
14Who can open the doors of his face? his teeth are terrible round about.
15His scales are his pride, shut up together as with a close seal.
16One is so near to another, that no air can come between them.
17They are joined one to another, they stick together, that they cannot be sundered.
18By his neesings a light doth shine, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning.
19Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out.
20Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or caldron.
21His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth.
22In his neck remaineth strength, and sorrow is turned into joy before him.
23The flakes of his flesh are joined together: they are firm in themselves; they cannot be moved.
24His heart is as firm as a stone; yea, as hard as a piece of the nether millstone.
25When he raiseth up himself, the mighty are afraid: by reason of breakings they purify themselves.
26The sword of him that layeth at him cannot hold: the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon.
27He esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood.
28The arrow cannot make him flee: slingstones are turned with him into stubble.
29Darts are counted as stubble: he laugheth at the shaking of a spear.
30Sharp stones are under him: he spreadeth sharp pointed things upon the mire.
31He maketh the deep to boil like a pot: he maketh the sea like a pot of ointment.
32He maketh a path to shine after him; one would think the deep to be hoary.
33Upon earth there is not his like, who is made without fear.
34He beholdeth all high things: he is a king over all the children of pride. (KJV)
15 "Look at Behemoth, which I made just as I made you; it eats grass like an ox. 16Its strength is in its loins, and its power in the muscles of its belly. 17It makes its tail stiff like a cedar; the sinews of its thighs are knit together. 18Its bones are tubes of bronze, its limbs like bars of iron. 19"It is the first of the great acts of God-- only its Maker can approach it with the sword. 20For the mountains yield food for it where all the wild animals play. 21Under the lotus plants it lies, in the covert of the reeds and in the marsh. 22The lotus trees cover it for shade; the willows of the wadi surround it. 23Even if the river is turbulent, it is not frightened; it is confident though Jordan rushes against its mouth. 24Can one take it with hooks or pierce its nose with a snare?
Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook, or press down its tongue with a cord? 2Can you put a rope in its nose, or pierce its jaw with a hook? 3Will it make many supplications to you? Will it speak soft words to you? 4Will it make a covenant with you to be taken as your servant forever? 5Will you play with it as with a bird, or will you put it on leash for your girls? 6Will traders bargain over it? Will they divide it up among the merchants? 7Can you fill its skin with harpoons, or its head with fishing spears? 8Lay hands on it; think of the battle; you will not do it again! 9Any hope of capturing it will be disappointed; were not even the gods overwhelmed at the sight of it? 10No one is so fierce as to dare to stir it up. Who can stand before it?
11 Who can confront it and be safe? --under the whole heaven, who? 12"I will not keep silence concerning its limbs, or its mighty strength, or its splendid frame. 13Who can strip off its outer garment? Who can penetrate its double coat of mail? 14Who can open the doors of its face? There is terror all around its teeth. 15Its back is made of shields in rows, shut up closely as with a seal. 16One is so near to another that no air can come between them. 17They are joined one to another; they clasp each other and cannot be separated. 18Its sneezes flash forth light, and its eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn. 19From its mouth go flaming torches; sparks of fire leap out. 20Out of its nostrils comes smoke, as from a boiling pot and burning rushes. 21Its breath kindles coals, and a flame comes out of its mouth. 22In its neck abides strength, and terror dances before it. 23The folds of its flesh cling together; it is firmly cast and immovable. 24Its heart is as hard as stone, as hard as the lower millstone. 25When it raises itself up the gods are afraid; at the crashing they are beside themselves. 26Though the sword reaches it, it does not avail, nor does the spear, the dart, or the javelin. 27It counts iron as straw, and bronze as rotten wood. 28The arrow cannot make it flee; slingstones, for it, are turned to chaff. 29Clubs are counted as chaff; it laughs at the rattle of javelins. 30Its underparts are like sharp potsherds; it spreads itself like a threshing sledge on the mire. 31It makes the deep boil like a pot; it makes the sea like a pot of ointment. 32It leaves a shining wake behind it; one would think the deep to be white-haired. 33On earth it has no equal, a creature without fear. 34It surveys everything that is lofty; it is king over all that are proud." (NRS)
Today at 12:53 PM lucaspa said this in Post #10
The short answer is: "They don't fit with a literalistic reading of the Bible."
Finding bones of large extinct reptiles in the early 1800s was one of the reasons that the story of Noah's Flood and the Ark was discarded by Christian theologians. No one could reconcile those animals with Noah's Ark or the lack of descriptions of them in other literature or the lack of artwork.
Today at 04:34 PM lucaspa said this in Post #12
First, I gave a history of what actually happened within scientific and Christian circles. You can find it in much more detail in The Biblical Flood: A Case History of the Church's Response to Extrabiblical Evidence by Davis A. Young. What creationists try to forget today is that scientists around 1800 were using the Bible as a guide for their creationist theories and the Ark was still an accepted theory.
Bud, what literalistic interpretation would suggest that? What text would suggest that any of the "kinds" created in Genesis 1 or 2 were extinct by Genesis 6? Your whole argument relies on extrabiblical evidence. And it was the finding of that extrabiblical evidence in the form of fossil dinos that led to the modification of the interpretation in the first place, remember?
Since according to any literal reading of Genesis 1 dinos and humans should have been contemporaries, where are the artwork on cave or pyramid showing accurate renditions of dinos? We have recognizable mammoths, wooly rhinocerus', Irish elk, and other extinct animals on the caves in Europe. But Iguanodon lived there, too, and there is no cave artwork.
There are also so many other falsifications of the Flood as a world-wide event that we really don't need this one.
Today at 08:00 AM lucaspa said this in Post #14
Today at 12:16 AM BudJohnson said this in Post #13
I don't recall positing any kind of argument. All I've done so far is ask a question. You are the one who has set forth an argument in this thread - an argument which I find a bit questionable. You are arguing that every possible "literalistic interpretation" of the text must contain the premise that dinosaurs existed during the time of Noah. How can you justify such a claim? (Let me answer that: You can't.)
Then explain why I can't. Where in the text does it say that there were large reptilian creatures that died out before Noah? Genesis 7:8-9 says "A male and female of every kind of animal and bird, whether ritually clean or unclean, went into the boat with Noah, as God had commanded."
If you are reading Genesis literally, where is the wiggle room there? All you can do is insert text into the Bible that dinos had died out before Noah, but if you do that are you still literally reading the Bible?
How do you define "literal"?
"It is this biblical literalism - where every word must be taken literally and unconditionally -" http://www.christ-church.info/articles/alaqsa.htm
"Call it naive literalism if you will. I call it simply taking God at His Word" http://www.icr.org/pubs/btg-a/btg-068a.htm
et cetera, et cetera...
Well, I don't necessarily believe in a world-wide flood anyway, so you're barking up the wrong tree here (I don't necessarily disbelieve it either; I just keep an open-mind, which is so rare in discussions of theology.).
A world-wide Flood isn't an issue of theology; it's an issue of science. Do you keep an equally open mind about a flat earth? Earth at the center of the solar system? Proteins as hereditary material? Endochonral ossification of the skull bones?
All these are falsified hypotheses/theories. They are untrue. The same applies to a world-wide flood. There never was such an event. The final falsification came in the period 1820-1830. Up until that time geologists had been limiting the strata that were due to a world-wide flood. Instead of all the strata, only the most superficial gravels and morraines were thought to have been deposited by a world-wide flood. However, it was shown that even these were not due to a world-wide flood, thus falsifying the existence of such a flood. Biogeography was, at the same time, falsifying the hypothesis of all animals being on the Ark.
You're assuming that the Genesis account must be exhaustive in order to be accurate, and that's simply not true of any literary work.
If the account is not exhaustive is it still true? I say 'no'. If it has major omissions that you can fill in at will, then are the fill-in's still the "Word of God"? Or are they your word that you are trying to tell us is the "Word of God".
Also, look at what you are doing. You are taking extrabiblical evidence as the basis for your insertions. This establishes that extrabiblical evidence is primary and cause the re-interpretation of the Bible. What you have done is destroy any argument against theistic evolutionists who also take extrabiblical evidence to decide that the Bible needs to be re-interpreted.
What I am doing is inferring from the literal text. The thought process goes like this:
1. The text is literally true.
2. All kinds of land creatures were created on Day 6 (or sometime early in Genesis 2).
3. No major extinctions mentioned.
4. All kinds taken on the Ark.
5. Therefore, dinos should have been on the Ark.
Now, since there are no descriptions of dinos living with humans after the Ark, this becomes one more reason to decide that a literal interpretation of Genesis 6-8 is in error and that another interpretation is needed.
You're assuming that the Genesis account must be exhaustive in order to be accurate, and that's simply not true of any literary work.
Let's examine that claim. It's the end of Black History Month. Now, for decades history textbooks never mentioned the contributions to science and technology of African Americans. African Americans were inventors of blood transfusion, stoplights, gasmasks, and much more. Do we consider those textbooks to be accurate history?
For the Bible, the omission of the extinction of such a spectacular group of organisms as the dinos (with the flying reptiles) has profound theological implications. After all, Genesis 1 repeatedly says that creation is "good". Well, how "good" could it have been if these animals weren't "good" enough to survive but went quickly extinct? (remember, YEC has only about 2,000 years between Creation Week and the Flood) What's worse, how could a perfect deity make such spectacular creatures so badly that they went extinct without any natural catastrophe?
This is one of the dangers of creationism. In trying to bolster a literal reading of the the portions of Genesis they want to be literal, they end up with explanations that severely damage Christian theology. In this case, in wanting to preserve the Ark story, you propose an explanation that not only questions whether creation is good but also the wisdom and foresight of God.
Interesting quotations, but my question is how do you define "literal"? Let me alter the question slightly: How should you define "literal"?
Inappropriate question. The isssue is how literalists define the term, not how I would define it or, even more vaguely, should define it.
Actually, yes, I do keep an open mind about those things. And in my objective, open-minded search, I find every time I investigate that the earth is neither flat nor the center of the solar system, and so on.
LOL!! And how often do you do the search from scratch? And why? If a flat earth is falsified the first time, how do expect it to become true later?
And since I'm not an expert on science, I don't attempt to act like I know more than I do about such things as whether a global flood occurred. I've heard evidence and argumentation from both sides
OK, sit back and let me lecture on the nature of science and deductive logic.
et cetera, et cetera...
Don't be fooled: scientists are neither infallible nor omniscient!), I'd still keep an open mind, since science is an ever evolving discipline. Today's "good science" is tomorrow's antiquated bit of trivia.
What you are saying is that today's valid theory could be falsified tommorrow. And that is true. Which is why science is always tentative about its positive statements. Evolution is accepted as provisionally true. Unless and until data are found to falsify it.
But it also means that the falsified theories are absolutely falsified. In any of those changes, have you ever heard of a falsified theory being brought back as valid?
What's lacking in the scientific community is a healthy dose of humility. Thank God for those scientists who understand their limits.
Not at all. The humility is always there. It's just that there are some statements in science that you can legitimately be absolutely certain of. The earth will never be flat no matter how many times you come back and look because the data that falsified a flat earth to begin with is still there. Data doesn't go away. Or didn't anyone tell you that?
But since I haven't said anything about my thoughts concerning the dinosaurs' relation to the biblical account, I'm not sure what you're trying to pin on me.
You made the claim that the dinos were created on day 6 but were extinct by the time of Noah's Flood. If that is not a "thought" concerning the dinosaur's relation to the biblical account, what is it?
Secondly, no historical work is exhaustive (I'm assuming you know what the word "exhaustive" means.). According to you, then, every account ever written in the history of mankind is not true.
Now you are playing semantic games. The issue is whether leaving out important events makes the narrative essentially inaccurate.
If I went to the Laker's game last week (I didn't, by the way) and told you that I saw Kobe and Shaq play, would that be untrue simply because I left out the fact that I also saw the other members of the Lakers (not to mention the members of the opposing team) play?
Why didn't you address my examples? In this case Kobe and Shaq are members of the Lakers and you are not denying that the rest of the Lakers were there. In comparing this to your claim about Genesis, you would be stating you went to see Shaq and Kobe play but failed to mention that they wer playing one-on-one. Dinos are kinds of animals. Genesis 8 says that all kinds were taken on the Ark. But dinos weren't included. This is equivalent to your saying you went to see the Lakers (the whole team) but only Shaq and Kobe were there. In this case you have made a major omission.
In the Genesis account of creation and the flood, I don't see dinosaurs as a "major omission." The existence of the dinosaurs is not relevant to the purpose of the text. If the Genesis account were trying to teach science, then leaving out the dinosaurs would be a major omission.
But you are saying Genesis is trying to teach science in that it is saying there was a world-wide Flood. That's a scientific event. You are also saying it is teaching science by saying that the current distribution of animals came from migration from a single spot -- the Ark. You are also saying the account is teaching science by saying that all humans are descended from Noah's family. Do you see the inconsistency is now trying to say that the Noah story isn't trying to teach science?
You can't have it both ways. If the Genesis account isn't trying to teach science then it isn't recounting a real historical event. If it is recounting a real historical event then the omission of saying that giant reptiles existed at creation but went extinct before the Flood and therefore weren't around for the Ark is a major omission.
Extrabiblical evidence is necessary. If all you had was the Bible, outside of the context of the world in which we live (i.e., if you decide to ignore history, philosophy, science, literature, et al.), then you wouldn't understand very much of it. Proper exegesis of the text requires going outside of the text.
Then why not accept the extrabiblical evidence that there never was a Flood and that the Bible does not really refer to dinos? Why the stubborn adherence to the idea that dinos were part of the created kinds but went extinct prior to the Flood?
By the way, why do you think I would be bothered by theistic evolutionists?
Because you are trying to save a literal reading of Genesis 6-8: an Ark that carried all the living kinds of animals and a world-wide Flood. Theistic evolutionists discard such a Flood based on the extrabiblical evidence.
Yesterday at 09:30 PM Patricco said this in Post #22 (http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?postid=682966#post682966)
Who's to say the dinosaurs werent babies when they were taken onto the ark? God didnt say "take 2 of every adult animal, male and female." And the word dinosaur wasnt given until the 1800's. Who's to say that the original word of dinosaur wasnt the word dragon, which knights went out to slay.
http://www.drdino.com/cse.asp?pg=articles&specific=15
This link has some pictures of dinosaurs, whether you chose to believe them or not
"Genesis 7:2 states that Noah saved two of every representative "kind" of land animal on the ark. Noah would have taken young specimens, not huge, older creatures. Dinosaurs would have emerged from the ark to inhabit an entirely different world. Instead of a warm, mild climate worldwide, they would have found a harsh climate which soon settled into an ice age. If climatic hardships did not cause the dinosaur's extinction, man's tendency to destroy probably did."
found from here: http://www.drdino.com/cse.asp?pg=articles&specific=23
OK I'll forgive you because you are 14 - but you really need to learn a little more.Hugs of Love said:Did you know that lizards are the only animals to continue growing their entire life?
Did you know that before the flood, people lived for up to a thousand years?
That means lizards, too.
They could get pretty big in that amount of time!
After the flood, life spans started to decrease, dinosaurs couldn't grow as large.
The Lord commanded that Noah take two of each type of animal. If he did it again today, he would say to bring two dogs, not two golden retrievers, two german shepards, etc.
Do you get what I'm saying?
These are just my opinoins. Thanks for listening!
P.S. - Did you know that "dragon" in Greek (or something like it) means "large lizard" or "large reptile"
I would guess that the Behemoth is an Apatosaurus (formerly called brontosaurus till they changed its name), and the Leviathan is a T. Rex. I am guessing that Job has found a couple of well preserved fossil skeletons, perhaps even in a cliff face so they are standing upright.So far, I don't know why the descriptions of these animals in the New Revised Standard translation are out of whack with what is occurring in these verses.
Here we have two animals, Behemoth and Leviathan, that are the same in both translations. Are they dinosaurs? Could any living creatures be described this way?
--tibac
Dinosaurs weren't lizards, they weren't even reptiles. We know that because the reptiles of that era were similar to today's lizards, but the skeletons of dinosaurs have little in common with reptiles, but a lot in common with birds.Hugs of Love said:Did you know that lizards are the only animals to continue growing their entire life?
Did you know that before the flood, people lived for up to a thousand years?
That means lizards, too.
They could get pretty big in that amount of time!
After the flood, life spans started to decrease, dinosaurs couldn't grow as large.
The Lord commanded that Noah take two of each type of animal. If he did it again today, he would say to bring two dogs, not two golden retrievers, two german shepards, etc.
Do you get what I'm saying?
These are just my opinoins. Thanks for listening!
P.S. - Did you know that "dragon" in Greek (or something like it) means "large lizard" or "large reptile"