Did dinosaurs ever live alongside humans?

User avatar
jonperry
Posts: 137
Joined: Wed Jun 19, 2013 10:00 pm
Location: Corvallis Oregon
Contact:

Did dinosaurs ever live alongside humans?

Post by jonperry » Wed Feb 22, 2017 4:14 pm

I'm working on a new animation critiquing the claims that dinosaurs and humans once lived together. Let me know what you think. FYI, I have a future video planned on soft tissue found in dinosaur bones. It's too large of a topic to cover in this first video. Should I at least mention it though in this first animation?

https://youtu.be/Ictdr2L5w1M

User avatar
TK
Posts: 1477
Joined: Mon Aug 25, 2008 8:42 pm
Location: North Carolina

Re: Did dinosaurs ever live alongside humans?

Post by TK » Sat Feb 25, 2017 11:39 am

Personally, I do not think they did.

This idea, more than anything else, tempts me to ridicule my fellow believers. I have heard the arguments and don't find them persuasive at all.

However, I am more than willing to be proven wrong on this point, just as I am willing to be proven wrong about a billions of years old earth.

According to your video, which I realize isn't finished, I have been feeding dinosaurs in my back yard all winter long. Cool.

And I think I read something a few months back where they found a dinosaur feather encased in amber- or something like that.

User avatar
steve
Posts: 3392
Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2008 9:45 pm

Re: Did dinosaurs ever live alongside humans?

Post by steve » Sat Feb 25, 2017 4:46 pm

TK,

I would be interested in knowing what creatures you would identify as those called behemoth and leviathan, in Job 40 and 41. They are described as animals with who Job and other men were familiar, no less than such creatures as eagles, mountain goats and horses. There can be no doubt that the author of Job was familiar with them, since he described them there (in speeches that are represented as God's speeches to Job). I have no problem identifying the mountain goat, but the description of behemoth and leviathan do not fit any known creature, other than dinosaurs. For those who do not think that dinosaurs lived at the same time as man, I am curious to know what they think these creatures were.

User avatar
TK
Posts: 1477
Joined: Mon Aug 25, 2008 8:42 pm
Location: North Carolina

Re: Did dinosaurs ever live alongside humans?

Post by TK » Sat Feb 25, 2017 7:02 pm

I will admit that leviathan sounds a lot like a Basilosaurus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilosaurus) and behemoth does sound like a brontosaurus type creature. Of course that isn't proof, but I would not discount the possibility that real creatures were being described and they may have been dinosaurs, although they may have been mythical or other type of creature as well.

It just seems that if dinosaurs lived in the time of Abraham, for example, that there would be definitive mention of them and not just in poetic passages.

I have a hard time placing a lot of things in a biblical timeline, like primitive or "cave men." It seems from the beginning humans were highly intelligent, so when it comes to Neanderthal, etc. I just can't tell where they fit in.

TruthInLove
Posts: 105
Joined: Mon Dec 29, 2014 12:35 am

Re: Did dinosaurs ever live alongside humans?

Post by TruthInLove » Sat Feb 25, 2017 11:46 pm

Hi Steve/TK,

I personally have not made up my mind regarding the age of the earth or whether dinosaurs and man ever co-existed. However, despite the similarities of Behemoth and Leviathan to dinosaurs, I could see this as being merely coincidental.

In Job, it seems likely to me that Behemoth and Leviathan may be personifications of Satan himself. Similar personifications show up in Revelation 13 in the form of the beasts from the Land and Sea. In reference to the beast from the land, notice that Job 1:7 opens with Satan stating that he came from "roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.” It seems fitting that such personifications would appear in the final chapters of Job where God finally starts speaking about Job's response to the attacks of this adversary.

Also, in many ways, the account of Job seems to serve as a polemic against the distorted and even outright false views of God and His relationship to man that permeated the Near Eastern religions. God often, sometimes humorously, hijacks the imagery used in the myths of other gods and re-purposes it to reveal spiritual truth. This is evident in the plagues of Egypt as each of them seems to have been designed by God to bring disdain and even loathing to the hearts of Egyptians regarding their so-called gods. It's conceivable that these beasts in Job, particularly Leviathan, may be used in a similar manner in reference to gods like Baal.

Here's a short article from Hank Hanegraaff which discusses more of the polemic side of this view.

Are Behemoth and Leviathan Dinosaurs?

User avatar
steve
Posts: 3392
Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2008 9:45 pm

Re: Did dinosaurs ever live alongside humans?

Post by steve » Sun Feb 26, 2017 2:26 am

I think there is a lot being read into the purpose of Job, in Hank's article, that is not there nor intended to be implied. Behemoth and Leviathan are not mythical entities, but are apparently creations of God. Behemoth was a creature of God no less than the ostrich (Job 39:17) and no less than Job himself (Job 40:15). It is true that a mythology grew up around Leviathan in the Middle East, but this was not an imaginary creature from the very sight of which men were overwhelmed (Job 41:9). Men had broken arrows and spear against his impenetrable scales. These creature had been encountered by men.

There is no reason to believe that, if dinosaurs existed, the Bible would certainly have mentioned them. We could as easily say that if kangaroos or rhinoceros were not mentioned in the Bible, it calls their existence into question. Certainly they are strange enough to evoke biblical comment. But the Bible would have few occasions to mention them, since it is a story about a family growing into a nation. It is not concerned to survey the fauna of the ancient world. It is striking to have them mentioned in the one place where they apparently are (her in Job).

Leviathan is not Satan, any more than a snake is Satan, though both came to be used as symbols of him, as a lamb is used as a symbol of Christ, and a dove as a symbol of the holy Spirit (or an elephant and a donkey of the Republican and Democratic parties, respectively). Nothing God says about these creatures, nor their context, provides any reason to see them as imaginary or spiritual beings. The simplest explanation is the obvious one.

TruthInLove
Posts: 105
Joined: Mon Dec 29, 2014 12:35 am

Re: Did dinosaurs ever live alongside humans?

Post by TruthInLove » Mon Feb 27, 2017 2:18 pm

Steve wrote:Nothing God says about these creatures, nor their context, provides any reason to see them as imaginary or spiritual beings.
Perhaps not on a casual, isolated reading of these passages. Yes, Leviathan and Behemoth are presented as physical creatures contemporary with Job. Job is challenged to physically engage with them and it's said that other men had done so. However, you are of course aware that such physical sounding language is common in eschatological passages as well. Even the animals mentioned before Behemoth and Leviathan and the language applied to them seem to have eschatological or spiritual significance elsewhere in Scripture. Further, the overall context of Scripture, the book of Job itself, and the language of the immediate context of the descriptions of Leviathan and Behemoth all offer evidence that can quite reasonably suggest that these creatures are not necessarily to be understood as physical creatures contemporary with Job.

First, Job is a book of poetry which clearly uses symbolic language throughout. Further, other eschatological icons are strewn throughout Job. For example, Rahab (which has connections to the prostitute, the sea monster, Egypt and Babylon, ultimate judgement, final restoration, and resurrection), Edom, the personification of Wisdom and Destruction/Abaddon, horses resembling locusts, etc. The number seven and words alluding to it are common in Job. References to the sea symbolizing the wicked and the nations permeate it. The slowness of the judgement of God toward the wicked, the ultimate realization of that judgment, and the final redemption and vindication of those who suffer for God are themes common to Job and prophecies relating to eschatology, particularly those of Revelation.

Additionally, the fact that Satan is only explicitly mentioned in the early chapters and not again in the rest of the book is more than a little odd considering that he was the participant most directly connected with God in this challenge. Considering this, it seems strange that when the outcome of this challenge was finally realized at the end of the book just where we might expect to see Satan get his comeuppance, the last of the great adversaries of man mentioned is not Satan but Behemoth and Leviathan. Is it then coincidence that these creatures just happen to be the ones that are adopted as symbols for God's enemies and show up repeatedly in eschatological passages in connection with the spiritual forces of evil and their ultimate destruction? Job presents each of these creatures as such that mortal man has no hope of defeating. Yet beasts fitting their description are defeated by God's sword (ie. the God-Man) in the culmination of redemptive history in Revelation.

All things considered, it's not hard, for me at least, to believe that Job was intended to be an encouraging type foreshadowing the end of the war between God and evil.

Of course, there are other ways of interpreting this information. I can see that one could always argue that just because something is a type doesn't mean it's entirely figurative in all contexts either. Granted, Job could be one of these contexts. It seems the best a person can do is show that there is at least a significant amount of room to allow for that interpretation as a reasonable possibility. Still, I think the above considerations should at least temper the confidence with which we cite these creatures as documented examples of dinosaurs co-existing with mankind.

User avatar
Homer
Posts: 2995
Joined: Sat Aug 23, 2008 11:08 pm

Re: Did dinosaurs ever live alongside humans?

Post by Homer » Mon Feb 27, 2017 9:33 pm

TruthInLove,

As I was reading your reply to Steve and following your line of reasoning I expected you to say that Satan was also a symbolic, literary device, employed by the writer. Then I came to:
Additionally, the fact that Satan is only explicitly mentioned in the early chapters and not again in the rest of the book is more than a little odd considering that he was the participant most directly connected with God in this challenge.
But then you surprised me when you didn't go there (at least as I understood you).

Do you think contemporaries of the writer of Job, who read his work, would have recognized that most of the many creatures he mentioned, along with details of their habits, were real while two others were imaginary, even though described in detail? I am not disagreeing that the writer of Job used poetry.

TruthInLove
Posts: 105
Joined: Mon Dec 29, 2014 12:35 am

Re: Did dinosaurs ever live alongside humans?

Post by TruthInLove » Tue Feb 28, 2017 1:41 am

Hi Homer,

Perhaps some contemporaries of Job would have been capable of discerning that Leviathan and Behemoth were not physically accessible in their own time period, if indeed they weren't. Other people probably wouldn't have been concerned with and/or capable of such discernment.

However, why would God have expected them to even make this kind of judgment? What would it have mattered if they thought these beasts were real or fantasy? The true nature of God seems to be one of the key issues at hand. I can't think of any reason why a beast being observable in the flesh would have been required for Job or the readers of his account to understand the points that God was trying to get through to him. Perhaps it may have helped to expedite the desired response but it certainly wouldn't have been required to achieve it. The only indicators that seem to require that these beasts must have been physically around at the time are the exhortations to confront them. While the language suggests physical confrontation, it's also commonly used of spiritual warfare and there are indicators that that's exactly the kind of battle being alluded to.

Here's another point that may not help settle the issue of whether these beasts were tangible creatures to Job, but it may help demonstrate that there was an intended eschatological aspect of the account of these beasts even within the book of Job. it's interesting that just before God mentions Behemoth and Leviathan, His point to Job seems to be that he was not and could never hope to be his own redeemer from his sin, suffering and bondage in a world dominated by wickedness (Job 40:8-14). Here, in a renewed charge to Job, God admonishes him to take on the proud and the wicked and he is challenged to see how he fares against them. The implication is that he would fail miserably at destroying them. Immediately afterwards, God then challenges Job to do the same concerning the two great beasts and the same outcome is predicted with regard to them as well. The apparent point in mentioning these beasts and the assurance of failure against them would be to underscore man's desperate need for God to fully and finally deliver him from evil.

User avatar
jonperry
Posts: 137
Joined: Wed Jun 19, 2013 10:00 pm
Location: Corvallis Oregon
Contact:

Re: Did dinosaurs ever live alongside humans?

Post by jonperry » Tue Feb 28, 2017 8:36 pm

On the question "Did humans ever live alongside dinosaurs?", does a Bible verse about Behemoth meet most Christian's standard of proof, or are most Christians wanting tangible, extra-Biblical evidence before accepting the idea?

For Ken Ham I know what the answer would be, but I suspect he doesn't represent all or even most Christians on this issue.

Post Reply

Return to “Creation/Evolution”