Were there Dinosaurs in the Bible?

i can. it says tail, in hebrew. tail as in rear-end, behind, opposite of head.however, what it says and what it means are two entirely different things. it means penis. it's a euphemism.there's other examples of euphemisms in the bible too, such as:

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Rth 3:7 And when Boaz had eaten and drunk, and his heart was merry, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of corn: and she came softly, and uncovered his feet, and laid her down.

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...it ain't talking about feet, even if that's what it says.

the word in job 40:17 is זנב. the word means tail, as in rear-end.it's the same word as in:

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Exodus 4:2-4:

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The LORD said to him, "What is that in your hand?" And he replied, "A rod." He said, "Cast it on the ground." He cast it on the ground and it became a snake; and Moses recoiled from it. Then the LORDS said to Moses, "Put out your hand and grasp it by the tail" -- he put out his hand and seized it, and it became a rod in his hand -- [etc]

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tell me, did moses grab the snake's penis? do snakes even have penises?literally, it does not say penis, no.however, it's sort of like us saying the word "head." yes, it can mean the thing on top of our necks, but it can ALSO be something different. it's a euphemism.This message has been edited by Arachnophilia, 12-04-2004 06:45 PM

yes.god did, afterall, make penises too. i think navel is, indeed, a mistranslation. but i'm not sure. i'll look into it. however, i see nothing in the text to suggest that it IS a dinosaur.however, i think there's a good case for behemoth being an elephant. ever seen an elephant's penis? it's like the males have 5 legs.

ironically, it is very much set in stone. that does tend to be where fossils are found, you know.no dinosaur is found above the k-t boundary. there is a thick line of dust, with a rather high concentration of iridium, between the cretaceous and tertiary layers.this layer is dated at 65 mya. i see nothing mythological about it. it sounds like an elephant to me.now, leviathan, there's a mythological creature.

well, apologize to him, not me. except that god did not write the book of job. job did not write the book of job. we have LOTS of instances of words specifically being replaced in the bible. the name of god is a rather prominent case. do you really think that god didn't use his own name to a whole generation of people? yet there it isn't in some important passages of the bible. so what god said does not exactly translate into what was written, should that section of job actually be god really speaking.and it's quite obviously a euphemism. uh, well, that passage in job is the example.let's play fill in the blanks.

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Job 40:16,17:

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His strength is in his loins,
His might in the muscles of his belly.

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He makes his _____ stand up like a cedar;
The sinews of his thighs are knit together.

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now, this is CLASSIC parallelism. strength/might, loins/belly. it's talking out basically the same thing: virility. his strength is in his loins. think about it for a second. what are of the body are we focusing on?oh look what's next. thighs? KJV renders this "stones" which is also the way it renders "testicles" in deuteronomy. it's clear what they were thinking when they read it. but think about it more. what's parallel to thighs (or even testicles)?here's another curiosity of the verse. the move (or in my rendering "stand up") is move as in "that moved me emotionally." it's often translated as "delight" in other parts of the bible. what sort of tail could cause delight in its owner?so in summary, what's it talking about? sexuality and virility.i couldn't find a better picture, but the elephant is extremely well hung: notice it's basically vertical (like a cedar), unlike a dinosaur's tail, which remains horizontal. dinosaurs are not found above the k-t boundary, and humans are not found below (let alone anywhere close to) the k-t boundary.

*chuckles*

uh, we've pretty much already covered that it doesn't mean "tail" literally.

yeah that could have been bad....

not if it's a penis it doesn't. are you following this thread at all? we've shown pretty conclusively that it's talking about sexual prowess, virility, and fertility. saying penis makes TOTAL sense in this context. that's a long penis! but seriously, it's the girth, not the length.actually, that brings up a very serious problem. HOW is it like a cedar? size? orientation? color? ....HARDNESS? assuming it does mean size, as amos does here, do either of them mean literal size? or just big? it sounds like he's just figuratively saying "big and strong" doesn't it?language is weird and not very specific. if i were to say that there are a myriad different ways of reading teh book of job, and you can only find 4 or 5 thousand of that 10 (myriad = 10k), am i wrong? or does "myriad" just mean "a lot of" now? yes, but i wouldn't describe a dinosaurs tail, or ANYTHING's tail as being "like a cedar." why? even though dino tails are thick and massive.... they're horizontal. cedars are usually verticle, especially when trying to convey the idea of strength.

sure, but i don't think he's talking about anything even remotely mythological, at least until we get to leviathan.the lord talks about lions (38:39-41), mountain goats (39:1-4), wild asses (39:5-8), wild oxen (39:9-12), ostriches (39:13-18), horses (39:19-25), hawks (39:26-30), and then (as is the pattern in job) everything starts over. god restarts his speach, and refers to only two animals: behemoth and leviathan.now, it would make sense for them to both be mythological. but i don't think they are, exactly. i think job thought them both to be very real.to me, behemoth sounds like a rogue elephant, which job probably would never have seen, and leviathan a sea serpent of some kind. both have a somewhat mythological status, but one is definitaly similar to a real animal.

first lesson in bible study: beware footnotes, bible dictionaries, and concordances, and learn to pick out the baseless dogmatic assumptions from them.behemoth, as described by the text, is clearly a land animal. this makes sense as a parallel to leviathan, a sea serpent.

i've read a bit on this, but not much. leviathan was the water elemental dragon, and el (god) the air elemental god (sometime represented as a bull?). the ugaritic creation story is something along the lines of el forming order out of the waters of chaos, by conquering the dragon that was in them. hints of this can indeed be seen in genesis 1 (the dragons) and psalm 74. it does line up very nicely, but i think you're drawing a few too many parallels. and it's tanniyn, not tehom. tanniyn simply means snake. the reason i say dragons for the gen 1 verse is not the word snake, but word that modifies it. it says "GREAT serpents" ie: dragons.this word is the same word used do describe what moses's staff turns into. clearly the word alone does not imply leviathan, but may be a way of describing it. i think you have a very good point here, they do seem to be linked, commonly grouped together. in fact, parallelism is common structure for poetry, and in enoch, behemoth is the parallel for leviathan.good evidence for them both being mythological. this point is wrong on several points.it says behemah here, or "beasts." but the words are obviously very similiar. i don't see much reason to think it refers to behemoth at all. especially since that line is actually an addition, after the initial writing of the text. in my version, it's set of from the verse (like poetic verse, not bible verse), and says "the 'beasts of the negev' pronouncement." it's a chapter heading, basically.also, the serpents here are NOT leviathan, they are something else: seraphim. they are the serpents that aflict the israelites in the book of numbers, and make everyone sick. the kind of serpent used along with seraphim is nachash, the sort of seprent in genesis 3. they also fly, not dwell in water.i'm not entirely sure what is up with the seraphim, but i'm very curious. if you have any info on those, it would be much appreciated. well, yes, but that's not exactly what i'm talking about. i think that although both were likely mythological, they were not strictly so. rather, the images used were probably drawn from real animals.behemoth i think fits as a rogue elephant or a bull of some kind.not sure on leviathan. ugaritic legend, if i recall, indicates multiple (7?) heads. this would make it very similar to something like scylla (from the odyssey).

oh, ok. i misread.your saying the deep is associated with dragons, ala tiamat. i would agree, sure. you've shown lots of support for that, and i've seen some of it before, so it's not exactly a suprise. i was just arguing the technicalities of the words. so it does. intersting.the two (behemah and behemoth) are definitally related words. you bring very interesting points. i guess we don't disagree then. i would have to agree. really? do expound on this. that's very intriguing. i've never seen it read that way before, but it does make sense when i think about it.

sure. i'm guessing something like a rhino or elephant or the like for behemoth. maybe a mammoth? (that would be rather funny, actually)but what for leviathan? pleisiosaurs? giant squid?

once living. or rumored to be alive. no. no. no. no.behemoth is characterized as a LAND ANIMAL, representing desert. leviathan is characterized as a SEA ANIMAL, representing deep primordial oceans.both the croc and the hippo are aquatic land animals, and thus NEITHER fits the description. behemoth and leviathan are two extreme, and those two are somewhere in the middle. please pay more attention to the thread.