Dinosaurs and the Bible

by Henry M. Morris, Ph.D.

"Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox. Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. He moveth his tail like a cedar: . . . His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron. He is the chief of the ways of God." (Job 40:15-19)

In this remarkable passage, the Lord has been urging Job and his three philosophizing friends to consider all the marvelous evidences of God's power and wisdom in nature. Finally he calls their attention to "behemoth" (from a Hebrew word meaning "gigantic beast"), the greatest land animal God ever made--"chief of the ways of God."

Commentators who have tried to identify a living animal as behemoth have called it either an elephant or a hippopotamus, but it is obvious that neither of these animals "moveth his tail like a cedar." The other descriptions are also inappropriate. It should be obvious that the behemoth is an extinct animal, very probably a great dinosaur. This would be obvious were it not for the widespread evolutionary delusion that dinosaurs became extinct 70 million years ago, with man evolving only about a million years ago. Modern creation scientists, however, have published many well-documented evidences that dinosaurs existed contemporaneously with early humans up to relatively recent times, and that these supposed evolutionary eons of time are pure fiction. Early men, such as Job, could indeed marvel at this gigantic creature of God and also rejoice in God's ability to control the great problems of life as well as His sincere concern with every individual need of His people.

It is also worth noting that there are several references to dragons in the Bible, as well as in ancient traditions everywhere, and it is likely these also reflect the memories of dinosaurs retained by early tribes after the Flood. HMM

This article was originally published September, 2008. "Dinosaurs and the Bible", Institute for Creation Research, https://www.icr.org/article/dinosaurs-bible (accessed December 21, 2024).