Dinosaurs

Why I use the Authorised Version, Reason .10

Dinosaurs

While driving to work yesterday morning I was listening to BBC Radio 5 Live. That morning they broadcast a piece on the American politician Sarah Palin. They were discussing the potential of Mrs Palin running to be the Republican nominee for the White House. During the article they discussed how Mrs Palin was rather unconventional in her approach and 5 live presenter Nicky Campbell remarked, as if to back up their contention about her, that she actually believes Dinosaurs and people existed on the earth at the same time. I must be pretty unconventional myself for I would share Mrs Palin’s view on Dinosaurs.

Militant evolutionists have long tried to use the existence of Dinosaurs on this earth to discredit the Bible and shake Christians confidence in God’s Word. Many have been shaken in their faith because of this and for years many of God’s people have actually taught that Dinosaurs were nothing more than a hoax. This is all well and good until we look at the evidence, evidence in the form of bones. Dinosaurs were real! Very real!

The evolutionists claim that Dinosaurs existed millions of year ago and are long extinct. Extinct long before man came along, long before mans fall into sin. Therefore they conclude if death is the result of sin then they died before sin. How so? They ask.

However, the truth is that Dinosaurs existed along with humanity on this earth. The Bible tells us exactly when Dinosaurs were created it was on the 6th day of creation as Genesis records. ‘And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind:’ Gen 1 v25

The evolutionist scoffs at this idea and claims that Dinosaurs were dead and gone before man existed. However, think about this. If people and Dinosaurs existed together what would you expect to find? Well you would expect some historical reference to them. Where have all the Dragon legends come from? What about St George and the Dragon? The description of a Dragon very much fits the picture of a Dinosaur. But these are just myths from the mists of time you say. Well, maybe the stories have been embellished over the years but there must be some original reality to them. People must have fought with great lizard like creatures. Surely this is not merely a prodcut of over active imaginations.

What about the Indian cave drawing (Petroglyph) found in Montana USA of creatures that look like Dinosaurs. These people must have seen these creatures. Death Valley in Montana is a hot spot for Dinosaur remains. Similar drawings were found in Thunder Bay Canada. These cave drawing also include many present day animals along side the large mystical creatures. I believe the Native American Indians saw Dinosaurs and drew them.

But what has all this got to do with the Bible you say? Well I think we find evidence of Dinosaurs in the Bible. In the book of Job, the oldest book in the Bible, Job describes a large creature that the AV version calls ‘Behemoth’. It sound very like a Sauropod.

‘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.’ Job 40 v15-19

In these verses Job describes a very large animal, the phrase at the start of verse 19 ‘chief of the ways of God’ really is saying that this is the largest animal around. This animal has a tail like a cedar, so it must have had a long thick tail; his bones are like bars of iron. There is no doubt it is a massive creature. I believe it is what we today would call a Dinosaur. Remember the English word Dinosaur was only invented in 1841 by British Scientist Richard Owen. The word is based on the Greek and means ‘terrible lizard’.

There is a Hebrew word that means the same thing, תַּנִּין = tanniyn.

In the Authorised Version of the Bible this word ‘tanniyn’ is translated Dragon, for example: -

‘Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.’ Psalm 91v13

‘In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that [is] in the sea.’ Isaiah 27 v1

Clearly the AV translators associated the Hebrew word ‘tanniyn’ with the word dragon, which described a terrible lizard. These men were born long before Richard Owen coined the word Dinosaur or before the current Creation v Evolution debate. For their day and generation they used the best word available to them at the time to describe these now extinct creatures.

You would have thought that Bible translators of the 19th, 20th and 21st Centuries who want to correct the outdated, as they suppose, AV would have used the word Dinosaur or something similar to translate the word ‘tanniyn’ in their new versions.

Well guess what they have failed. In Psalm 91 the NIV renders ‘tanniyn’ as serpent, ditto NLT, ESV, NASB and the NJKV renders it as Snakes, ditto NCV. In Isaiah 27 in the NIV they render ‘tanniyn as ‘the monster’ (Ditto NCV), to use a word like monster is playing into the sceptics hand because after all only children believe in sea monsters, why not call it the ‘Plesiosaur’ which was a sea Dinosaur. It is rendered ‘the reptile’ in NKJV, okay, technically correct but surely an opportunity missed.

When we come to look at the description of ‘Behemoth’ in Job 40 a footnote in the NIV states ‘Possibly the hippopotamus or the elephant’. I have never been on Safari but I have been to the Zoo and I have never come across an elephant or a hippopotamus with a tail like a cedar. Why not put in their footnote 'Possibly a Brachiosaurus'.

The new translations have come about in an age when the debate about our Genesis has been raging between militant evolutionists and God’s people and despite that fact the translators of the new bibles have missed the opportunity to strengthen God’s people by translating these passages in a better way. Is it because they are so liberal in their theology that they do not even accept the Genesis account of creation? Have they accepted one of these bizarre mixtures of creation and evolution to explain millions of years? I don’t know but I’m left wondering.

I think I’ll stick with the AV.