Re: [asa] dinos

Thank you, Joel. I wonder what Allan K. Steel would have made of Job
41:24 if he applied the same type of exegesis. In the RSV this reads
"His heart is as hard as stone". Would Steel say that part of Leviathan
was fossilized? -:).
A more sensible reading is that Job 41:24 is poetic. And that suggests
that Job 40:17 (RSV: "He makes his tail stiff like a cedar" ) is also
poetic. Together with the fact that "tail" is a common Hebrew euphemism
for the male sexual organ, this now makes very good sense with the rest
of the verse: "the sinews of his thighs are knit together"!
Don

Duff,Robert Joel wrote:

> The YEC claim of dinosaurs extant with man based on Job 40 I have
> always thought was one of the dumbest examples of an overly
> literalistic hermeneutic. How many hundreds of web sites an YEC
> articles point to the Bohemoth in Job 40 as evidence of post-flood
> dinosaurs because the Behemoth “moveth his tail like a cedar” and has
> “bones like bars of iron.” See
> http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v15/i2/behemoth.asp for an over the
> top analysis. Do they not ever read chapter 41? The article linked
> goes to great lengths to discover the nature of the Behemoth and very
> briefly suggests that the Leviathan too much represent a real and
> literally described animal. But I’ve seen no such detailed analysis of
> Chapter 41 in which the Leviathan is clearly described as breathing
> fire “His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth”
> (41:21). Where is the speculation about animals that once had fires
> contained in their belly? When I have brought this chapter to the
> attention of YEC friends of mine who think the behemoth is a dinosaur
> I have yet to find one of them that has enough faith/consistency in
> their system of interpretation to say they believe that there were
> dragons that breathed real fire. I guess even they know enough biology
> to know that this would be ridiculous.
>
> This possibility that ancient peoples interpreted the fossils that
> they saw around them opens up a new interpretation of this text.
> Rather than the typical suggestion that the behemoth and leviathan
> represented large land and sea creatures (albeit ones that were alive
> such as hippos/elephants and various sea critters) but with the author
> of job taking poetic license in describing their features, I think it
> is possible that people at the time of the writing of Job had
> developed interpretations of the great fossils in the region. These
> interpretations were more than just myths but based on what were truly
> believed to be real creatures that although not actually seen in the
> flesh they had the remains as proof of their existance. The author of
> Job is simply saying that God is greater than these creatures and
> describes their features as the were believed to be.
>
> Joel
>
> --------------------------------------------------------
> Dr. R. Joel Duff
>
> Associate Professor of Biology
>
> 185 ASEC, Department of Biology
>
> University of Akron
>
> Akron OH 44325-3908
>
> rjduff@uakron.edu <mailto:rjduff@uakron.edu>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *From:* George Murphy [mailto:gmurphy@raex.com]
> *Sent:* Wednesday, January 10, 2007 3:24 PM
> *To:* donperrett@theology-perspectives.net; Duff,Robert Joel
> *Cc:* ASA Discussions
> *Subject:* Re: [asa] dinos
>
> The possibility which Joel pointed out, that stories about dragons &c
> arose from observations of fossils is fascinating - especially if it's
> true! Of course that's very different from the YEC claim that those
> stories arose from observations of _extant_ dinosaurs.
>
> In your 1st sentence below you refer to the idea that _ancient_
> peoples recognized the possibility of extinction. In the west there is
> a tradition extending back to Greece which denied the possibility of
> extinction, the philosophical idea of "the great chain of being."
> (Arthur O. Lovejoy's book with that title, originally published in the
> 30s, is a classic discussion.) This was baptized in the idea that God
> as the perfect creator would not allow any link of this chain,
> extending from God himself through angels & humans down to the lowest
> creature, although there is no biblical support at all for such a
> claim. This idea wasn't overcome until the 19th century, & even at
> that lies behind such things as Conan Doyle's "lost world" in which
> there are still living dinosaurs hidden somewhere. The discovery of
> extinction was a shock to the western intellectual tradition which had
> to be absorbed before the shock of evolution through a process of
> natural selection in which extinction played a role could be dealt
> with. Loren Eiseley's Essay "How Death Became Natural" (in _The
> Firmament of Time_) is good on this.
>
> Shalom
> George
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/ <http://web.raex.com/%7Egmurphy/>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>
> *From:* Don Perrett <mailto:donperrett@theology-perspectives.net>
>
> *To:* 'Duff,Robert Joel' <mailto:rjduff@uakron.edu>
>
> *Cc:* ASA Discussions <mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, January 10, 2007 2:34 PM
>
> *Subject:* RE: [asa] dinos
>
> The idea that ancient peoples would have recognized the
> possibility of extinct animals, and extinction in general, seems
> apparent to me. Some may have thought the bones (not sure they
> understood fossilization) were of animals that either no longer
> existed or that existed in far off exotic lands. Either way there
> is already enough evidence that fossils were discovered (albeit
> limited) during ancient times.
>
> Don
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *From:* asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu
> <mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu>
> [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] *On Behalf Of *Duff,Robert Joel
> *Sent:* Wednesday, January 10, 2007 1:25 PM
> *To:* donperrett@theology-perspectives.net; burgytwo@juno.com
> *Cc:* ASA Discussions
> *Subject:* RE: [asa] dinos
>
> Don,
> I agree with your comment about the possibility of dragon lore
> resulting from Pterosaur remains or the like. Up until just a
> couple years ago I was under the illusion that man didn't
> recognize fossils for what they may be until the middle ages or
> after. I think I got this impression from Rudwicks classic book on
> fossils. I just read a book that really opened up my eyes to
> seeing the importance of fossils an ancient civilizations. The
> book The First Fossil Hunters by Adrienne Mayor contains some
> fascinating accounts and speculations about paleontology in the
> Greek and roman times. Mayor, I believe, makes an effective case
> that the fantastic creatures of classical mythology resulted from
> the imaginations of people who found bones of mammoths and other
> large megafauna. These bones were attributed to long dead heroes
> and were collected and treated as relics of importance.
>
> Especially relevant is the legend of the griffins in which these
> dragon-like creatures where said to guard gold deposits in the
> east. Mayor makes a nice case for this legend to have come about
> via the stories of travelers who came by skeletons of
> protoceretops which are common in the southern Gobi desert. It
> seems likely that seeing these great fully articulated skeletons
> that it would be assumed that they represented dragons that had
> died but that there must be others that yet remained alive.
> Joel
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu on behalf of Don Perrett
> Sent: Tue 1/9/2007 5:59 PM
> To: burgytwo@juno.com
> Cc: ASA Discussions
> Subject: RE: [asa] dinos
>
> Normally I don't get into the YEC/ID discussions. HOWEVER
>
> IMHO I feel that more likely than a direct descendancy from Noah,
> which
> cannot account for Native Americans being here before the flood, I
> believe
> it is more likely that the flood stories from around the world are in
> reference to past human experiences (tales) of the floods which likely
> occurred at the end of the last ice age which would have been seen
> globally
> but would not have been global. Being that it would more likely be
> at a
> more recent time, it may have been as a result of mountain
> glaciers melting
> rapidly and not the larger glaciers that may have cut the Grand
> Canyon for
> example. Any area in a low land near mountains with remaining ice age
> glacier caps would have experience localized (regional) flooding.
>
> As for the flying dinos, is it not likely that the tales may have
> originated
> from hypotheses drawn from those that found Ptero remains?
>
> Don
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu
> [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
> Behalf Of burgytwo@juno.com
> Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2007 3:35 PM
> To: asa@calvin.edu
> Subject: [asa] dinos
>
> AIG recently tossed out the following:
>
> Q: Were dragons just mythological?
>
> A: You may have heard about the flood legends that have come down
> from many
> different people groups around the world, many of which are very
> similar to
> the Bible's account of Noah's Flood.
>
> For instance, the Australian Aborigines, before they even met
> missionaries,
> had stories about a global flood. The stories included many
> similarities to
> the Bible's account. The same can be said of the legends of the
> American
> Indians, Fijians, Eskimos, and other cultures all around the world.
>
> The reason for this is that these people are all descendants of Noah.
> They handed down the story of the Flood to succeeding generations. The
> stories changed over the years, but the similarities to the Bible
> are still
> there.
>
> The same sort of thing likely happened with dragon legends. These
> stories
> are based on real encounters with real beasts. The stories exist
> all over
> the world, handed down from generation to generation.
>
> What were the dragons? When you read about the descriptions of
> many of these
> dragons in the old history books, you will see that they fit with
> many of
> the descriptions we have today of dinosaurs.
>
> Yes, dragons were probably dinosaurs!
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------
>
> Now I'm going to confess that the first time I saw this argument,
> it argued
> (for me) somewhat persuasively that -- perhaps -- dinos and
> humanity existed
> at the same 6time. The stories in the book of Job reinforced this.
> Then when
> I saw dino tracks in a river in San Rose
> (?) Texas, the credibility increased. Those tracks "looked" fresh
> -- not 100
> MY old. (They still do).
>
> So to a limited extent I stll hold a small chance (.01% perhaps)
> that dinos
> did survive into recent times.
>
> Of course, that possibility has nothing to do with the YEC view, I
> think.
> Should a living T Rex be found in -- say -- S America, it WOULD be
> interesting. I keep hoping ... .
>
> Burgy
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Donald A. Nield
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