Re: [asa] dinos

Now , now chaps, you are being very flippant about YECs and denigrating
their intellectual skills!

One comment about extinction. George is right and it was only in the 1790s
that people became convinced of it, after the age of the earth was widely
recognised as ancient (see Rudwick Bursting the Limits of Time)

I think people who misuse Job like that make mockery of the bible and ifind
it offensive as well as risible. however it is because of the literalist
mindset many evangelicals have and if I can say it gently both Glenn and
Dick hold on to it

Michael
----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Nield" <d.nield@auckland.ac.nz>
To: "Duff,Robert Joel" <rjduff@uakron.edu>
Cc: "George Murphy" <gmurphy@raex.com>;
<donperrett@theology-perspectives.net>; "ASA Discussions" <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 10:17 PM
Subject: 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
Associate Professor, Department of Engineering Science
University of Auckland
Private Bag 92019
Auckland 1142, NEW ZEALAND
ph  +64 9 3737599 x87908
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