Creation vs. Evolution

[Uncle Pug]

dinosaurs and Job hanging out together, huh...

how DID they keep their camel herds safe from those nasty beasts?

The land animal called behemoth is describe as a docile herbivore. Its legs are as large as tree trunks and it swings its tail like a cedar tree. The whole description is toward the end of Job chapter 40 and does not fit either an elephant or a hippopotamus. The description does correspond to a sauropod.

 

[SeanQ]

The land animal called behemoth is describe as a docile herbivore. Its legs are as large as tree trunks and it swings its tail like a cedar tree. The whole description is toward the end of Job chapter 40 and does not fit either an elephant or a hippopotamus. The description does correspond to a sauropod.

Can this be interpreted as literary hyperbole?

 

[cold_H2O_diver]

Oh, come now SeanQ... There is no hyperbole in the Bible. :uptosome:

 

[SeanQ]

Oh, come now SeanQ... There is no hyperbole in the Bible. :uptosome:

Shoot. There goes the easy way out.

 

[Hank49]

I had a really nice dissertation on the big bang and big bang nucleosynthesis written up and then I hit the wrong button and my editor ate it.

I think you have some fundamental misunderstandings about what the Big Bang model actually is.


So, the question is not where the hydrogen came from, but where the initial infinitely dense universe came from...

(I actually had a longer writeup than this before my editor ate it...)

Thank you for clarifying that Lamont.

 

[H2Andy]

The whole description is toward the end of Job chapter 40 and does not fit either an elephant or a hippopotamus. The description does correspond to a sauropod.

actually, it sounds much like a hippo ... but considering the dude is using poetic language and hyperbole, this is not a good passage on which to base your taxonomy of the animal in question

what i am 99.9% sure of is that it is not a sauropod.

99.9% sure.

no questions about it

here's your argument:

"Hey, I have proof dinosaurs lived up to around 6,000 years ago. here's this text from the middle east that talks about some big animals that lived around water and ate grass and suspiciously don't sound like an elephant or a hippo. it must be a sauropod!!!"

but what about the evidence that sauropods went extinct, along with all other dinos, roughly 65 million years ago?

"Well, this animal in Job can't be a hippo or an elephant, so it MUST BE A SAUROPOD."

ok, but ... there were other people writing stuff down 6,000 years ago, how come that's the ONLY reference to this sauropod we get?

"I know, I know .. but this animal, can't be a hippo and it can't be an elephant, so it MUST BE A SAUROPOD!"

ok, well, let's look at the craneum and some of the thigh bones and let's see what we have, some teeth would be geat too.

"Ah, sorry. I don't have a speciement. all i have is this description from the Bible, and IT SOUNDS JUST LIKE A SAUROPOD!"

ok ... well... good scientific work on solving that one!

 

[Uncle Pug]

Can this be interpreted as literary hyperbole?

The use of hyperbole as well as other figures of speech is commonplace in Hebrew Scripture though familiarity with its usage coupled with context make if fairly easy to understand in most cases.

Part of the description is definitely hyperbole: *behemoth could drink a whole river without difficulty*.

The part about behemoth's tail being like a cedar tree does not make sense as hyperbole. The tail of both hippo and elephant is the least distinguished part of the animal.

Perhaps this could just be attributed to the ignorance of the writer; not knowing that a creature with a tail the size of a cedar tree had ceased to exist millions of years before his writing.

 

[Uncle Pug]

actually, it sounds much like a hippo

Part of the description does indeed sound like a hippo... but other parts do not: it eats grass like cattle and feeds in the hills... and again, the tail.

 

[agilis]

Remember all those fradulent human footprints that militant creationists in Texas carved into sandstone alongside genuine fossilzed dinosaur footprints? They were so inept that the fakes were quickly exposed. These morons didn't understand how the human foot moves and flexes while walking. The fake human footprints were done like cartoon drawings. To make the message clear, some human footprints were carved directly over dinosaur prints.
The poor fools who tried to perpetrate the fraud were humiliated in news accounts, but I'm sure God was pleased with their efforts on His behalf, and has prepared a fancy mansion for them in Heaven, with flush toilets and other things these God-fearing persons never enjoyed here on earth.

 

[Soggy]

Perhaps this could just be attributed to the ignorance of the writer; not knowing that a creature with a tail the size of a cedar tree had ceased to exist millions of years before his writing.

Or...it was just made up and has no basis in reality.

There are lots of stories about fire-breathing dragons, but I don't really see them too often.