Adam, all that is needed is the human imagination.
Biblical monsters don’t need a reference among real zoology of any time. Human cultures have been going wild, imagining creatures which never existed at least since there has been art. Here are some sources: https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Mythical_creature
Not sure if you’ll be able to open this one. Try checking it out for a few days, and see if that works:
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
149
The visually most impressive trees in the neighbourhood were cedars. What else are you going to compare your ‘tail’ with. ‘Tails’ that curve or go straight up. Erect ‘tails’ of great girth, bursting, oozing and dribbling with sap. The kinda thing you need to go chasing tail with for sure… I don’t recall seeing make-ups of dinos with vertical tails.
I don’t know why we need another thread as the mythical Job didn’t walk with priapic lizards so they might as well have been fire breathing sauropods he who wasn’t didn’t walk with.
And still are, case in point, the Monster Manual from Dungeons and Dragons has some very interesting additions, especially in the aberrations and abominations categories. Like the Beholder, for example, which features on the front cover.
I have no problem with the lizards images you provided, however, i am unsure why a science based forum such as this would show any interest in mythology? Is that scientific or is it some kind of attempt at combining theatrical fiction with reality? Do we have any fossils of those mythical creatures in some of your illustrations?
What i find strange about naysayers to Christianity is that they deny the Bible because its apparently fictional, despite an enormous amount of physical evidence to the contrary…evidence that clearly proves far beyond reasonable doubt that most if not all the new testament major characters really existed, and yet these same critics blindly accept interpretations of mythology as being adequite factual references without any evidence?
The real problem here is not whether or not YEC interpret science adequately, or whether or not their research is thorough enough…the real problem is that humanism cannot allow itself to accept God and Design into the evolutionary doctrine (and lets face it, Evolution is a world view).
I think watching fiction on TV and/or reading fictional novels is a far cry from creation, the flood and the Bible generally. I would have thought that the Dead Sea Scrolls should at least make this contrast obvious.
So whilst i like your post, it has some deeply troubling inconsistencies…that neither agree with bible writings or even reality as we know it. I don’t see the relationship between fiction and fire breathing dragons? Is that how science attempts to provide credibility to something it has no eamples of in the fossil record? So the problem here is, i do not think we can use mythology and fiction as a means of explaining leviathan or behemoth or anything else. Our reality has the spiritual and the physical…science i think focuses on the physical.
Mythological creatures are clearly written into the record with the intent of fiction or spiritualism in my view…i do not see that the same way as a recorded history of the physical existence of a civilisation or animals. I think most recorded histories make a distinction between their gods and their reality in such records. It is very obvious that the bible spends a lot more time illustrating leviathan than it does behemoth and its relationship to the serpent in Chapter 41 has me musing about the relationship here to the devil. One problem i have with the interpretation of LEviathon being a sea creature…fire breathing from nostrils doesn’t seem like something that would work so well underwater. clearly the animal was capable of coming up out of the water an onto land…so i don’t think it was a snake either (sea snakes don’t do so well out of the water)
I think the reason some us reference mythology in these discussions, is that we do not interpret the scripture to be literal descriptions on biologic animals, or in the case of Job, perhaps not anatomically accurate descriptions of a foreign animal the author was not familiar with, but rather interpret it to be figurative illustrations on God’s providence and power regardless of the biologic accuracy of the description. Then, when looking at the YEC or literalist interpretation of those animals, we then see mythological animals like dragons as the basis of some the ideas expressed, such as dinosaurs living in the same age as modern man.
the problem is, how do you use a modern discovery of dinosaurs as a method of making such an interpretation? It seems to me that this view means that dinosaur fossils were discovered many thousands of years ago and that the so called primtive homonids back then were able to artistically record an extrapolation of what they looked like from their own fossil record.
Are you comfortable with the idea that it was not modern man who figured out what dinosaurs looked like?
I think the reason aboriginal rock drawings and other indigenous rock drawings, sculptures etc were able to accurately depict these creatures is rather obvious…its because they actually saw them or knew someone who did see them who passed it down through their relatively recent history (mythology does not explain ones ability to accurately draw the creatures found in fossils)
The artifacts and depictions presented are either outright forgeries, or vague and ambiguous shapes that, like Rorschach Ink Blots, display what the viewer wants to see. You do not need anyone else’s permission to be credulous. Compare to this:
There are hundreds or thousands of clear representations of lions, cattle, horses, and other animals which are contemporary to the period that you contend humans witnessed living dinosaurs. There should be innumerable unmistakable works of art, showing real detail, allowing identification of dozens of distinct species, even finds of mummified dinosaurs. They should adorn the columns of temples around the world. Museums should be replete with ancient art showing dinosaurs. The point of the verses in Job are that, as impressive as Behemoth and Leviathan may have been, God is greater still. Yet, they made such a underwhelming impression that ancient people took almost no note of them? The verdict of science is that they died close to the impact event, but the verdict of history is what makes the YEC Flintstones vision truly ridiculous.
Ephesians 3:17-19 - May Christ dwell in your heart through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
I read in the IVP Old testament bible background commentary (IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament | Logos Bible Software) that one explanation of the behemoth and the leviathan is that they are mythological monsters akin to the Mesopotamian Tiamat or the Norse Kraken. This is suggested as an alternative to the explanation that they are common animals like hippopotamuses or crocodiles. If this is true, it could mean that they are not actually real and God is just using a creature from the folklore of Job’s culture to prove a point. On other other hand, since a lot of mythological creatures were spiritual or supernatural in nature, what if the behemoth and Leviathan are real but are from a different dimension (that God created of course) and made of matter that is not of this universe? It is a crazy idea, but might be worth considering alongside the “dinosaur hypothesis” and the “hippopotamus/crocodile hypothesis.”
@adamjedgar: The real problem here is not whether or not YEC interpret science adequately, or whether or not their research is thorough enough…the real problem is that humanism cannot allow itself to accept God and Design into the evolutionary doctrine (and lets face it, Evolution is a world view).
Adam, In my humble opinion you are making a false dichotomy about evolution and belief in God as creator. Many Christians, myself included, have reconciled evolution with God as creator using evolution to accomplish His purposes. I recommend the following article by Pastor Tim Keller: Creation, Evolution, and Christian Laypeople - BioLogos where the difference between evolution as a world view and evolution as a biological mechanism is explained. You can accept evolution as a biological mechanism, without accepting it as a world view.
Absolutely, The DnD artwork style has evolved a lot over time from basic line drawings for the First Era books way back when. And, to be fair, the monster designers milk from many cows as they say. Some are classic sword and sorcery staples like orcs and elves, but others are proper Lovecraftian eldritch horrors like Jubilex, and everything in between.
What is particularly interesting for our current conversation is the reams of lore that accompany them too. For example, the now out of print Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes is a 258-page expansion of the Monster Manual. Over half of that is background lore for the monsters it contains, in addition to the descriptions that accompany the stat blocks.
All this is then pumped into the DnD Campaign (or modified to varying degrees) but the Dungeon Master as the players all bond via means of shared narrative in which they see themselves as meaningful participants. That’s a pen-and-paper RPG (and not the only one) tapping into an ancient human social practice, right? Community formation through shared narrative.
Thanks, Christy. I think even YEC types agree that scripture contains metaphors: the word everyone seems to have forgotten. BTW, another animal in that scripture in Job is NOT mentioned here, probably because it’s so…normal: ox. Any takers on getting into an argument on what an ox looked like when Job was written?
Well, if you go by KIng James version, it was an unicorn, and some other translations use rhinoceros. Pretty much sums up the danger of mistaking the metaphor for the message.
Phil, I’m not sure what you’re stating. Metaphors can be a better description of some aspect of the truth; they are not to be taken literally, but they are to be taken seriously. The author of Job also wrote about “the doors of my mother’s womb,” a metaphor to graphically describe Job’s angst in that moment. Disclosure: I am not an Ob/Gyn.
Just saying that focusing on the identity of the species of a beast used as an example in a metaphorical sense is a mistake when the message is about focusing on the folly of thinking one can control and direct God.
That’s a really interesting point. I could see this among students when I was teaching. THere was more going on than a committment to playing a game. There weren’t, for example, “subcultures” of scrabble players, or eucre players. But the DnD kids had a kind of loosely identifiable cohesion. And for some of them, building an alternate world was a survival skill. They supported each other in that way as well.
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Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
167
My favourite multidimensional creature is the spider in Perdido Street Station.
