15 ¶ Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee;
he eateth grass as an ox. 16 Lo now, his
strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. 17 He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews
of his stones are wrapped together. 18
His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of
iron. 19 He is the chief of the ways of
God: he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him. 20 Surely the mountains bring him forth food,
where all the beasts of the field play. 21
He lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed, and fens.
22 The shady trees cover him with their
shadow; the willows of the brook compass him about. 23 Behold, he drinketh up a river, and hasteth
not: he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth. 24 He taketh it with his eyes: his nose pierceth
through snares.
Unlike modern Bibles, the King James Version translators relied on
what modern Bible translators call Formal Equivalence. A term coined by the
Bible translator, Eugene Nida, Formal Equivalence refers to a word-for-word
translation. Today, translators use Dynamic Equivalence, based on what they
think the original writer meant to say rather than on what he did say, although
the phrase preferred now is Functional Equivalence. The modern translator views
himself as the gatekeeper not only of the word of God but of its meaning, this
purpose being outlined in a series of essays entitled The Challenge of Bible Translation edited by Scorgie, Strauss, and
Voth. The KJV translators, in effect, translated the word faithfully and left
it up to the Holy Spirit and you to discover its meaning based on context,
cross-referencing, etc.
The King James translators not only translated word-for-word but also,
typically, the Hebrew syntax, or the order of words. At its height, the English
of the translator’s day, was very similar to Hebrew in construction, as noted
by Tyndale and other translators, and as even critics of the King James Bible have noted. (46)
Here, in this short section God
speaks of a very large creature, by the description of it, which is called here
Behemoth. The Hebrew word and the English word are only used once in the Bible.
Before the word, dinosaur, was coined in the early 1800’s, the word dragon was
used to specify the large reptiles of mythology. Other words were used, as
well, in secular writings and in the Bible, referring to these large reptiles, such
as serpent and worm. I take the view that this is a description of a type of
dinosaur. After all, traces of blood have been found in dinosaur remains, which
is clearly evidence of their more recent existence, not the fantastic 80
million years of the atheist’s guess. (47) In addition, dinosaurs were
traditionally dated to the estimated layer of dirt or rock in which they were
found, not by the scientist’s dating methods, as it was assumed by them that
those dates were accurate. However, recent Carbon 14 dating has suggested that
dinosaurs lived as recently as 30,000 years ago, well within the atheist’s
guess of mankind’s walk on the earth. (48) I do not accept the authority of the
dating method, though. It has been calibrated to certain supposed known
historical events, for instance, of Egypt, whose corroborating dates are also
based on assumptions that have been challenged.(49)
For modern Bible translators who use
words like hippopotamus to insert here for behemoth, the description alone
renders that an absurdity. Hippos don’t have tales they move like a cedar tree
nor could he imagine, if given the understanding, that he could drink up a
river. God challenges Job to consider this magnificent creation of which many
artifacts of archeology show existed along with mankind. Rock art, sculptures
and engravings, as well as written accounts, show what we think of as dinosaurs
co-existing with mankind.
(46) Walter R. Betteridge, “The
Accuracy of the Authorized Version of the Old Testament,” The Biblical World, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Apr., 1911), pp. 262-270. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3141576.
(accessed 1.22.2015).
(47) Helen Field, “Dinosaur
Shocker,” Smithsonian Magazine, May 2006, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/dinosaur-shocker-115306469/?no-ist=&page=1
(accessed 1.21.2015).
(48) Socio-Economics History Blog, https://socioecohistory.wordpress.com/2015/01/13/did-humans-walk-the-earth-with-dinosaurs-triceratops-horn-dated-to-33500-years/
(accessed 1.21.2015).
(49) Immanuel Velikovsky, a Russian
Jew, a psychiatrist, and co-founder of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem,
challenged traditional dating methods for the ancient world as based on
presumptions and willful distortion of evidence. He wrote Worlds in Collison, Ages in Chaos, and Earth in Upheaval, among other books. Although most scientists
discount his sometimes wild theories he, at least, serves to show that there
may be inconsistencies with traditional dating methods.
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