One in Messiah Congregation
A short study
What happened to dinosaurs?
It was not until 1900’s that the word “dinosaur”
was invented
Sir Richard Owen, 20 July 1804 – 18 December 1892, a famous British anatomist and first
superintendent of the British Museum (and a staunch anti-Darwinist), on viewing
the bones of Iguanodon and Megalosaurus, realized these represented a unique
group of reptiles that had not yet been classified.
He coined the term “dinosaur” from Greek words meaning “Terrible Reptile"
or "Fearfully Great Reptile"”.
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Some thoughts of
what may have happened to dinosaurs:
As people moved in,
dinosaurs moved out.
People hunted them.
Atmosphere changed
after the flood.
Many were drowned in
the flood.
In many countries,
there are many accounts of imprints of carvings of dinosaurs on rocks, wall and
pots and there are many books that have pictures of these finds.
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In Scripture, the word dinosaur does
not appear.
However, here are the words that do
appear:
leviathan לִוְיָתָן
לויתן livyâthân - a wreathed animal, that is, a serpent
(especially the crocodile or some other large sea monster)
BDB Definition:
leviathan, sea monster, dragon, large aquatic animal, perhaps the extinct
dinosaur, plesiosaurus, exact meaning unknown
Total KJV Occurrences: 6
leviathan, 5
Job_41:1, Psa_74:14, Psa_104:26,
Isa_27:1 (2)
mourning, 1
Job_3:8
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תַּנִּינִם
הַתַּנִּינִם
הַגְּדֹלִים
Dragon, Dragons,
great whales
תּנּים תּנּין tannı̂yn tannı̂ym - tan-neen', tan-neem' - (The
second form used in Eze_29:3);
intensive from the same as H8565;
a marine or land monster, that is, sea serpent
or jackal: - dragon, sea-monster, serpent, whale.
BDB Definition:
dragon, serpent, sea monster, dinosaur, sea or river monster, venomous snake
Total KJV Occurrences: 27
dragons, 15
Deu_32:33, Job_30:29, Psa_44:19,
Psa_74:13, Psa_148:7,
Isa_13:22, Isa_34:13,
Isa_35:7, Isa_43:20,
Jer_9:11, Jer_10:22,
Jer_14:6, Jer_49:33,
Jer_51:37, Mic_1:8
dragon, 6
Psa_91:13 (2),
Isa_27:1, Isa_51:9,
Jer_51:34, Eze_29:3
serpent, 2
Exo_7:9-10 (2)
monsters, 1
Lam_4:3
serpents, 1
Exo_7:12
whale, 1
Job_7:12 (2)
whales, 1
Gen_1:21
-------------------------------
שָׂרָף
מְעוֹפֵף
Fiery flying
serpent
שׂרף śârâph -
saw-rawf' - From H8313; burning, that
is, (figuratively) poisonous (serpent); specifically a saraph or symbolical
creature (from their copper color): - fiery (serpent), seraph.
BDB Definition:
1) serpent, fiery serpent
1a) poisonous serpent (fiery
from burning effect of poison)
2) seraph, seraphim
2a) majestic beings with 6
wings, human hands or voices in attendance upon God
Total KJV Occurrences: 11
fiery, 5
Num_21:6 (2),
Num_21:8, Deu_8:15,
Isa_14:29, Isa_30:6
serpent, 3
Num_21:8, Isa_14:29, Isa_30:6
seraphims, 2
Isa_6:2, Isa_6:6
burned, 1
Isa_44:19
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עוּף ‛ûph - oof - A
primitive root; to cover (with wings or obscurity); hence (as denominative from
H5775) to fly; also (by implication of
dimness) to faint (from the darkness of swooning): - brandish, be (wax) faint,
flee away, fly (away - ), set, shine forth, weary.
BDB Definition:
1) to fly, fly about, fly
away (verb)
1a) (Qal)
1a1) to fly, hover
1a2) to fly away
1b) (Hiphil) to cause to
fly, light upon
1c) (Polel)
1c1) to fly about or to and
fro
1c2) to cause to fly to and
fro, brandish
1d) (Hithpolel) to fly away
2) (Qal) to cover, be dark
(verb)
3) gloom (noun feminine)
Total KJV Occurrences: 29
fly, 13
Gen_1:20, 2Sa_22:11, Job_20:7-8
(2), Psa_18:10, Psa_55:6, Psa_90:10,
Pro_23:5, Isa_6:2,
Isa_11:14, Isa_60:8,
Hos_9:11, Hab_1:8
flying, 6
Pro_26:2, Isa_14:29, Isa_30:6,
Isa_31:5, Zec_5:1-2
(2)
faint, 3
1Sa_14:28, 1Sa_14:31, 2Sa_21:15
flieth, 2
Deu_4:17, Psa_91:5
brandish, 1
Eze_32:10
flew, 1
Isa_6:6
set, 1
Pro_23:5
shine, 1
Job_11:17
weary, 1
Jdg_4:21
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בְהֵמוֹת
Behemoth
BDB Definition: perhaps
an extinct dinosaur, a Diplodocus or Brachiosaurus, exact meaning unknown
Total KJV Occurrences: 1
behemoth, 1
Job_40:15 (2)
-----------------
Gen. 1 [21]
And God created great whales, and every
living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after
their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Job. 40 [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.
An elephant’s tiny tail or a hippo’s tail
that looks like a flap of skin is quite unlike a cedar tree.
Clearly, the elephant and the hippo could
not possibly be “behemoth.”
The behemoth sounds like Brachiosaurus, one
of the large dinosaurs.
-------------------
Isa.14 [29]
Rejoice not thou, whole Palestina, because the rod of him that smote thee is
broken: for out of the serpent's root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his
fruit shall be fiery flying serpent
[6]
The burden of the beasts of the south: into the land of trouble and anguish,
from whence come the young and old lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they will carry their
riches upon the shoulders of young asses, and their treasures upon the bunches
of camels, to a people that shall not profit them.
This
could be a reference to one of the pterodactyls, which are popularly thought of
as flying dinosaurs, such as the Pteranodon, Rhamphorhynchus, or Ornithocheirus.
----------------
Job. 41 [1]
Canst thou draw out leviathan with an
hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down?
[2] Canst thou put an hook into his nose? or bore
his jaw through with a thorn?
[3] Will he make many supplications unto thee? will he speak soft words
unto thee?
[4] Will he make a covenant with thee? wilt thou take him for a servant
for ever?
[5] Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? or wilt thou bind him for
thy maidens?
[6] Shall the companions make a banquet of him? shall they part him
among the merchants?
[7] Canst thou fill his skin with barbed iron? or his head with fish
spears?
[8] Lay thine hand upon him, remember the battle, do no more.
[9] Behold, the hope of him is in vain: shall not one be cast down even
at the sight of him?
[10] None is so fierce that dare stir him up: who then is able to stand
before me?
[11] Who hath prevented me, that I should repay him? whatsoever is under
the whole heaven is mine.
[12] I will not conceal his parts, nor his power, nor his comely
proportion.
[13] Who can discover the face of his garment? or who can come to him
with his double bridle?
[14] Who can open the doors of his face? his teeth are terrible round
about.
[15] His scales are his pride, shut up together as with a close seal.
[16] One is so near to another, that no air can come between them.
[17] They are joined one to another, they stick together, that they
cannot be sundered.
[18] By his neesings a light doth shine, and his eyes are like the
eyelids of the morning.
[19] Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out.
[20] Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or
caldron.
[21] His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth.
[22] In his neck remaineth strength, and sorrow is turned into joy
before him.
[23] The flakes of his flesh are joined together: they are firm in
themselves; they cannot be moved.
[24] His heart is as firm as a stone; yea, as hard as a piece of the
nether millstone.
[25] When he raiseth up himself, the mighty are afraid: by reason of
breakings they purify themselves.
[26] The sword of him that layeth at him cannot hold: the spear, the
dart, nor the habergeon.
[27] He esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood.
[28] The arrow cannot make him flee: slingstones are turned with him
into stubble.
[29] Darts are counted as stubble: he laugheth at the shaking of a
spear.
[30] Sharp stones are under him: he spreadeth sharp pointed things upon
the mire.
[31] He maketh the deep to boil like a pot: he maketh the sea like a pot
of ointment.
[32] He maketh a path to shine after him; one would think the deep to be
hoary.
[33] Upon earth there is not his like, who is made without fear.
[34] He beholdeth all high things: he is a king over all the children of
pride.
This “dragon” may have been
something like the mighty 40 ft. (12 m) Sarcosuchus imperator (Super Croc), or
the 82 ft. (25 m) Liopleurodon. Also the sea dragons could have included
dinosaur-type animals such as the Mosasaurus.
Pss. 74 [14]
Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in
pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.
Pss. 104 [26]
There go the ships: there is that leviathan,
whom thou hast made to play therein.
Isa. 27 [1]
In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay
the dragon that is in the sea.
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[33]
Their wine is the poison of dragons, and
the cruel venom of asps.
[13]
And I went out by night by the gate of the valley, even before the dragon well, and to the dung port, and viewed the
walls of Jerusalem, which were broken down, and the gates thereof were consumed
with fire.
[29]
I am a brother to dragons, and a
companion to owls.
[19]
Though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons,
and covered us with the shadow of death.
[13]
Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters.
[13]
Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.
[7]
Praise the LORD from the earth, ye dragons,
and all deeps:
[22]
And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces: and her time
is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged.
[1]
In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish
leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he
shall slay the dragon that is in the
sea.
[13]
And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses
thereof: and it shall be an habitation of dragons,
and a court for owls.
[7]
And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of
water: in the habitation of dragons,
where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.
[20]
The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons
and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the
desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen.
[9]
Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in the ancient
days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and
wounded the dragon?
[11]
And I will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of dragons;
and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without an inhabitant.
[22]
Behold, the noise of the bruit is come, and a great commotion out of the north
country, to make the cities of Judah desolate, and a den of dragons.
[6]
And the wild asses did stand in the high places, they snuffed up the wind like
dragons; their eyes did fail, because there
was no grass.
[33]
And Hazor shall be a dwelling for dragons,
and a desolation for ever: there shall no man abide there, nor any son of man
dwell in it.
[34]
Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured me, he hath crushed me, he
hath made me an empty vessel, he hath swallowed me up like a dragon, he hath filled his belly with my
delicates, he hath cast me out.
[37]
And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwellingplace for dragons,
an astonishment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant.
[3]
Speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh
king of Egypt, the great dragon that
lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I
have made it for myself.
[8]
Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked: I will make a
wailing like the dragons, and mourning
as the owls.
[3]
And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.
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Maybe it is not as old as you think :-)
Did
Dinosaur Soft Tissues Still Survive?
New
Research Challenges Notion
Science Daily (July 30, 2008) — Paleontologists in 2005 hailed research that apparently showed that soft, pliable
tissues had been recovered from dissolved dinosaur bones, a major finding
that would substantially widen the known range of preserved biomolecules.
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Science Daily (Mar. 25, 2005) —
Conventional wisdom among paleontologists states that when dinosaurs died and
became fossilized, soft tissues didn’t preserve – the bones were essentially
transformed into “rocks” through a gradual replacement of all organic material
by minerals.
New research by a North Carolina State University
paleontologist, however, could literally turn that theory inside out.
Dr. Mary Schweitzer, assistant professor of paleontology
with a joint appointment at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences, has
succeeded in isolating soft tissue from the femur of a 68-million-year-old
dinosaur.
Not only is the tissue largely intact, it’s still
transparent and pliable, and microscopic interior structures resembling blood
vessels and even cells are still present.
In a paper published in the March 25 edition of the
journal Science, Schweitzer describes the process by which she and her technician,
Jennifer Wittmeyer, isolated soft organic tissue from the leg bone of a
68-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex.
Schweitzer was interested in studying the microstructure
and organic components of a dinosaur’s bone. All bone is made up of a
combination of protein (and other organic molecules) and minerals. In modern
bone, removing the minerals leaves supple, soft organic materials that are much
easier to work with in a lab. In contrast, fossilized bone is believed to be
completely mineralized, meaning no organics are present. Attempting to dissolve
the minerals from a piece of fossilized bone, so the theory goes, would merely
dissolve the entire fossil.
But the team was surprised by
what actually happened when they removed the minerals from the T. rex femur
fragment. The removal process left behind stretchy bone matrix material that,
when examined microscopically, seemed to show blood vessels, osteocytes, or
bone building cells, and other recognizable organic features.
Since current data indicates that living birds are more
closely related to dinosaurs than any other group, Schweitzer compared the
findings from the T. rex with structures found in modern-day ostriches. In both
samples, transparent branching blood vessels were present, and many of the small
microstructures present in the T. rex sample displayed the same appearance as
the blood and bone cells from the ostrich sample.
Schweitzer then duplicated her findings with at least
three other well-preserved dinosaur specimens, one 80-million-year-old hadrosaur
and two 65-million-year-old tyrannosaurs. All of these specimens preserved
vessels, cell-like structures, or flexible matrix that resembled bone collagen
from modern specimens.
Current theories about fossil preservation
hold that organic molecules should not preserve beyond 100,000 years.
Schweitzer hopes that further research will reveal
exactly what the soft structures isolated from these bones are made of. Do they
consist of the original cells, and if so, do the cells still contain genetic
information? Her early studies of the material suggest that at least some
fragments of the dinosaurs’ original molecular material may still be present.
“We may not really know as much about how
fossils are preserved as we think,” says Schweitzer. “Our
preliminary research shows that antibodies that recognize collagen react to
chemical extracts of this fossil bone. If further studies confirm this, we may
have the potential to learn more not only about the dinosaurs themselves, but
also about how and why they were preserved in the first place.”
The
research was funded by NC State, the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences and the
National Science Foundation.
Shalom