Has Something Really Survived? Part 1

Introduction

Their majestic forms mesmerized us when we were kids, especially if you were born in the early 90s.  They starred in movies such as The Land Before Time, Godzilla, King Kong, and best of all, Jurassic Park.  They fascinated the imaginations of thousands of people, young and old.  Everything about them, from the way they moved to the way they looked, dinosaurs captivated audiences, scientists, and movie makers since the day their bones began to pop up from the ground.  Many wondered what they were actually like in real life and hundreds have claimed to see some still existing in some remote part of the world.  Many believe that they existed millions, and then modified to billions of years ago and died when a comet hit the earth.  Many in the Christian community have written them off as demonic creatures that were not real, or genetically engineered by the pre-Flood people.  So here are the questions that the Christian community is faced with: Did they really exist?  Where is the reliable evidence for their existence?  What of the strange bones in the earth?  What of the sightings in modern times?  And finally, even if they did exist, what do they have to do with Jesus and salvation?  Well let’s open our minds to look at this subject from a different point of view.

Bible and Creation

Let’s first take a look at what the Bible has to say.  We will look in 3 key places, and also look at couple of other texts.  Now briefly, in Genesis 1-7 we see the beginnings of creation, humanity, sin, and the Flood.  There are a couple of points thatstand out the most in the first 3 chapters.  The first is that God is The Creator of every living and non-living thing.  The second is that when He was finished with creation, He said it was good.  The third point is that when sin came into the world, everything was affected and infected.  So now we come to the next 4 chapters.  These stories reveal the destruction and chaos that sin had caused.  The world had become so evil that it was time for divine judgment.  So God tells Noah to build an ark and to take on it 2 of every kind of animal.  One pair of every kind of unclean animal and 7 pairs of every kind of clean animal were sent to the ark.  So in essence, every kind of the part of the animal kingdom that lived on land was well represented on the ark.  So now up to this point, we do not know anything except for the important fact that every kind of living thing was on the ark.

Now let’s tackle the most famous unknown creatures in the Bible.  They are found in the book of Job.  Now if we look at the book from an argumentative perspective, we will miss the whole point of the book, and that is that God is in control, even when it doesn’t seem like it.  The context is that a man named Job is God’s man on earth.  He is blameless, upright, has a big family and is rich beyond belief.  In one day, he loses all this and blesses God.  Later he gets extremely sick and still blesses God.  In the background we see that the devil has challenged God to take away all that He has given Job so that he could curse Him and die.  God, knowing Job’s faithfulness to Him, allowed the devil to take away all Job had as long as Job’s life was spared.  Job is visited by 3 friends.  Job goes from cursing everything but God and uplifting God, to demanding The Almighty to come down and explain why He did all this to him.  His friends accused him of doing something horrible and that God must be punishing him.  Finally, a young person stands to defend God.  He tells Job and his friends that they did not know what they were talking about.  

Then God speaks to Job from a tornado.  God asks Job a series of questions that he had to answer.  God begins to talk about the wonders of creation.  He starts with the earth, clouds, light and darkness, and everything that is far away from the human.  Then He brings it closer to home and begins talking about very specific animals that He created.  He talks about the lion, mountain goat, deer, wild donkey and ox, ostrich, horse, and the hawk.  All these animals are very much real and He describes them in ways that science cannot give glory to anyone else but Him.  Everything has been definitely real so far.  

Finally, we come to Job 40-41, God’s last speech.   In poetic expertise, God describes 2 very strange creatures called the behemoth and the leviathan.  Of all the real animals that He mentioned, God seems to go into great detail about these two.  

God describes the behemoth as eating grass, having a strong underbelly and bones, scales, and lives in swampy area.  Now many have suggested this to be a hippo or an elephant.  The problem is that neither have scales, or tight skin.  Then there is the characteristic that sets this animal apart from what God is describing; the tail moves like a cedar.  Neither elephant nor hippo has long or large tails.  Finally, the behemoth is the chief of the ways of God, Who is The Only One Who can take it down.  

The leviathan is ferocious, extremely tough skinned, teeth, powerful neck, cannot be taken down by humans, and has no fear.  Many have suggested this to be the crocodile.  Then there are the last details.  This creature breathes fire and smoke.  Only God owns this creature and no one else.  So far we have read that God is talking about some magnificent creatures that Job would have known about, but we still don’t know what they are.

Other creatures are called dragons.  They are mentioned in Isaiah 43:20, Jeremiah 51:34, and Psalm 148:7.  The best Hebrew translations for the word used are, dragon, serpent, sea monster, venomous snake, or even land or river monster.  Whatever the author is referring to, it is apparent that these creatures are amazing and terrifying.  It is also clear that they give glory to God.  There is only one word that describes all these creatures.  The biggest similarity is that the word describes very large creatures that are awesome to behold.  So in conclusion of this first part, the only fair judgment that can be made is that there are some creatures that God made that we do not see much of anymore.  Truth is something existed after the Flood because it was represented on the ark.  But have you ever wondered if dinosaurs were on the ark and existed after the Flood, why are there no written records of them?  Or are there?  After all, logically, written history and literature started after the Flood.  Could ancient post-Flood people have had encounters with strange creatures and written about them later?  Well there is only one way to find out.  Stay tuned to “Has Something Really Survived?” Part 2.