The word did not exist until 1842, but the creature is there. Here is what Job 40 describes, why we believe Behemoth was a dinosaur, and how the KJV dragons fit.
Most kids go through a dinosaur phase. Plastic models on the windowsill, a skeleton towering over a museum hall. Sooner or later a church kid asks the obvious question, and the adults often just shrug. The Bible has more to say than the shrug suggests.
What does the Bible say about dinosaurs? The word never appears, because it was coined in 1842. But we believe the Bible describes one: Behemoth in Job 40, a grass eating giant with a tail like a cedar that God calls the chief of His ways.
Scripture also mentions Leviathan in Job 41, the tannin or great sea creatures of Genesis 1:21, and the dragons of the King James Version. Behemoth is the clearest case, and it means people and dinosaurs lived at the same time.
That is our view, and here is the text behind it. The Bible is not a science book, but when it describes an animal God made, we take it at its word.
Start with the obvious thing that gets skipped. The word dinosaur is younger than the United States. The Linda Hall Library, which keeps one of the great science history collections, explains that the anatomist Richard Owen coined Dinosauria, the terrible lizards, in 1842, while writing up his work for publication. Before that there was no such word in any language.
So when people search for dinosaurs in the Bible, they are really asking a translation question. Did any biblical writer describe an animal we would now file under that heading? Four words come up every time.
A huge grass eater with a tail like a cedar, called the chief of the ways of God. The clearest dinosaur in Scripture.
A sea creature no hook can land, with flaming torches coming out of its mouth. Named six times in the Old Testament.
The great sea creatures God creates on day five. The same Hebrew word shows up later as a snake, a crocodile image and more.
An English choice from 1611, used for several Hebrew words. Modern translations often render the same verses as jackals or sea monsters.
The Bible describes creatures in the language of the people who first heard it. The word dinosaur came later. The creature did not.
If someone tells you the Bible mentions dragons and that dragons were dinosaurs, this is the word they are leaning on. Its range settles the question faster than any argument.
“So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.”
Genesis 1:21 · ESVThe KJV says great whales. The ESV says great sea creatures, the NASB 1995 says great sea monsters. Same Hebrew word behind all three.
Aaron throws his staff down before Pharaoh and it becomes a tannin. The KJV and ESV say serpent, the NIV says snake. Nobody pictures a dinosaur in Pharaoh's court.
Pharaoh himself is the great dragon lying in the midst of his rivers. A king of Egypt pictured as the monster of the Nile, a poetic insult rather than a zoology note.
The KJV has Job say I am a brother to dragons. The NIV and ESV read a brother of jackals, from a closely related plural. The English word changed the picture entirely.
Praise the LORD from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps, in the KJV. The great creatures of the sea are called to worship, not catalogued.
Put side by side, the pattern is plain. Tannin is a broad word for a big or dangerous creature, often a serpent or sea creature, sometimes a symbol. Dragon was the King James translators' word, not Moses' word. For a land dinosaur, the place to look is Job 40.
Genesis 1:21 makes one more point. Israel's neighbors told stories of gods battling sea monsters. Genesis simply says God created them and called them good.
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The word is missing from the Bible, but we believe the animal is not. Behemoth in Job 40 is a dinosaur, a giant plant eater of the long tailed kind, and that means people and dinosaurs lived at the same time. Bible teachers such as Kent Hovind have made this case for years, and on this point we agree with him. Our study of what Behemoth is walks the passage in full, and its companion covers Leviathan in the Bible.
“Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox. Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together. His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron. He is the chief of the ways of God.”
Job 40:15 to 19 · KJVThe cedar of Lebanon was the great tree of Job's world. Elephants and hippos have small tails that no one would compare to a tree. A tail that moves like a cedar points to an animal we no longer see walking around, and the long tailed dinosaurs fit that picture.
God says, Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee. You do not tell a man to look at something no one has ever seen. Even symbolic language uses things the audience knows. How would Job know a tail like a cedar unless a creature with a tail like a cedar was there to be seen?
Verse 19 ranks Behemoth first among the works of God on land. A hippo is impressive, but it is not the greatest thing God ever made. The largest land creatures that ever lived fit that line far better.
He eats grass, so he is a plant eater, not a predator. His strength is in his loins and the muscles of his belly, and his bones are like bars of iron. That is a body built to carry enormous weight.
The traditional view for centuries, and it fits the river and the grass. But a hippo's tail is short, and a hippo is not the chief of the ways of God. It explains some lines by setting aside the two biggest ones.
Some scholars see a poetic chaos beast from the ancient world. But God says He made Behemoth with Job, and He lists it right after the real lions, goats, horses and hawks of chapters 38 and 39. It belongs with real animals.
Yes, the speech is poetry. Bones like brass are a poet's way of saying strong. But chapters 38 and 39 are poetry about real wild goats and real war horses, and poetry about a real animal is still about a real animal. And the point of the speech is the Maker. Job wants an explanation, and God points at the greatest creatures He made, which is where the book of Job finds its comfort.
What does Job 40:19 in the KJV call Behemoth?
He is the chief of the ways of God. Behemoth is ranked first among God's works, which is one reason we believe the greatest land creatures that ever lived, the dinosaurs, fit this passage better than any animal alive today.
Underneath most dinosaur arguments sits a bigger one about the age of the earth. Sincere believers land in different places.
Reads the six days of Genesis 1 as six ordinary days, points to Exodus 20:11, and adds up the genealogies to reach a young creation. On this view dinosaurs were made on day six alongside people, lived with them, and died out after the flood. Its best instinct is a high regard for the text.
Accept the long ages of geology. Some read each day as a long era, others read Genesis 1 as a literary frame. On these views dinosaurs lived and died long before people, and Scripture simply does not speak to them. Their best instinct is that creation itself is a witness God made.
“For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
Exodus 20:11 · ESVThat is the young earth view's strongest verse, and its purpose is the Sabbath. Israel's week was patterned on God's, which fits a carefully shaped frame as well as a stopwatch.
We read the six days of Genesis 1 as a literary and theological frame, a dedication of the world as God's house with people set in it as His image, the same way we read it when we asked what day God created man. It is true in everything it teaches, and the Bible gives no date for the earth, which we work through in how old the earth is according to the Bible.
What Scripture does give us is Job 40. God tells Job to look at Behemoth, which I made with thee, and we take that at face value. Behemoth was a dinosaur, and people saw dinosaurs. That is our view, and we hold it from the text.
We hold it with open hands toward people who read it differently. Careful Christians see a hippo or a poetic image there, and they are not less faithful for it. Nobody's salvation rides on an animal in Job.
Our case rests on Scripture, not on artifacts. Even Answers in Genesis, the best known young earth ministry, writes of the famous Paluxy River footprints that “we do not believe those claims of coexisting human and dinosaur prints are wholly supportable.” That is honesty worth copying. The same caution applies to the carved stones and clay figures passed around online. Behemoth does not need them.
Christians answer the age of the earth question differently. On dinosaurs our answer is plain: the word is missing, but the creature is in Job 40.
A lot of people were told they had to choose: the museum or the church, the fossils or Genesis. That choice was never the Bible's idea.
Scripture tells us who made the world and why it is good. Science studies how the world works. Those are different questions, and the same God stands behind the answers to both. A kid staring up at a skeleton in a museum is not drifting from God. That kid is looking at His work.
“O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great. There go the ships, and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it.”
Psalm 104:24 to 26 · ESVThat is the Bible's posture toward the great creatures. Wonder, not anxiety.
Maybe you were taught that if Genesis is not a science textbook, the whole Bible falls apart, and then a classroom made the floor move. You are not the first, and you have not lost anything that matters.
Your faith does not rest on a date or a dinosaur. It rests on Jesus, who is still exactly who He was before the question came up. If you want to talk it through with someone, send us a prayer request or come sit with us on a Sunday. Questions are welcome here.
Here is the part the dinosaur argument usually never reaches. The God who points at Behemoth and says I made him as I made you is not an abstract force. Paul says that in Christ all things were created through him and for him. Every creature that ever walked or swam came into being through the same Son who walked the roads of Galilee.
And when the sea did what the ancient world feared most, Jesus stood up in a boat and said Peace, be still. The disciples asked the question the whole Bible had been setting up: who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him? The chaos the ancients pictured as a sea monster went quiet at His word.
That is where this lands. You do not have to win the fossil argument. You get to know the One who made every creature in it, and He is as kind as Jesus.
For related reading, see what God created on each day, the book of Genesis, the image of God, whether the Bible says the earth is flat, the Nephilim and what we believe.
Send us your question or your prayer. Somebody at Sound of Heaven will read it and walk through it with you.
The Bible never uses the word dinosaur, which Richard Owen coined in 1842. But we believe it describes one in Job 40. Behemoth eats grass like an ox, has its strength in its loins, moves its tail like a cedar and is called the chief of the ways of God. No animal living today fits that description, and a giant long tailed dinosaur does. Scripture also mentions Leviathan and the great sea creatures of Genesis 1:21, all of them made by God.
Not by name, but we believe they are there in description. Behemoth in Job 40 is the clearest case. God tells Job to look at a creature He made alongside him, a plant eater with bones like brass and a tail like a cedar. Some readers see a hippo or a mythic image, but a hippo's tail is small, and God presents Behemoth as a real animal right after the lions, goats and horses of the chapters before it.
Yes, that is our view. Job 40:17 says he moves his tail like a cedar, and verse 19 calls him the chief of the ways of God, the greatest of His works. Elephants and hippos have small tails, and neither is the greatest creature God ever made. Bible teachers such as Kent Hovind have long made this case. Christians who read Behemoth as a hippo are not less faithful, but we believe the dinosaur reading fits the text best.
The translators of 1611 used dragon for the Hebrew word tannin and for a related plural. Tannin can mean a serpent, as when Aaron's staff becomes one in Exodus 7:10, a great sea creature, as in Genesis 1:21, or a symbol, as when Pharaoh is called the great dragon in Ezekiel 29:3. Modern translations often say serpent, sea monster or jackal instead. The dragons are an English word choice. The clearest dinosaur in Scripture is Behemoth in Job 40.
We believe they did. In Job 40:15 God tells Job to look at Behemoth, which I made with thee, a creature Job could see. If Behemoth was a dinosaur, people and dinosaurs shared the earth. Young earth Christians hold the same, while old earth Christians believe dinosaurs died out long before people. We read Genesis 1 as a literary and theological frame, and believers who disagree on this still share the same faith in Jesus.