What does the Bible say about dinosaurs? Behemoth and leviathan
The Bible never uses the word dinosaur — the term was coined in 1842 — but it says God made every creature of the land and the sea. Job describes two enormous animals, behemoth and leviathan, which some read as a hippo and a crocodile, others as poetic figures and others as dinosaurs. The age of the earth divides Christians; faith in the Creator does not.
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.
The “great whales” of the fifth day translate the Hebrew word tannin, which elsewhere is the serpent of Aaron’s rod (Exodus 7:10) and the dragons in the waters (Psalm 74:13). Many translations say great sea creatures; it is a broad word for the great animals of the waters.
And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
On the sixth day God makes the animals of the earth “after his kind”, without naming each one. For Christian faith, dinosaurs — whenever they lived — are among God’s works, and “God saw that it was good”.
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: he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him. Surely the mountains bring him forth food, where all the beasts of the field play. He lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed, and fens. The shady trees cover him with their shadow; the willows of the brook compass him about. Behold, he drinketh up a river, and hasteth not: he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth. He taketh it with his eyes: his nose pierceth through snares.
Behemoth eats grass like an ox, lies among the reeds and fens and is unhurried by the river — so many identify him with the hippopotamus (a note in the KJV margin suggested the elephant). Young-earth creationists point to the way he moves “his tail like a cedar” and see a dinosaur; others read a real animal described in larger-than-life poetic language.
Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out. Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or caldron. His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth.
Leviathan breathes smoke from his nostrils, and “a flame goeth out of his mouth”. Those who read him as a crocodile see poetic hyperbole here; young-earth creationists, an extinct creature; others, the sea monster of ancient poetry, a picture of the chaos only God can master.
O LORD, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches. So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein.
Here leviathan is a sea creature God made “to play therein”, alongside the ships. The psalm celebrates the variety of creation — “in wisdom hast thou made them all” — without trying to classify the animals.
Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters. Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.
In this psalm leviathan has several heads and is crushed when God divides the sea — a poetic picture of the rescue from Egypt. Not every leviathan in the Bible is an animal: sometimes it stands for the powers that rise against God (see also Isaiah 27:1).
Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.
God’s question to Job reminds every side of the debate how limited our knowledge is. The point of the book is not the age of the earth but trust in the Creator.
Young-earth creationists read the days of Genesis 1 as 24-hour days and the genealogies as a chronology: the earth would be a few thousand years old, and many fossils would come from the flood. Old-earth creationists accept the geological dates — billions of years for the earth — and read the days as long ages or as a literary framework, while holding to the direct creation of humanity. Evolutionary creation holds that God created through the processes science describes, including evolution, and that Genesis answers who created and why, not how. There are Christians who believe in the inspiration of the Bible in all three positions, and all confess the same starting point: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
Frequently asked questions
Are dinosaurs in the Bible?
The word does not appear: dinosaur is a scientific term coined in 1842, long after the Bible was written. The Bible speaks of animals in general, as God’s works; the candidates most often mentioned are behemoth and leviathan in Job 40 and 41, and what they were is debated.
What is leviathan?
It is the name of a great sea creature that appears in Job 41, Psalms 74 and 104 and Isaiah 27:1. In Job 41 and Psalm 104 it appears as one of God’s creatures; in Psalm 74 and Isaiah 27:1, as a picture of the powers God defeats — “that crooked serpent”. That is why leviathan is read sometimes as an animal and sometimes as a symbol.
Did dinosaurs and humans live at the same time?
It depends on how Genesis is read. For young-earth creationism, yes: land animals and humans were created on the same sixth day, a few thousand years ago. For those who accept an old earth — in both old-earth creationism and evolutionary creation — dinosaurs lived and died out millions of years before humans. The Bible does not address the question directly.
