Dinosaurs in the Bible

Is this your Bible?

Something I've been increasingly addicted to lately is answering questions on Quora. Quora is like Answer.com or Yahoo Answers (which I also was addicted to in its original manifestation in the early 2000s before Yahoo closed it down), but done much better.

I've been answering questions mainly about God, Christianity, general religious things, and a smattering of history and other topics for several months now, and I've decided to post some of the "better" ones (more coherent ones?) here.

This first answer I originally didn't put a lot into, but then I got a response today that let me write a bit on one of my favorite subjects: that God is a good writer.

I like to talk about that because many people have absorbed the idea that you should approach the Bible the way you'd approach an instruction manual. There are some instructions in there of course, but there is also poetry, adventure, gripping history, proverbs, philosophy, great speeches, personal letters, psychedelic visions, biography... in short, almost any type of literature you could name. It's not all one thing.

Reading any other book we automatically recognize these different types of literature and read them the way they are meant to be understood. We instinctively read poetry as poetry, for instance. But the Bible? No! -- it's all to be read as an operators manual! And that kind of blinds us to a lot of the meaning God is trying to get across.

This question, and particularly a comment someone made on my answer, touches on epic poetry, one of the greatest ever written. But it is possible, with enough determination and wearing the proper blinders, to read even that as a boring prose instruction manual.

Dinosaurs!

Here's the question: Why doesn't the Bible talk about dinosaurs and their extinction?

A: The Bible doesn’t mention dinosaurs, since it focuses on humans and dinosaurs died out long before. 

This is only a problem if you think God made the universe in 6 24-hour days. I have heard people holding that view say that creatures like Behemoth and Leviathan (only mentioned in the poetic books) were dinosaurs. Most scholars though think they are only poetic descriptions of hippos and crocodiles.

Then Claudia Baduy had this comment about my answer: The Word Behemoth and Leviathan both are in The book of Job and Job is considered a Wisdom book by all means. And with all respect hippopotamus or crocodiles don't have tails like a cedar.

Job 40:15-19 “Look at Behemoth, which I made along with you and which feeds on grass like an ox. What strength it has in its loins, what power in the muscles of its belly! Its tail sways like a cedar; the sinews of its thighs are close-knit. Its bones are tubes of bronze, its limbs like rods of iron. It ranks first among the works of God, yet its Maker can approach it with his sword." 

And here's my reply:  Claudia, you are certainly right: Job is classified as one of the wisdom books. I was referring to the fact Job is widely considered to be one of the greatest epic poems ever written. Other than the prose prologue and epilogue it is magnificent poetry through and through. 

That is what I was getting at when I said that most scholars consider Behemoth and Leviathan to be *poetic* descriptions of actual animals. After all, no dinosaur or any other animal has “bones [that] are tubes of bronze” either (Job 40.18). And only in fairy tales do you find animals whose “breath sets coals ablaze/and a flame shoots from its mouth” (Job 41.21). These are all poetic images in a great poem. 

As far as how a hippopotamus’ tail could poetically be like a cedar, there are several possibilities, believe it or not. I like the simplest one: that it’s like a cedar in that it sways like cedars do in the wind, as the verse itself says.

If there are any other comments, I will update this post with them.

Does the Bible Teach Anything Clearly?

Photo courtesy Rushay (RUSH) Booysen

"Well, that's an odd title for a Christian blog," you may say to yourself.

Maybe, but a scholarly blog I ran across recently (thanks to Twitter) quotes Wayne Meeks, a famous biblical scholar, who believes we should stop using the phrase, "The Bible clearly teaches..."

So let us renounce the phrase, “the Bible clearly teaches” (says Dr. Meeks).  And every time we hear it let us immediately be on our guard... In our situation, when people say, “the Bible clearly teaches,” instead of, for example, “we can learn from the Bible if we stand within a certain community’s tradition,” or “we can find these ideas in Scripture if we construe Scripture in such-and-such a way”… when they do that, they are really masking the locus of the authority they are claiming.

Now, I have to agree with Dr. Meeks in one sense. Most of the times that Christianity has had egg on its face over the last 2000 years have been times when we weren't actually insisting on some scripture but on our own explanation of it. Handy example: the legendary conflict between Galileo and the Catholic Church. What the Church actually ended up defending was the greek scientist Ptolemy's idea of how the universe works -- not that "God the Father Almighty [is the] maker of heaven and earth," as the old creed says. Galileo himself believed that too, after all.

Teachers of Christianity always have to make sure that what we're defending is what the Bible itself says and not our explanation of what the Bible says.

That isn't my main point today but it would make a good topic, so I may post on it in the future.

Fuzziness

That doesn't seem to be Dr. Meeks' main point either. He appears to be saying that the Bible itself isn't clear, that you can't say the Bible clearly teaches anything because it clearly doesn't. To get anything worthwhile out of it at all you must "construe" it or draw its meaning from a "certain community's tradition."

But think about this: All of the things the Bible contains were written by people who knew what they meant at the time. And much of it was written to other people who also knew what they meant. And although we live at a 2 to 3 thousand year remove from their time, it is still entirely possible to recover what they meant. Historians and textual critics and archaeologists do it all the time and with all kinds of books -- not just the Bible.

Have you ever read Homer's Iliad and Odyssey?  You may not have gotten every cultural nuance but did you pick up the main points? Doesn't the Iliad clearly teach that Agamemnon and Achilles, both full of pride, quarrelled over the captured princess Briseis causing Achilles to leave the battle (trust me, it does).

What about Plato and Aristotle? Do we know pretty clearly what they taught? Yes. Why? Because we know a lot about them, their world, and can read their language. Sort of like any other book you read. Including the Bible.

If we read it intelligently, the Bible is quite clear on most things. True some passages are a bit obscure (nobody is sure what St. Paul is getting at here, for instance. Or here.). But it is not a fuzzy, obscure book, and there are a disturbingly large number of things that 'the Bible clearly says'.

Theologian Thursday: Vincent on Finding the Real Thing

The straight stuff

Many, many people claim to follow Jesus or be part of the Christian Movement, even while disagreeing widely with each other. How do you know you're getting the real deal? Today's theological visitor, Vincent of Lérins, tells us that if you want to find the straight stuff you need to go old school.

In the universal or catholic Church itself, we must make sure that we hold the faith that has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For what is actually and strictly "catholic," or "universal," as the name itself and it's nature imply, is spread out universally.  And we will be following this rule if we follow these three things: universality, antiquity, consent. We follow antiquity if we do not depart in any way from the teachings and understandings that were obviously held widely by our holy ancestors and fathers. And we follow consent when we stick to the consensual definitions and determinations of all -- or almost all -- the priests and great teachers in antiquity 

...But someone might say, "Then, won't there be any progress in Christ's Church?" On the contrary, there will be as much progress as possible. Only someone who envies humans and hates God would try to stop it. But it must be real progress, not alteration, of the faith. In progress something grows within itself, but in alteration it is transformed into something else. So the intelligence, knowledge, wisdom of individuals and of everyone, of a single person just as much as the whole Church, should grow and make vast and vigorous progress over the ages and centuries. But this will happen within each type of thing, that is in the same teaching and in the same meaning.  

Vincent of Lérins (died AD 445)
Commonitory, chapters 2 & 23

Introducing Theologian Thursday

Today I'm starting a new feature here at Authentic Light called Theologian Thursday! Don't all cheer at once.

Every Thursday I will haul in a famous theologian and have her or him discuss a topic that is -- or should be -- important to people interested in following Jesus of Nazareth. I know this sounds thrilling and I'll have a ready-made audience (Note: sarcasm) but I probably ought to explain it a little anyway.

As we've discussed elsewhere, Jesus entrusted his movement with a series of revelations -- God communicating with humans throughout history -- of which he himself is the ultimate one. His revelation -- his life, death, resurrection, and teaching -- is the key to understanding all the other revelations that came before. The things God revealed over time to Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah and all the rest are only fully grasped by looking at them through the lens of the appearance of the Messiah -- through the lens of Jesus and what he himself revealed about God. He explained this plainly to his apostles before he left (Gospel of Luke 24.26-27 and 44-48), and he gave examples throughout his career (see basically the entire Gospel of Matthew for that).

But what he didn't do is write a detailed, systematic, exhaustive explanation of his doctrines or a complete commentary on the Old Testament. Instead he left us with the revelation embodied basically in the Bible. He left us the Holy Spirit "who will lead you into all truth" (Gospel of John 16.13). And he left us... theologians.

Why Theologians?

Theologians are a little like scientists: the data a scientist studies is the universe and they just have to take it the way it is, rough edges, mysteries and all, and do the hard work needed to understand it.

A theologian's data is God's revelation encapsulated in the Bible. It's presented to us in a wondrous hodge-podge of history dealing with family squabbles, history dealing with geopolitical squabbles, laws, poems, philosophical discussions, prophetic announcements, erotic songs, letters, laments over fallen cities and fallen people. And above it all, Jesus Christ. Theologians are the people who dedicate their lives to understanding and explaining it all.

On Theologian Thursdays I'll be bringing in the cream of the crop (living and dead), the acknowledged experts in their fields and let them take the floor. I'm using a very wide definition of  a "theologian" that includes not just scholars but regular preachers, authors, hymn writers, mystics, and just regular people who studied, thought, prayed, and contributed something about God and what he has revealed to humanity. Also, there's no time limit: these theological musings may be one brief paragraph or stretch into the blog equivalent of pages and pages (not usually though).

What We're Looking For

Some theologians, like some car repairmen, are better than others. Some are only good on one subject and not terribly impressive or downright misleading in other areas. And of course some are just awful, no matter what their advertising may say.

As you've probably guessed if you've read this blog for a while, my criteria for picking theologians is ordinary, everyday, garden variety Christianity. Or to put it another way, the stuff that was taught by Christ to his Apostles, passed on by them to the Christian Movement, and it's ramifications largely unfurled and explained by around AD 400. That doesn't mean we'll only invite theologians from that era, just that we want people who teach the consensus reached by the Christian Movement doing the hard work of theology during that time. To put it a third way, simple, historical, authentic Christianity. Fortunately (providentially?), there are and have been many around who teach that.

First Up

Our first Thursday theologian, who will be posted about 2 hours from now, is Dr. Georgia Harkness on providence and a God who is personal.

The Year of Reading Scripture for the First Time

Synchroblog is a little community of Christian blogs that post on a particular subject each month. This month our topic is "New Beginnings." The bloggers who published are listed at the bottom of this post for you to peruse. Visit us all! We're an interesting and eclectic group!

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I'm back from a short New Year's break, during which I've been making plans for this blog in 2014. One thing I've become rather fascinated with, and mentioned briefly in an earlier post, is the question, "What would the Scriptures sound like if they had only been discovered last year?"

What if Christianity and Judaism were just obscure sects known only from brief mentions in a few ancient writings -- until now? (I'm doing this from a Christian perspective but, of course, this idea would never work unless the Jews were also forgotten). Now their foundational documents have been discovered hidden away in dry desert caves in a remarkable state of preservation, and translated into English for the very first time.

Two thousand years of theological and scholarly jargon do not exist, nor do the traditional renderings we are comfortable with. For the first time we must puzzle out ways to express complex theological ideas that our regular Bibles represent with words like "righteousness," "justification," "sanctification," "redemption," "godliness," "resurrection." And perhaps most difficult of all, "faith," "hope," and "love."

Easy to Read

So my resolution this year is to try to read the hoary old Book with fresh eyes. To assist me in this I'll be using a remarkable but little-known translation called the Easy-to-Read Version -- or ERV for short -- put out by the Bible League International (home of the World Bible Translation Center). The ERV will be my standard translation on this blog for the next year.  It's available on Bible Gateway if you'd like to try it too.

The ERV is translated for people who speak English at approximately a 4th grade level. (It actually got its start as a Bible specifically translated for the deaf community. That version and the ERV are separate projects now, and The English Version for the Deaf can be found here). Unlike most other Bibles for people with limited English skills, the ERV scholars don't use an artificially limited vocabulary. The Basic Bible is a good example of that, using a list of 850 words plus some "special Bible words." Instead the ERV tries to use the natural vocabulary and grammatical constructions that you'd use to convey the meaning to a 10 year old. That doesn't mean though that certain concepts are hidden because they're too "adult." Adam still "has sexual relations with his wife Eve," and "she still becomes pregnant and gives birth," for instance (Book of Genesis chapter 4 verse 1, ERV), just like us modern day folks.

I'll probably write a full review of the ERV later in the year, after I've used it more. Easy reading though it may be, I'm also finding it to be an accurate, well-done translation.

For my purposes though the main advantage of the Easy-to-Read Version is that it cuts me off from traditional religious language when I read Scripture. Perhaps it will help a few scales fall from my eyes that I didn't know were there.

*       *       *

Her are the posts from this Synchroblog:

Jen Bradbury - Enough

Abbie Watters - New Beginnings

Cara Strickland - Bursting

Carol Kuniholm - Acorns, King, Beloved Community

Done With Religion – A New Year, A New Beginning

Kelly Stanley - A Blank Canvas

Glenn Hager - Overcoming The Biggest Obstacle To Reaching Your Goals

Dave Criddle - Get Some New Thinking

David Derbyshire - Changed Priorities Ahead

J A Carter - The Year of Reading Scripture for the First Time

Damon - New Beginnings: Consider These 5 Questions Before Tying The Knot

Jeffrey Kranz - Where To Start Reading The Bible

Joanna990 - On survival – my one word for 2014

K W Leslie - Atonement

Happy - my One Word 365 surprise

Michelle Moseley - Ends and Beginnings

Matthew Bryant - A New Creation

Liz Dyer – It’s a new year and time to make some new mistakes

Edwin Pastor Fedex Aldrich - Foreclosed: The beginning of a new dream

Jennifer Clark Tinker - Starting a New Year Presently

Loveday Anyim - New Year New Resolutions

Loveday Anyim - New Year Resolution Dreamers

Loveday Anyim - New Year Resolution Specialists

Loveday Anyin – New Year Resolution Planners and Achievers

Jeremy Myers - Publish Your Book with Redeeming Press

Amy Hetland - New Beginnings

Phil Lancaster – New Beginnings

Mallory Pickering – Something Old, Something New

Margaret Boelman – The Other Side of Grief

Kathy Escobar - One Image

The BibleGateway and Authentic Light Combine Forces!

A few weeks ago and quite unexpectedly, BibleGateway, the enormously popular site for searching the scriptures, invited my humble blog to be a charter member of a program they were starting called "The Grid." Essentially, if I would put this badge on my blog, use them whenever I needed to quote the Bible, and say something nice about them once in a while, they would, in return, expose Authentic Light (and our Twitter stream, @AuthenticLight)  to their 140 million view per month firehose of traffic, along  with some cool insider stuff.

So I scratched my bewhiskered chin thoughtfully and finally, astutely replied, "Are you kiddin'? Let's do it!"

If you visit some of the other charter member blogs (there's a list of us here) a frequently heard refrain is: "I've been linking to and recommending you all along anyway. Now I'll just be doing it to more people and with a nifty badge."

It is pretty much the same with me. I've used a couple other sites for a specific translation, particularly Bible.com to use the translation notes for my go-to translation, the New English Translation. But on their site it's rather cumbersome to actually cite a specific verse. So, despite my love for Bible-nerd stuff, for some time now I've used the BibleGateway for the NET too.

As St.Peter might say in a similar situation, "Who else can we go to?"

(Ok, flimsy attempt at humor.)

Wrapping Your Mind Around the Hebrew Scriptures

The Bible is a story with a beginning, middle, and an end, and the Old Testament is a large part of that story. But a lot of people -- followers of Jesus or not -- have a difficult time understanding such a large, ancient, and foreign-sounding book. And even if we're tolerably familiar with it we can have a hard time seeing how it fits together with Jesus and the New Covenant he brought. For one thing, it's so, you know... violent!

Today's post on the Biblegateway's blog  could help. They are covering a presentation made today at Calvin College by Christopher J.H. Wright on understanding this intimidating read.

Biblegateway helpfully summarizes Dr. Wright's eight main points for us:

Eight Questions to Ask When You Read the Old Testament

1. What do we know about the context and origin of this text?Does this passage respond to or challenge any specific events, trends, or behaviors? If so, can you think of modern-day analogues for those issues?
2. What does this passage reveal about God and his purposes? And how does the glimpse of God seen in this passage compare to depictions of God elsewhere in the Bible?
3. Where does this passage fit into the “story” of the Bible? What Bible stories came before this one, leading up to it? What stories come after, building on it?
4. What picture of God’s people does this passage paint? What values and ideals does this passage hold up for us? If the passage criticizes God’s people or shows them behaving badly, what values can we identify by their absence?
5. Does this text point us to the future? What promises, foreshadowings of future events, or other groundwork does this passage lay down for us?
6. What happens if you read this text with Luke 24 in mind? (In Luke 24, Jesus identifies himself as a culmination of the Old Testament narrative.) What happens if you don’t read this text with Luke 24 in mind?
7. What questions about your own faith today do you want to ask of, or introduce into, this passage?
8. What questions does this passage ask you? How does it challenge, correct, or encourage you?