Dragons (Mythical or Real)

Definitions

The word dinosaur really does not mean “terrible-lizard.” Actually, it was originally defined to mean “fearfully-great lizard” by Richard Owen in 1842.

Dragon:

Modern a mythical animal usually represented as a monstrous winged and scaly serpent or saurian with a crested head and enormous claws

Biblical: A genus of animals, the Draco. They have four legs, a cylindrical tail, and membranaceous wings, radiated like the fins of a flying-fish.

Ezekiel 29:3 KJV 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.

Ezekiel 29:3 “speak, and say, Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lies in the midst of his streams, that says, ‘My Nile is my own; I made it for myself.’”

Psalm 74:13 KJV Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters.

Psalm 74:13 “You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters.”

Isaiah 34:13 KJV 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.

Isaiah 34:13 “Thorns shall grow over its strongholds, nettles and thistles in its fortresses. It shall be the haunt of jackals, an abode for ostriches.”

Revelation 12:3 KJV And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.

Revelation 12:3 “And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems.”

Revelation 20:2 KJV And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,

Revelation 20:2 “And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years,”

While dragon today refers to a mythical flying creature, the word previously had a larger semantic range.

According the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary, when used in scripture, dragon seems to refer to a large serpent.

Biologists in Europe once wrote accounts of the behavior and habitat of dragons, along with lizards and snakes.

Chinese scholars have classified the dragon as one of the 369 animal species with scales.”

Surprisingly, the word “dragon” occurs 21 times in the Old Testament as the King James Version.

Considering that the Bible was first translated into English way before the word “dinosaur” was invented, this was when scientists described large reptiles as “dragons”.

Ezekiel 32:2 ““Son of man, raise a lamentation over Pharaoh king of Egypt and say to him: “You consider yourself a lion of the nations, but you are like a dragon in the seas; you burst forth in your rivers, trouble the waters with your feet, and foul their rivers.”

Isaiah 27:1 “In that day the Lord with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.”

Isaiah 51:9 “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon?”

Job 7:12 “Am I the sea, or a sea monster, that you set a guard over me?”

Job 41:21 “His breath kindles coals, and a flame comes forth from his mouth.”

Psalm 18:8 “Smoke went up from his nostrils, and devouring fire from his mouth; glowing coals flamed forth from him.”

Deuteronomy 32:33 “their wine is the poison of serpents and the cruel venom of asps.”

Brachiosaurus. Job 40:15–20 ““Behold, Behemoth, which I made as I made you; he eats grass like an ox. Behold, his strength in his loins, and his power in the muscles of his belly. He makes his tail stiff like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are knit together. His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs like bars of iron. “He is the first of the works of God; let him who made him bring near his sword! For the mountains yield food for him where all the wild beasts play.”

The story of their discovery began back in the 1820s, when Gideon Mantell, an English doctor, found some unusual teeth and bones in a quarry. Dr Mantell realized there was something very different about these animal remains, and believed that he had found an entirely new group of reptiles.

By 1841, about nine types of these different reptiles had been uncovered, including two called Megalosaurus and Iguanodon.

At this time, a famous British scientist, Dr Richard Owen, coined the name “Dinosauria,” meaning “terrible lizard,” for this is what the huge bones made him think of.

No Death before the fall, therefore there could not have been fossils of dragons before Genesis 3 or the Bible is wrong

The World was exceedingly wicked Genesis 6:12 “And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.”

2 of every kind Genesis 7:2–3 “Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth.”

What happened to the remaining dragons Genesis 7:11–12 “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights.” Genesis 7:19 “And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered.”

Those land animals (including dinosaurs) found the new world to be much different than the one before the Flood. Due to

competition for food that was no longer in abundance,

other catastrophes,

man killing for food (and perhaps for fun), Genesis 9:3 “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.”

(4) the destruction of habitats, etc., many species of animals eventually died out.

The group of animals we now call dinosaurs just happened to die out too. In fact, quite a number of animals become extinct each year.

Extinction seems to be the rule in Earth history (not the formation of new types of animals as you would expect from evolution).