What does the Bible say about dinosaurs?

Have you ever been asked about dinosaurs in the Bible? Why does it not mention them? Does the apparent lack of acknowledgment mean the Bible is not trustworthy? I have a different question. What if most people approach the subject of dinosaurs and the Bible with the wrong presuppositions that, in turn, leads them to the wrong conclusions?

If you Google “dinosaur definition,” you will see that the word dinosaur comes from the mid-19th century (1841, to be exact). The English word “dinosaur,” referring only to the land creatures, comes from the modern Latin word “dinosaurus.” If we trace the origin of the Latin word, it comes from two Greek words: “Deinos” meaning “terrible,” and “Sauros” meaning “lizard.” So when you break the word down, “dinosaur” means “terrible lizard.” The origin is traceable to English biologist, anatomist, and paleontologist Sir Richard Owen, who proposed the name “Dinosauria” as a scientific classification for fossils that differed from other reptiles.

The word “dinosaur” is not in the Bible, but that does not mean dinosaurs are not in the Bible. There are a couple of reasons why we cannot find the word in English translations:

1. One cannot overstate the impact of the King James Bible not just on Christianity but on the English language. Linguist David Crystal released a book in September 2010 titled Begat: The King James Bible and the English Language. He counts 257 phrases from the King James Bible that we still use in contemporary English idiom. To this day, the King James Version is one of the most popular Bible translations available. Nevertheless, there is a reason why we have modern translations. The original translation of the King James Bible was 1611. Languages change over time, and translations, even though they come from the earliest and most reliable manuscripts, need updating to reflect those changes. If the original translation of the KJV was 1611 and the invention of the word “dinosaur” was not until 1841, one should not expect to find “dinosaur” in the Bible.
2. More recent secular scientific theories about the origin and age of the universe have crept their way into the Christian Church. That has infected too much of Christendom’s thinking. Unfortunately, Bible translation committees are not immune to this reality. There have been many Bible translations since 1841, but far too many theologians have accepted the idea of an old universe and that dinosaurs lived long before man’s appearance on Earth. That influences their word choices when they come across obvious descriptions of dinosaurs in the biblical text.

One of the Hebrew words in the Bible that describes what we would call a dinosaur today is the Hebrew masculine noun “tannin.” Tannin is in the Old Testament 28 times. Strong’s Concordance defines it as a serpent, dragon, or sea monster. “Dragon” as part of the definition is essential to remember. While you will not find “dinosaur” in the Bible, you will find the word “dragon” 34 times in the King James Bible. If you look up the word “dragon” in Noah Webster’s 1828 dictionary, part of it reads this way: In Scripture, the dragon sometimes seems to signify a large marine fish or serpent (Isaiah 27:1, where it also mentions Leviathan; Psalm 74:13). Sometimes it seems to signify a venomous land serpent (Psalm 91:13): “The dragon shalt thou trample underfoot.” Another word that fits the description of a dinosaur is “leviathan,” used six times in the Bible (Job 3:8; 41:1; Psalm 74:14; 104:26; twice in Isaiah 27:1). The Hebrew masculine noun this word comes from has the same definition as tannin. The Old Testament uses the Hebrew word “behemah” frequently to indicate four-footed animals. The translation is usually for cattle, animals, or beasts. Its plural form, behemoth, describes a great creature found in Job 40:15 to describe an extraordinary creature with a tail like a cedar. That part of the behemoth’s description alone makes the belief that this is describing a hippopotamus laughable without even taking into account the rest of its description.

According to Genesis 6–7, land creatures went into the ark. God instructed Noah to bring two of every kind, male and female, of every living thing of all flesh to keep them alive, including livestock, birds, and things that crawl on the ground (Genesis 6:19–20; 7:14–15). Dinosaurs were land creatures. So it is reasonable to conclude they would have been on the ark. Some have objected to this, saying that they would have been too big to fit on the ark. In response, I refer you back to an earlier post that talked about the dimensions that detailed the ark’s immense size. While the ark was large enough for adult-size dinosaurs and all the other animals and people, they did not need to be fully grown. Plus, not all dinosaurs were giant. As scientist Kent Hovind likes to say sarcastically, the big ones were big, but the little ones were little. (You might want to pause before continuing because I know that was a profound statement to fathom.) All flesh that moved on the earth perished. All animals — birds, livestock, swarming things — people, everything on dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life died. God wiped out all land-dwellers except for Noah, his family, and the animals on the ark (Genesis 7:21–23). That would also mean that all the dinosaurs not on the ark would have perished. Therefore, it would make sense to find them in flood sediments, just as archaeologists have.

All Scripture is God-breathed and beneficial for teaching, rebuke, reprimand, correction, training in righteousness, so that the man or woman of God may be fully capable and proficient, equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16–17. The Scriptures may be our best science book, but they are not exhaustive or comprehensive. God does not reveal everything that we can know about dinosaurs or anything else. God gives us enough for the purposes he outlined in the passage above, but he does not just download his infiniteness into our finiteness. He still leaves plenty of room for scientific discovery. What the Bible does do for us in the area of dinosaurs, though, is give us enough information. So when we hear about dinosaurs supposedly living millions of years ago and going extinct before the arrival of humanity, we can arm ourselves with this information to respond in a way that is faithful to God’s Word.