Question 3 - Accuracy of the Bible - Part A

Whee! 1 MORE SLEEP TO RICE! This is a most exciting period of time for us RICE people - all our hard work will finally come to an awesome final product! Pray for all of us guys that our event will be successful and get the youth of Brisbane saved and intrested in doing work for God's causes.

Alright, onto the third issue covered by the Evangelism team. The question is "Is the bible accurate?" - Part A, because this one was really interesting!

This one was an awesome fun one to research. While doing it, I uncovered some pretty awesome things - for example, like the bible talks about DINOSAURS. Let's have a look-see. In the book of Job (and also in Psalms and Isaiah) the bible makes reference to some pretty exotic animals - notably a Behemoth (Job 40:15), a Leviathan (Job 41:1) and a 'Tanniyn', which is nowadays translated in the bible as a dinosaur, or a serpent. Interestingly, none of these creatures survive today.

Behemoths are described in Job as herbivores, with a 'tail sway[ing] like cedar', its 'bones are a tube of bronze' and its 'limbs are like rods of iron'. I'm pretty sure none of our herbivorian creatures have the SUPER-STRENGTH-armour plating as described by the book of Job, and instead I'm convinced that it describes an ankylosaur.

Leviathans are described as fire-breathing (41:19) and are pretty tough (read chapter 41!). We know of some animals that can use fire as a defense mechanism (think bombardier beetles) and thus it is theoretically possible that Leviathans could exist. They're pretty awesome anyhow.

Tanniyns are harder to pinpoint in the bible, as they are nowadays translated as 'dinosaur'. Some translations also use the word 'dragon'. Dragons were pervasive in many medieval tales, which makes me wonder if they really did exist, given the similarity of the legendary beast all over ancient texts from all around the world.

In order to fully appreciate this, the book of Job was written sometime between 1200BC - 100BC, when they had no fossil evidence of dinosaurs. Given that the first fossil of a dinosaur, an Iguanadon, was discovered in AD1822, there can be little or no doubt that this ancient but important and relevant text is inspired by a greater power.

More in Part B, because I've only just warmed up! But tomorrow, or else I'll never sleep :)

Hope to see you all at RICE. If you can't make it, then please, spend a little time to pray for us!