Were Dinosaurs With Adam? The Behemoth Lie Debunked
Totus Catholica | 24 Dec. 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOZb21LMaCM
1:13 "the Catholic Church has never required belief in a Young Earth"
On what exact plane? The Church certainly hasn't made (yet) a Conciliar or Papal solemn definition that the Earth is no older than Adam (or six days older), or that Adam was as close to Abraham as genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11 (also in Luke 3) indicate.
The Church has not yet excommunicated someone for being Old Earth like Fr. Feeney was excommunicated. (By the way, while he was a Young Earth creationist, as his fan, Sir Charles A. Coulombe is also, he was not excommunicated for being Young Earth).
However, knowing what I do about carbon dating, I know a Neanderthal dated to 42 000 BP by carbon cannot have been just before a Flood in 2957 BC, I'm taking that date from the Christmas Day Roman Martyrology by the way, if the atmosphere is millions of years old. The reason is, the upper atmosphere produces carbon 14 at a certain rate, which can be varied, but not infinitely. Nitrogen atoms meet incoming radiation, and N-14 becomes C-14. Then C-14 decays at a certain rate which, as far as I know is invariable. C-14 is measured against the overall C (nearly all C-12) in a sample, and when compared to a standard, not exactly a contemporary sample, but "modern Carbon, corrected for pre-industrial values", there is only 50 % left, one says it has been decaying for 5730 years.
I'd call 5730 years the "time implication" of 50 % "modern carbon corrected for preindustrial values" (50 pmC) except, it can if we are close enough to the beginning imply that instead of the sample being 5730 years old, or rather the time implication is not strictly about actual time, it is also about extra years due to initial low carbon 14 levels.
Now, the problem with an old earth is, you cannot then have, 4000 years ago, an atmosphere that is 82.753 pmC. How did I arrive at that figure ? Well, 82.753 pmC if translated from a percentage value to a decimal value is 0.82753. And that is the solution for .5^(1565/5730).
Now, why .5^(1565/5730)? Because I want a pmC value with the time implication of 1565 extra years, instantly there from the atmosphere. Why do I want that? Genesis 1 means 24 h days? Genesis 5 and 11 add up to 2000 / 3000+ years depending on text version (3184 AM is when Abraham is born according to the Christmas Day Martyrology)? Those things are true, but the reason is actually Genesis 14.
Can we agree a real man, Abraham, met a real man, Melchisedec, near modern Jerusalem, in a setting after a real short war or the foiling of a raid? Because, if Genesis 14 is history, the evacuation of Asasan-Tamar (possible if not strictly stated) is Biblically dated to when Abraham was c. 80 years, i e 2015 BC - 80 = 1935 BC. However, it is archaeologically dated, by carbon dating reed mats used to evacuate temple treasure, to 3500 BC.
So, if Genesis 14 is history, the atmosphere was laden with 1565 extra years. It was at 82.753 pmC, and it cannot have been that low if it had been millions of years old.
Therefore, Genesis 14 + carbon dating, between them, proves an old earth.
Now, 1909, there was a question put to the Pontifical Biblical Commission. It was question VIII of a questionnaire, it was about the historicity of the first three chapters of Genesis, and Q VIII was about if it was possible to accept the Day Age theory about time between the beginning of the universe and the creation of Adam.
It wouldn't have been a question at all, if there hadn't previously been a common understanding that the days were actual days (or one single moment), and the answer wasn't a dogmatic "no the days are actually longer periods" it was a "you may discuss this freely" (meaning on both sides, including the one against the Day Age theory and for the literal six days).
It's important to note that 1909 involved no discussion being done or questioned or allowed about extending the timeline of Genesis 5 and 11. Abraham is still born 3184 Anno Mundi (or a bit later or a good deal earlier, depending on text version), no hanky panky with generations added outside any text version of these.
"and 1:12 the faithful are free to accept the 1:14 scientific evidence for an ancient Earth 1:16 and the existence of dinosaurs millions 1:18 of years before humans."
Are, on your view, the faithful free to reject that as pseudoscience and contrary to the Bible? They were so in 1909. If they aren't so now, are you in the same Church as that existing in 1909?
The same year that Fr. Fulcran Vigouroux made a decision on free discussion (and not against Young Earth!), his Pope, St. Pius X, canonised Fr. Clemens Maria Hofbauer. Now, he had a friend, a certain Veith (Johannes Immanuel, I believe) who was his doctor, also a Passionist, and who wrote a work in defense of the Young Earth position (Die Anfänge der Menschenwelt, Vienna, 1865).
So, if J. E. Veith was a young earth creationist, Clemens Maria Hofbauer was presumably a young earth creationist. This means, the same year that Fr. Fulcran Vigoouroux provided for discussion between Day-Agers and Young-Earthers, his Pope presuambly canonised as a saint a strict Young-Earther.
That clearly doesn't feel like your Church, where "freedom" just goes one way. Against Young Earth. For the Consensus position of Scientists. Plus, you speak of "accepting scientific evidence" as if most faithful were capable or interested in even discussing and evaluating it. If you accept the evaluation of someone else, for instance a scientist, you are not accepting the evidence, but the authority of the scientist.
1:36 "by forcing modern scientific categories onto ancient poetic texts"
Where do I start?
The difference between "a day" and "very many years" isn't a modern scientific category, it's a category of exactitude that was perfectly comprehensible to Moses and to his first readers or hearers.
If you want to put Genesis 1 into the category of poetry, you have lots to go against you, including people who know actual Hebrew poetry, how it was rhythmed in the original of the psalms, for instance, but that's not the worst.
You are glossing over that Genesis 5 and 11 hardly can be described as poetic. You are also glossing over that Our Lord referenced Genesis 1 in Mark 10:6. He certainly didn't think that there was a significant time gap between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:27, which there would have been if "day" was a metaphor for "period of millions of years" ...
1:41 "we miss the theological truths the ancient authors intended to convey"
Do we really? Or do we just get a bit more than the truths you think about?
1:53 "many abandon the faith when they think they must chose between the Bible and established science"
In the Roman Emperor, under Decius in 250 AD, many abandoned the faith because they thought they must chose between Christ and established statescraft.
Many who see that "established science" is incompatible with tenets of the faith on other levels than the one you concentrate on, because you know how to gloss over them, actually find the faith that way.
Not quite as many as abandon, perhaps, but that is to be expected in times probably those of the Great Apostasy.
"The official notes in the 2:52 United States Conference of Catholic 2:54 Bishops Bible make clear that Behemoth 2:56 is a primeval monster of chaos and 2:58 Leviathan is another chaos monster."
USCCB is not actually your own bishop, nor that of Rome.
Kenya is outside their jurisdiction.
It's a conference where a McCarrick has been prominent.
But the really quirky part is:
- on the one hand, the Bible is not involved in the kind of story-line where primeval chaos monsters precede gods of good order
- on the other hand, these guys are still saying this is what the Bible passage refers to
- and on top of that, you pretend God, Who is All-Knowing, put this reference in for Job (or worse, that Job isn't historic).
This "theology" makes no sense at all. You cannot find it in pre-Vatican II publications officially approved for the mass of the faithful.
"only the 3:05 Lord, not Job, can control the cosmic 3:07 evil which these forces symbolize."
I'm not denying they symbolise Satan, like Jael symbolises Mary. But Jael existed as a person.
For some reason, those guys pretend that in a list of items that are presumably litteral statements about aspects of tangible nature, there are two items that are just symbols.
Again, try to find this in a publication for the faithful, prior to Vatican II.
3:40 Let's cite St. Thomas on Job 40:
Ecce Vehemot quem feci tecum et cetera. Supra dominus narraverat effectus virtutis suae quos in malis hominibus operatur, nunc autem accedit ad describendum malitiam Diaboli. Manifestum est autem ex praemissis quod apud Iob et amicos eius eadem erat opinio de Daemonibus quam nunc Ecclesia Catholica tenet, ut scilicet ex angelica dignitate per peccatum corruerint, unde supra IV 18 dictum est ecce qui serviunt ei non sunt stabiles. Et sicut homo per peccatum decidit a dignitate rationis et contra rationem agens irrationabilibus comparatur, ita etiam Diabolus per peccatum avertens se a supremis et intelligibilibus bonis, dum principatum super inferiora et terrena appetiit, animalibus brutis comparatur, in quorum effigie frequenter Daemones apparent hominibus, Deo id providente ut tales figuras corporum sinantur assumere per quas eorum condicio designetur.
What St. Thomas is saying is, in the previous, God has been speaking of bad men, now God is comparing Satan to beasts. He's also saying when demons are allowed to appear, they are often allowed to assume the form of beasts.
In other words, there would be actual beasts involved. Precisely as in the vice of forgetfulness is likened to the actual beast "ostrich" (which you may know), so the fierceness of Satan is likened to the actual beast Leviathan.
So, you are misreading St. Thomas by pretending "symbol for Satan, therefore no actual biologic beast".
4:39 Excuse me, can you read, or just repeat what someone else told you something means?
"The 4:29 catechism teaches in paragraph 282 that 4:33 God reveals himself progressively and 4:35 that scripture contains various literary 4:37 forms that must be interpreted according 4:39 to the intention of the sacred authors."
Check the text itself:
Catechesis on creation is of major importance. It concerns the very foundations of human and Christian life: for it makes explicit the response of the Christian faith to the basic question that men of all times have asked themselves:120 "Where do we come from?" "Where are we going?" "What is our origin?" "What is our end?" "Where does everything that exists come from and where is it going?" The two questions, the first about the origin and the second about the end, are inseparable. They are decisive for the meaning and orientation of our life and actions. 120. Cf. N[ostra] A[etate] 2.
Progressive revelation is not mentioned. Various literary forms are not mentioned.
I don't admire that paragraph, but it's not quite as bad as the following one.
Just because your priest told you §282 means what you just said doesn't make that a grammatical fact.
Now, let's cite Nostra Aetate 2, or at least the beginning:
2. From ancient times down to the present, there is found among various peoples a certain perception of that hidden power which hovers over the course of things and over the events of human history; at times some indeed have come to the recognition of a Supreme Being, or even of a Father. This perception and recognition penetrates their lives with a profound religious sense.
Religions, however, that are bound up with an advanced culture have struggled to answer the same questions by means of more refined concepts and a more developed language. ...
I'm not a fan of that document, and not of this paragraph. But unless you pretend that the Christian revelation was preceded by the religious sense within Hinduism etc., you cannot from this paragraph deduce that Christian revelation was "progressive" (which it was in a sense) in a way which would have allowed for actual errors to be there in the early parts (like Genesis or Job).
4:54 "we recognise poetic exaggeration"
If an elephant has a hide that's hard to pierce with a spear, it stands to reason that a sauropod, much bigger, would have thicker skin, possibly scaled, which would be impossible to pierce with a spear.
Also, breathing fire is possible if you look at some insects, and the mechanism doesn't depend on being invertebrate.
"Practically, this means 5:01 Catholics can fully embrace what science 5:03 reveals about dinosaurs while 5:05 recognizing that Job 40 and 41 address 5:08 different questions entirely."
Again, are we, in your Catholicism, free to the opposite conclusion?
Are we free to say that science doesn't reveal, and scientists who conclude, sometimes also conclude wrongly?
Because, if not, it's not the Catholicism of 1909.
"We must 5:41 respect their sincere concern for 5:42 scriptures truthfulness while noting 5:44 that the Catholic Church does not share 5:46 this interpretive approach."
So, is your respect for Young Earth Creationism tied to the condition of the Young Earth Creationist being non-Catholic?
You are basically saying that the Church, as such, is disagreeing with them. J. E. Veith, St. Clement Maria Hofbauer, Pope St. Pius X would probably not agree with you.
6:10 "details impossible for any real animal"
Except a dinosaur.
- I
- A L
- @useraccount5881
- A L
- Or a one-off, real creature that God made just for Job, to teach him a lesson. “Look at Behemoth, which I made along with you, and which feeds on grass like an ox." Notice: "which I made along with you"; clearly indicating this creature was made by God around the same time Job came into being.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @hglundahl
- @useraccount5881 "along with you" = "along with you as you were in the loins of Adam"
It came into being when Adam was created.
- A L
- @hglundahl OK I agree, it came into being when Adam was created. Still, I don't believe it a real biological animal. Most likely a mythological creature ancient near east people used to believe in. This view is in line with most Catholic interpretations.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @useraccount5881 You mean most modernist interpretation?
Why would God feature a "mythological" in that sense creature after featuring the ostrich?
- A L
- @hglundahl Mythological creature in the ancient near east mind was just as real as the ostrich.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @useraccount5881 The book of Job is not a fan fiction from an Ancient Near East mind.
It's about an actual Ancient Near East person (arguably mentioned as Jobab in some genealogy) actually meeting the actual Omniscient Who was not confused about this kind of thing.
- A L
- @hglundahl Yes, I agree. It's about an actual Ancient Near East person. And that Ancient Near East person believed in real mythical creatures such as Behemoth and Leviathan, so God incorporated them in the story.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @useraccount5881 You are claiming God adapted His communication to the error of those He was communicating with?
That's a pretty evil theory.
But thanks for agreeing, not just with me, but also with Haydock and Calmet:
The beginning and conclusion are historical, and in prose. Some have divided this work into a kind of tragedy, the first act extending to chap. xv., the second to chap. xxii., the third to chap. xxxviii., where God appears, and the plot is unfolded. They suppose that the sentiments of the speakers are expressed, though not their very words. This may be very probable: but the opinion of those who look upon the work as a mere allegory, must be rejected with horror. The sacred writers speak of Job as of a personage who had really existed, (Calmet) and set the most noble pattern of virtue, and particularly of patience, Tobias ii. 12., Ezechiel xiv. 14., and James v. 11. Philo and Josephus pass over this history, as they do those of Tobias, Judith, &c. (Haydock)
No, God did not allow Joshua to believe he was ordering Sun and Moon to stand still while in reality God fixed the rotation of Earth. God in the Flesh did not heal cases of schizophrenia or epilepsy as the doctors understand these while allowing His contemporaries to believe He expelled demons. AND God did not take advantage of an Ancient Near Easterner's erroneous beliefs about monsters to bring home a lesson.
- II
- michael moroney
- @michaelmoroney7785
- michael moroney
- There are various ancient glyphs drawings. One in Leicester? Cathedral- before paleantology existed....
- II a)
- A L
- @michaelmoroney7785 People always draw all kinds of weird things. That's hardly a proof of anything. And I even doubt those drawings are authentic in the first place.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @useraccount5881 There is no actual contestation of those drawings.
And there is a point beyond which anatomical coincidences become less credible.
Your best option was, someone found a skeleton of that type and made "amateur palaeontology" ... but I find that less convincing with serpopards on the Narmer palette, as they are shown with human handlers.
- A L
- @hglundahl Problem is, due to so many hoaxes, the entire field of paleontology is highly suspect. They lost me forever. I see this group as primarily ideologically driven, with the main goal of disproving the Bible. The fact is, there are no known dinosaurs alive today, and they would be if they were real. Especially if the earth is young.
- michael moroney
- @useraccount5881 we must consider the Great Flood., as Biblical Truth. With the Fall- the sin of Adam....came sin and sickness and death. No carnivores before that. Genesis is the Book Jesus most referred to. Post- Flood a massively changed Earth....glaciation too . Pleiosaurs perhaps survived....
- A L
- @michaelmoroney7785 No death before Adam's sin is only for people. And even then, we would still need to eat the fruit from the tree of Life. Death was part of God's original design.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @useraccount5881 "The fact is, there are no known dinosaurs alive today, and they would be if they were real. Especially if the earth is young."
Tell me when you saw a dodo bird or a mammoth in zoo.
@useraccount5881 "No death before Adam's sin is only for people."
Actually, that's not Catholic dogma, while St. Augustine thought so, some earlier CCFF do not agree, like I think St. Hippolytus of Rome or people like around that time (not sure of the reference).
@useraccount5881 "No death before Adam's sin is only for people."
Bis.
To clarify, the reason I believe the fossils are (mainly) from the Flood is actually not just that the other option would involve "death before Adam's sin" but also that this is what a universal Flood would leave and if we place them in very different periods before Adam sinned, this would deny the universality of the Flood.
Fulcran Vigouroux was himself a proponent of limited (not local, but large regional, like continent or subcontinent) Flood (wiping out all men), when he wrote about OT theology in the 1880's. However, in 1909, he was not given the opportunity to answer questions related to Genesis 6 to 9 or, for that matter on Genesis 5 and 11 (he had very tentatively proposed Genesis 11 might involve more gaps than just Second Cainan).
With a universal Flood, most fossils are from the Flood, some from post-Flood mudflows or things.
- A L
- @hglundahl I'm not sure I believe that mammoths ever existed either. Dodo birds went extinct mainly due to hunting, that would not work with dinosaurs.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @useraccount5881 It would work with dinosaurs with the right techniques.
Nimrod was a mighty hunter before the Lord. He probably exagegrated the danger of mammoths in order to have an occasion to kill some off in the Younger Dryas of the Americas.
- II b)
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @michaelmoroney7785 For instance.
However, the other side could allege that if palaeontology as a systematic study at universities didn't exist as today, bones were already found and dug up before that.
- michael moroney
- Certainly were.. but not reconstructed @hglundahl
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @michaelmoroney7785 Oh, some skeleta are in fact in the position of a complete skeleton.
- III
- A L
- Even if dinosaurs were real, they still wouldn't fit the description of Behemoth or Leviathan.
- michael moroney
- @useraccount5881 a Blue 3hale is impressive
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @useraccount5881 What is, on your view, the biggest difference between a Sauropod and Behemoth?
One of the palaeontological theories about Sauropods is, they had to wade in water in order to keep upright. The description of the Behemoth goes in that direction.
The Leviathan breathes fire. Now, there are two ways this could be biologically normal for a creature. Either it breathes out a liquid or aerosol that catches fire at contact with the air, or it breathes out two liquids or aerosols that catch fire when they meet each other. Either way, those would probably be produced by soft tissue, not preserved, and be too volatile to remain when the dinosaur is dug up.
And not all of the palaeontologists are from Communist China.
- A L
- @hglundahl "A raging river does not alarm it; it is secure, though the Jordan should surge against its mouth." The fact is, a raging river like that would easily sweep it away.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @useraccount5881 If you compare Jordan or La Seine to a Sauropod, no, not even La Seine would, and the Jordan is actually smaller.
- IV
- A L
- Catholic theologians often read Behemoth and Leviathan as representations of forces of chaos that only God can master.
A Catholic theological study notes that the poetic descriptions in Job 40–41 show God’s “affinity with the forces of chaos” and His sovereignty over them.
In this view:
Behemoth = the overwhelming, untamable forces within creation
Leviathan = the cosmic, chaotic, even demonic forces that terrify humans
And God says: I made them. I control them. You don’t.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @useraccount5881 Catholic or Modernist?
Did it have Imprimatur or Imprimi potest before 1958?
You speak of the present, but that doesn't sound like the past (St. Thomas Aquinas or Haydock) which would actually oblige us.
- A L
- Catholic biblical interpretation does not require Behemoth or Leviathan to be real animals.
The Church allows:
mythic imagery
symbolic creatures
ANE cosmological language
poetic hyperbole
theological reappropriation of pagan motifs
The Catechism explicitly affirms that Scripture uses figurative language and symbolic cosmology.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- a)
- @useraccount5881 By "Catechism" I suppose you mean the infamous CCC from 1992, second edition 2002, to me one prime piece of evidence the man authorising it ("John Paul II") was not Pope.
One key § is 283, basically endorsing Evolution and Deep Time, plus Heliocentric and Big Bang cosmology.
This means, as far as I'm concered, what you mean by "Catholic biblical interpretation" is, in the terminology I use, "modernist biblical interpretation" ...
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- b)
- @useraccount5881 One question, are you by any chance one (Novus Ordo) Deacon Al Lundy*, whom I met on Quora?
The initials A L match and the attitude is very reminiscent.
- IV a)
- A L
- @hglundahl I reject all these: Evolution and Deep Time, plus Heliocentric and Big Bang cosmology. I used to believe, just like you, that Behemoth and Leviathan were just dinosaurs. Not anymore, I believe it's all nonsense. ANE mythological creatures fit this perfectly. John Paul II in my view was a very holy pope.
- michael moroney
- @hglundahl Pope St. John Paul the Great.. was not Pope!!!!!
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @useraccount5881 "I used to believe, just like you, that Behemoth and Leviathan were just dinosaurs."
What's "just" about a dinosaur? If my reconstruction of the pre-Flood world is correct, the dinosaurs partly served as deathtraps along certain corridors to keep people from crossing them.
"John Paul II in my view was a very holy pope."
The Assisi prayer meeting as well as CCC §283 argues otherwise.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @michaelmoroney7785 Anyone who wants to say he was Pope should explain how a good Pope could authorise §283 in the CCC.
IV b)
- A L
- @hglundahl No, I am not.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- @useraccount5881 Thank you.
- Footnote *
- Al Lundy for instance on What's an Apologist?
"The 6:13 catechism affirms in paragraph 107 that 6:16 scriptures inspired truth is that which 6:19 God wanted put into sacred writings for 6:21 the sake of our salvation, not to 6:23 provide scientific information about 6:25 geology or paleontology."
The latter is certainly not in the paragraph itself. It's an overreach on the words "for the sake of our salvation"
The inspired books teach the truth. "Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures."
Note, "without error" — in other words, not even errors outside the directly salvific truths.
I could be saved without knowing a certain Dorcas lived in Joppe or that that is near Lydda. This doesn't mean I can say St. Luke was mistaken about this historic or geographic detail.
There are some apostates who indeed have made a spin off Dei Verbum 11, especially the words "for the sake of our salvation" and as it hasn't been contradicted, this is one reason to reject the document and therefore also the council itself. Vatican II was not a valid council, it was not convoked or concluded by a valid Pope.
"Father William 6:43 Stoker taught that God does not fill 6:45 gaps in scientific explanation,"
I didn't see him wearing cassock and Roman collar .... you did however quote him as alluding to a sentiment common among scoffers in the scientific community (yes, there are such, their faculties don't recognise theology as queen of sciences and we live in the age of apostasy), and which it has itself taken up from a modernist and evolution believing Calvinist from Scotland, Henry Drummond.
"but 6:47 rather grounds all existence and order."
Which doesn't limit existence, order or causation to the items all scientists recognise or to the theories now most current.
"6:50 This allows Catholics to read Genesis as 6:52 true theological revelation about who 6:55 created and why while accepting 6:57 scientific evidence about how and when."
Did Abraham have parents and are they in Genesis? Was Jesus God while walking in Earth? Check Genesis 5 and 11 for the time distance between Adam and Abraham, Mark 10:6 on the time distance between creation and Adam.
"The Catholic 7:16 Church embraces both the truth of 7:18 scripture rightly interpreted according 7:20 to its literary forms and divine 7:22 intention and the truth of God's 7:24 creation as science reveals it."
Traditional Catholic dogma doesn't pretend there are different literary forms in historic books, nor that Science is "revealing" things.
You have just identified the "Catholic Church" with these two and untraditional errors.
7:32 "They answer different questions"
Not if "Science" (falsely so called) encroaches on Biblical history. They then answer the same questions in opposite ways.
Precisely as politics sometimes encroaches on Catholic morals (you may have heard of a country where abortion clinics are protected even from silent prayer outside). Then, again, they answer the question of what we should do in different and opposed ways.
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