This planet has been rotating on its axis and orbiting the sun for a very long time, during which Lower Egypt really has experienced devastating swarms of frogs and locusts, and really has seen its livestock eradicated by pestilence.
Cities really have been incinerated by volcanic eruptions (fire) suffused with sulfur (aka brimstone).
A layer of archaeological ruin beneath modern Jerusalem provides overwhelming evidence that there really was a major earthquake there in the eighth century B.C., which really was when Uzziah was king.
Every September the sun passes through Virgo (which means "virgin" and is the only constellation that represents a woman) on the elipitical line.
3 B.C. was right within that narrow window of years that historians say Jesus was born, and at that time astrology was the rage across many cultures, very much including Jewish culture. On one particular September night in that one particular year, everything across the universe's vastness of space and time really was aligned in just such a way that, for a period of about 80 minutes, someone gazing up at Virgo from Earth would have seen: 1) twelve bright stars above its head; 2) the moon near its feet; 3) the two constellations we now call Scorpius and Libra below it, though in ancient times the latter was considered to be part of the former and in combination they were sometimes referred to as a dragon; 4) the constellation Leo (aka lion) above Virgo; and 5) within Leo, a conjunction of Jupiter (aka the king planet) and Regulus (aka the king star).
The Book of Revelation was composed after Jesus died and its twelfth chapter is in the past tense, self-evidently referring back to something that took place before John of Patmos ever put pen to papyrus. It states that a "great sign appeared in heaven" (stock language for the sky) as "a woman clothed with the sun" (stock astrology verbiage for times when the sun passes through a constellation on the eliptical line)... and it describes the woman as having "the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars"... and it says "the dragon stood before" her "so that when she bore her child he might devour it."
And it's tantalizing to remember that: 1) Jesus was born in Judah, a nation whose symbol was a lion; and 2) one of the celestial signs visible above Virgo during that 80-minute sliver of time in 3 B.C. was a conjunction of the king planet and king star -- inside the constellation that represents a lion.
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In other words, when talking with somebody who denies or doubts the Bible's veracity, it's often valid to defend it by citing proven natural phenomena.
It's also valid to cite things that are accepted as true from the historical record. If you ask historians, even those who are ardent atheists acknowledge that Jesus was real; that he was crucified and buried in a tomb; that claims of him rising from the dead were made soon after the crucifixion; that those making the claims were so sincere in their belief that their behavior was radically and permanently altered; and that the authorities never brought Jesus's corpse out from the tomb to disprove the rumors, despite their keen desire to keep the fledgling church from spreading and threatening to overturn their apple cart.
But it is important to remember that X corroborating or being consistent with Y is not the same thing as X proving Y. Not in the "beyond a shadow of a doubt" way that many cynics skeptics like to demand.
Some people who question the Bible's veracity want to believe it, but struggle with rational doubts. Others are simply indifferent and don't care. Then there are those who do not want to believe, and therefore will not believe no matter what.
People from the latter camp often claim that lack of evidence is the reason for their unbelief, but that's a bluff. They say that because they fancy themselves among the smart set (don't we all?) and know it sounds better to say "there's no evidence" than to say "I won't consider that evidence."
Like the example of atheist historians and Jesus's crucifixion illustrates, people are supremely capable of ignoring evidence when it points in a direction they're not comfortable with. It has been almost 2,000 years since the crucifixion, and so far nobody (literally nobody) has offered a single explanation (not even one) besides resurrection that can explain all of the accepted facts from the historical record.
Regardless of what they say, those who deny the resurrection don't do so because there is no evidence. They do so because their worldview precludes the supernatural and thus prompts them to dismiss supernatural explanations out of hand -- or because they have an intense philosophical disagreement with their perception of Christianity, and that disagreement compels them to dig in their heels and refuse to concede an inch even on non-philosophical matters.
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While writing this post I came to a fork in the road, and so far have tried to take both of them even though I know better.
The previous section saw me motoring down an apologetics path but this series is supposed to be primarily about the Bible itself, so pardon me while I turn the steering wheel and try to cut across to the path I should be on.
Where was I going when I started? Okay, I remember: Citing the natural record is good but acting as if it can always provide proof of specific ancient events is not, for that puts eggs in baskets where they don't belong.
The Bible is primarily about the supernatural, not the natural, and while the former can leave physical marks on the latter, it does not have to. By definition, it often won't. When we seek physical marks in the natural world, we must not forget that the natural world is neither permanent nor stagnant. Erosion, decomposition, desertification, forestation, drifting continents, rising and falling water levels, etc. Tiny needles in immense hay stacks are occasionally found, but sometimes those needles disappear because animals swallow them while burrowing through and gobbling up insects.
Putting eggs in the wrong baskets can falsely weaken faith if people come to feel that there must be physical confirmation for most of what is described in the Bible's 66/73 books. Note what happened in 2014, when Ken Ham wavered (!) during Q&A after the over-hyped debate with Bill Nye. He was asked: "Hypothetically, if evidence existed that caused you to have to admit that the universe was older than 10,000 years and creation did not occur over six days, would you still believe in God, and the historical Jesus of Nazareth, and that Jesus was the son of God?" The always cocksure Ham responded by talking for more than a minute and a half without saying "yes" (if you care to watch that exchange, it is here at the 2:18:00 mark).
I find it striking that Ham could not would not bring himself to admit that Christians who aren't him might be right when they interpret Genesis less hyper-literally than him... or when they point out that perhaps we should remember Genesis wasn't written in modern English to an audience of Western Civ kindergarteners, so perhaps there is more depth to it than what gets talked about in Sunday School.
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The Bible refers multiple times to three specific creatures that sound like they come straight from J. K. Rowling's Potterverse guide book Fantastic Beasts.
I am talking, of course, about dragons, Leviathan, and Behemoth, and for some reason I think I need to say that none of these appear in Genesis.
There are variances in translations, but without even doing all that deep a dive I can tell you that the Bible explicitly mentions dragons no less than 25 times across eight different books (Deuteronomy, Job, Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, Malachi, Revelation); depicts Leviathan in a trio of books (Job, Psalms, Isaiah); and offers up a detailed description of Behemoth in Job 40.
Nobody living today knows exactly what the authors were writing about when they used those terms, but it's fun to speculate and there has been lots of intelligent and logical speculation about it over the years.
You can find strong cases being made that Behemoth was referring to the hippopotamus or elephant, and Leviathan to the crocodile or whale.
Some people (Ken Ham being one of them) argue that the words Behemoth, Leviathan, and dragon were all referring to dinosaurs. They specifically claim that Behemoth was a sauropod dinosaur, seeing as how sauropods had long tails and Job 40:17 says Behemoth "makes his tail stiff like a cedar." Cedar trees, you see, are very big.
However the hippo/elephant crowd makes sure to point out that Job 40:17 does not say Behemoth's tail was "big like a cedar," but rather that Behemoth "makes his tail stiff like a cedar" -- and the elephant half of the hippo/elephant crowd is quick to point out that elephants hold their tails stiff and erect when they're on alert.
Everybody agrees that at least some of the Bible's many uses of the word dragon are metaphoric references to Satan. The dinosaur crowd also believes that some uses of the word dragon are literal references to dinosaurs and/or pterodactyls.
People suggest that Job's description of Leviathan is hyperbolic and not meant to be taken at face value, seeing as how it says "His breath kindles coals, and a flame comes forth from his mouth," to which other people retort that there's no reason to doubt whether an animal species might have been able to breathe fire. Those who make that retort invariably (and accurately) note that bombardier beetles right now defend themselves by spewing acid whose temperature is the boiling point of water.
Who knows? Nobody does! I am not in the dinosaur crowd, but I'm man enough to admit that those who are in that crowd do make their point.
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I think it's obvious that some uses of dragon, especially in Revelation, are referring to the devil, and I believe others uses of it are referring to other demonic spirits.
I strongly suspect that Behemoth and Leviathan refer to supernatural entities, not to animals from the natural world. And I suspect they refer to individual entities, seeing as how they are used in the singular and capitalized, but again I don't know.
I do find it odd that so many Bible-believers are bent on giving naturalistic explanations for the appearance of these three words in Scripture. Why strip the supernatural out?
Dragons. Leviathan. Behemoth. For me, the first word that springs to mind when I hear those words is "mythological." I think many Christians are afraid to use that word when discussing the Bible because in their minds "myth" is synonymous with "fake" -- but that ain't exactly so, especially when you look back at how the word was used earlier in history.
Since I speak English and I presume you do too, I just hopped east across the Atlantic (over the web, of course) to consult dictionaries from England itself. And I see that even today, in anno Domini 2021, Cambridge defines myth as "an ancient story or set of stories, especially explaining the early history of a group of people or about natural events and facts," while Oxford Reference defines it as "a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events."
Note that neither of them says "fictitious" or "false" or "made up" or anything of the sort, even if there's often an inference or implication that such terms apply.
I think we should reflect on what C.S. Lewis wrote in 1931: "Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened: and one must be content to accept it in the same way, remembering that it is God's myth where the others are men's myths..."
If you believe God created the material world but resides in another, that he cast his spiritual enemies out of one realm and into this one, that he consigns the souls of the dead either to eternal torment in Hell or eternal paradise in Heaven, that he is omnipresent and exists outside of time, that he made a donkey talk, that he parted the sea, that he caused the deaf to hear and the paralyzed to walk, that he brought Lazarus back from the dead, that he willingly trapped himself inside a mortal human body that died a gruesome death and then came back to life three days later... how far-fetched does it sound to say that dragons, Behemoth, and Leviathan might be something other than hippos, elephants, crocodiles, velociraptors, and brontosauruses?
To be continued...
The first three posts in this series can be read here, here, and here, respectively.
If the astronomical and astrological coincidences of September 11, 3 B.C. sound interesting to you, you can read all about them in a book by Ernest L. Martin. It's available in paperback for a cool 250 bucks on Amazon, or, hey, you can read it online for free by going here! Or you can just watch Michael Heiser discuss the topic on this episode of SkyWatch TV.
