In Job 40 verses 15 to 24 what animal is the 'behemoth' living at the time of Job?

Answer 1

A:Job 40 contains fragmentary references to a now-lost creation story, similar to others from West Semitic mythology. The behemoth and the leviathan were chaos monsters that God defeated at the time of creation. God slayed the leviathan, drew out his tongue and broke his head, but the behemoth accepted defeat and the indignity of eating grass like an enormous ox.

Answer:

The category this question falls into is 'Old Testament' of the Bible and not some lost mythology of mankind. As such, the Creation story in Genesis is fully present.

With the above set, let's look at the verses noted: "Behold now behemoth, which I (God) made WITH thee;" get that, living in the reign of man. Continuing we read that this creature had a 'tail like a cedar' or very large tree - a comparison to other creatures no doubt. "He (behomoth) is the chief of the ways of God (the big land creature): He that made him can make His sword to approach unto him." This creature is so large that no man at that time could hope to kill behomoth, only God could. An awesome animal.

So this animal was a tremendous creature with a very large tail that lived in the waters of the Jordan having a very large mouth as the NIV states, "If a river rages, he is not alarmed; He is confident, though the Jordan rushes to his mouth." Any Pre-Adamic, young creationist theory does not fit here as 'sauropods' had tiny mouths and drank in a sucking manner through a straw. Further, Job states Behemoth ate grass. Most Geologist today would note that grasses are only foundafter the 'Cretaceous' period when dinosaurs roamed but are specifically mentioned in the Creation story of Genesis 1:11-12. As there are no fossil records with human bones being found with dinosaurs, behemoth cannot be a dinosaur.

So what was behomoth (Hebrew for 4 legged beast)or was Job just making up a story to illustrate a point?Well so far we have shown that he wasn't a dino.

The Fossil record does show a creature with massive bones classified as an unknown type of rhino. In 1910, a British scientist discovered such a creature and named it 'Baluchitherium,' meaning beast of 'Baluchistan'after the province in Iran where the bones were found. Note here, this area of Israel to Iran to Saudi Arabia to Egypt is generally the area of the origins of man in The Bible and not Africa where scientist now claim was the starting place. In 2003, a French team of scientists returns to the area and found COMPLETE remains of many male & femail baluchitherium just lying on the ground suggesting that these massive creatures were swept away by a river flooding, accumulating on its banks.

The dimensions of the fossil indicated that this animal had a head that was 5 foot long with a gaping mouth fitting its body size proportionally. They estimated that it stood 18 feet tall at the shoulder and 26 feet tall at its neck. From the tip of its nose to the rump, it was 30 feet long. This is equivalent to about 3 of todays African Elephants. It had a large 8 foot long tail like the cedar description of Job. Quite a behemoth!!

The Illustrated Library of the Natural Sciences, Volume 2 says this is the largest land mammal to ever existed and 'represents about the maximum size to which a land-living mammal can develop.

Last point in support of this animal, Job never mentions any 'horns' in his account and the fossil record doesn't show any being found. So far, in man's search for answers, this fossil evidence is the best candidate for the 'behemoth' thus discovered :)