A Boy and His Dinosaur Trivia Quiz

Answer: True

"And God prepareth the great monsters, and every living creature that is creeping, which the waters have teemed with, after their kind, and every fowl with wing, after its kind, and God seeth that [it is] good" Genesis 1:21, Young's Literal Translation.

Many other translations also say "monsters", but some say "creatures" and the King James says "whales".

Clearly, whales wouldn't be dinosaurs or even dragons or serpents, but "monsters" could be. The legend of the Loch Ness Monster comes to mind. Some creationists believe that this passage is talking about marine dinosaurs, such as plesiosaurs, while others believe that it means generic sea animals, like whales, dolphins, sharks, etc. The ancient Hebrew word is "tanninim", the plural form of "tannin", and the word usually refers to a snake or a dragon (reptile) in the Bible. In modern Hebrew, "tannin" actually means "crocodile". Some readers confuse "tannin" with "tannim", the Biblical word for "jackals", which are wild dogs. A jackal is a "tan", while "tannim" is the plural, but again, "tannin" is singular for, usually, serpent, or dragon (yeah, either the kind in pagan mythology, fairytales, and popular media or possibly a type of dinosaur; perhaps both depending upon context or specific verses). So there is a good chance that these are large reptiles in Genesis 1, though still a chance that in certain cases, "tanninim" refer to sea creatures in general or simply whales.

Interestingly enough, the King James translates the same word "tanninim" as "dragons" in Psalm 74:13: "Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters."

Young earth creationists believe that God created sea creatures, including marine monsters or reptiles, on the fifth day and that He created land dinosaurs with the rest of the land animals and humans on the sixth day.

Old earth creationists, like young ones, believe that God created everything, including the garden of Eden, but they believe that there was a pre-human world in which the dinosaurs existed. Some believe that something happened, such as Satan falling from Heaven, that resulted in God needing to re-create the world. Unlike atheism, which teaches that Adam and Eve never existed and evolution, which says that humans came from animals, old earth creationism really has no impact on the gospel of Christ, but young earth creationists believe that old earth creationists are wrong for promoting the idea that death and carnivores existed before Adam and Eve sinned. Some, however, believe in an old earth and that the dinosaurs originally were vegetarians, but Satan corrupted them and they began to eat each other, so God had to destroy the earth. Old earth creationism is distinct from theistic evolution, which is the belief that a divine force guided the evolution process.

Answer: Serpent

Young earth creationists often believe that the Biblical dragons were dinosaurs or dinosaur-like creatures and that dinosaurs living with people throughout history helped to inspire dragon stories.

There is a considerable amount of evidence that the original serpent was a dragon. I have found several articles from Bible believers that state that the original serpent was probably a dragon, and the Bible, at times, seems to use "dragon" and "serpent" interchangeably. In Exodus, Moses' staff turns into a "nakhash" and Aaron's turns into a "tannin", but both are translated as "serpents". The word "tannin" in other verses is frequently translated as "dragon" but sometimes different translations of the same verses will use "serpent" or "snake". The New Testament book of Revelation consistently uses "dragon" and "that old serpent" to refer to Satan, the fallen angel whom Christians believe used the serpent to deceive humankind. In a similar way, the Old Testament calls Leviathan "the dragon" and "the serpent".

Deuteronomy 32:33 of the King James and several other translations, including Young's Literal Translation, refer to venom of "dragons" and then the poison of "cobras" or "asps", like they are connected, if not interchangeable. Other translations say "serpents" instead of "dragons" and then refer to the specific snake sub-species.

For the interesting information above, I am referring to common translations, such as the New American Standard, the King James, Young's Literal, the New Living, and the New International Version, to name a few. BibleGateway.com is a great way to view verses from many different translations side by side.

In Genesis 3, as punishment for the animal's part in the conspiracy, God curses it to be the most cursed animal--it would crawl on its belly and eat dust. This suggests that the original creature at least had legs and probably didn't have a fork tongue. Of course, we can only imagine what the serpent was like; did it have wings? Could it breathe fire?

Even secular sources like Britannica and Wikipedia say that the word "dragon" derives from the Greek "drakon", which means "serpent" and that some mythological dragons were/are considered to be snake-like. Others seem more lizard-like, hence the dinosaur belief. Mythological dragons are apparently very intelligent, while the Bible implies that serpents are intelligent.

If dragons of Scripture were dinosaurs, and the original serpent was a dragon, then it is possible that the serpent was a TYPE of dinosaur--a type that got cursed while most dinosaurs didn't. I say that the original serpent, based upon the evidence, was probably a "dragon"--I think it could very well have been a dragon like the fantasy stories portray or even like the Leviathan from the book of Job. I also say that PERHAPS it was a type of dinosaur. I know that this is controversial stuff. Even if all Christians agreed that the serpent was a dragon (which they don't) not all Christians are going to agree that dragons were dinosaurs or vice-versa. But it is a popular theory among some Christians.

Answer: Kings

"In the year that King Ahaz died this oracle came:
. . .

"Wail, O gate; cry, O city;
Melt away, O Philistia, all of you;
For smoke comes from the north,
And there is no straggler in his ranks.
'How then will one answer the messengers of the nation?'
That the Lord has founded Zion,
And the afflicted of His people will seek refuge in it."
- Isaiah 14: 28 and 31-32, New American Standard

It appears that the Philistines were rejoicing at the death of King Ahaz, a wicked king of Judah, and God tells them to not rejoice, because even though Ahaz was like a snake, his heirs would attack them worse and be worse serpents to them. Isaiah seems to be predicting a war between the Philistines and the Jews and while the land of Philistia (some versions translate it as Palestina) would face destruction, the Jews would be protected.

Now obviously this dragon or flying serpent is a metaphor for a human king in this passage, just as some other dragons elsewhere in Scripture are symbolic of Egypt, of Satan, etc., but one shouldn't assume that just because they are figurative that it means that they were nessacarily fake creatures. After all, vipers and other snakes are real animals. The Bible often uses real animals, like lions, sheep, etc. to be symbolic of other things or people. So what was this winged serpent? An allusion to the original serpent of Genesis before it was cursed? A now extinct type of serpent? What about a flying dinosaur, a pterosaur, like some creationists argue? One can only speculate.

Most of the dragons in the Bible are marine rather than land or flying ones.

Answer: Monster

This is yet another verse that uses the Hebrew word "tannin". Many translations say "monster", some say "dragon" and still others say "big snake".

Because most translate this as "dragon" or "monster", the "big snake" is probably a giant sea serpent or sea monster, like the Leviathan, rather than a python. The Hebrew word for a common snake is "nakhash". Based upon my research, all nakhash are tanninim, but not all tanninim are nakhash. In some cases, such as with the staffs of Moses and Aaron (see Exodus), "tannin" and "nakhash" are used interchangely. But in other cases, the tanninim have legs or possibly fins. I honestly believe that the original serpent was a dragon before it became a snake; that is why people consider it mythological, in my opinion, because it was supposed to exist, but it never did except in people's minds and when God alluded to it in Scripture. Now maybe my fellow creationists and I are both right. Maybe the original serpent was a TYPE of dragon, but other dragons were different reptiles. Several people seem to believe that the "dragons" of the Bible were dinosaurs, while others suggest that they were crocodiles. If even one side is correct, this might explain why the Biblical writer chose to use "nakhash" instead of "tannin" in Genesis 3 to refer to the serpent.

Regarding the incorrect options, the T-Rex and the Raptor were specific dinosaurs, but the Megalodon was a giant shark.

Answer: False

According to almost every translation of Jonah 1:17 I saw, a huge fish swallowed Jonah. The Hebrew word is "dahg" or "fish" instead of "tannin", which various versions of Old Testament verses translate as "dragon" or "monster".

I noticed that in Matthew 12:40, translations tend to say "sea monster" or "whale" instead of "fish". Was Jesus trying to say that the Hebrew scripture was wrong and that a sea dragon or dinosaur actually swallowed Jonah? Well, it's possible that it was a reptile apparently, but we can't know for sure, and Jesus definitely wouldn't consider the Hebrew scripture to be incorrect or to try and contradict it.

Apologetics Press.org states:
"Nearly 300 years before Jesus spoke of Jonah being swallowed by a ketos (Matthew 12:40), translators of the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) used this same Greek word (ketos) to translate the Hebrew word (dahg, fish) found in Jonah 1:17, 2:1, and 2:10. The fact is, as Hebrew and Greek scholar Jack Lewis concluded, both dahg and ketos "designate sea creatures of undefined species" (1976, 2:178). In no way did Jesus, the Creator of all things (John 1:3), make a mistake about what kind of animal God 'had prepared' to swallow Jonah. The animal was a great sea creature, and not necessarily a great 'fish' according to our modern, more limited, definition of the word. It may very well have been a type of fish (e.g., shark), water-living mammal (e.g., whale), or extinct, dinosaur-like, water-living reptile. We simply cannot be sure."

The author, Eric Lyons, then went on to say that God didn't classify animals into our modern classifications. He had very basic labels. Just as bats could be called birds because they flew, marine animals could be called fish because they swam. However, it's easy for me to imagine that it was just a fish (or possibly whale) especially since the Old Testament word typically translated as "dragon" is "tannin" and the New Testament word for "dragon" is, shocker (just kidding), "drakon".

Answer: Job

Behemoth is from Job 40.

"Behold now, Behemoth, which I made as well as you;
He eats grass like an ox. Behold now, his strength in his loins
And his power in the muscles of his belly. He bends his tail like a cedar;
The sinews of his thighs are knit together. His bones are tubes of bronze;
His limbs are like bars of iron. He is the first of the ways of God . . . " verses 15-19, New American Standard Bible

This isn't the complete description from the chapter, as it continues to verse 24, and I was going to try to put it in my own words, but I am not sure if I can do it justice.

A popular interpretation is the hippo because verse 21 mentions lotus plants and the river, but young earth creationists argue that the creature must have had an extremely long and thick tail to be able to bend it like a cedar tree. They also argue that the description suggests something more magnificent than any animal living today. Some who argue against the dinosaur theory say that the tail isn't literally the tail, but rather the um, male part.

Interestingly, translations of verse 19 vary as to whether this was the first or the most amazing animal that God made.

Answer: Rahab

In Isaiah 51, the prophet reminds the Jewish people that God was the one who pierced Rahab the dragon and dried up the sea so that their ancestors could cross over. This is a reference to the Exodus and the dragon is symbolic of the nation of Egypt.

Amazingly, even though the Egyptians had once enslaved the Israelites/Hebrews/Jews, during the time of Isaiah, they formed an alliance with Egypt and sought their help and shelter. In Isaiah 30, God rebukes the Jews for this and the Passion Translation (TPT) of Isaiah 30:7 is very interesting. It states, "Egypt's help is utterly worthless; that's why I nicknamed her Rahab, the Do-Nothing Dragon."

Answer: Pharaoh of Egypt

Ezekiel talks about God's plan to destroy the Egyptian empire. Just as Isaiah calls Egypt a dragon, Ezekiel calls the Pharaoh a dragon or a sea monster (according to many translations) though the Pharaoh is a male dragon, while it depicts the nation as feminine.

Some claim that God is calling the Pharaoh a crocodile here, since Ezekiel 29 mentions the Nile and crocodiles are in the Nile. This view has some merit; even the NASB, which calls him a monster, talks about God catching the Pharaoh in His net. But one shouldn't rule out the possibility of it being a sea monster/serpent or dragon, or even a marine dinosaur-like creature. Many translations say "dragon" or "monster".

Answer: Psalms

The specific verse is Psalm 148:7.

While the Bible usually uses "dragons" or "monsters" to be symbolic of evil places or characters, here it seems to portray them in a positive or at least neutral light. Psalms also portrays these as literal creatures that God made. These are likely the same type of creatures from Genesis 1; "sea creatures" indicates any variety of sea animals, while "dragons" suggests marine reptiles or dinosaurs.

There is no Book of Jerusalem in the Bible, although Jerusalem appears frequently throughout most books of the Bible.

Answer: Leviathan

The Old Testament mentions dragons many more times than the New Testament does. I haven't even included all of the Old Testament dragon verses in this quiz. Revelation is the ONLY New Testament book that mentions a dragon.

"In that day the Lord will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent,
With His fierce and great and mighty sword,
Even Leviathan the twisted serpent;
And He will kill the dragon who lives in the sea."
- Isaiah 27:1, New American Standard translation

Some Christians believe that Leviathan is the same dragon and serpent that the New Testament calls Satan. "In that day" refers to the second coming of Christ, in which Jesus will return and Messianic prophecies will be fulfilled, Israel will be delivered, the Millennial Kingdom and later New Earth will be set up; Satan/Leviathan will be bound and eventually destroyed.

Some believe that Leviathan might also be symbolic of the nations that oppressed Israel, such as Egypt. Psalms 74:14 says that God crushed the heads of Leviathan, past tense, and gave him as food to the wilderness. This seems to match what God said He was going to do to the Pharaoh in Ezekiel 29 (give him as food to the beasts of the field).

But in Job, the Leviathan appears to be a creature that God made, not merely a symbol. Psalms 104:26 also says that God formed Leviathan so that he could swim in the ocean. The most literal reading of the texts suggest a fire-breathing, marine dragon. Many young earth creationists believe that it was a dinosaur-like ancient, now extinct sea reptile. Certain scholars suggest it was a crocodile. Perhaps good candidates are Sarcosuchus and Deinosuchus, crocodile and alligator like creatures that were huge, powerful, and terrifying. Still, I can't help but wonder if there is a connection between the original serpent and the Leviathan, although the serpent of Genesis 3 seems to be a land creature. Actually, Answers in Genesis states that the Leviathan was probably semi-aquatic, going back and forth between the land and sea.