WG Fantasy

Dragon Interpretations
Many theories have been set forth proposing to explain the virtually universal belief in dragons among ancient peoples. Some have seen dragons as a product of the human imagination, resulting from fear of the unknown. It has been pointed out that as late as 1600 A.D., maps were decorated about the borders of unknown regions with drawings of dragon-like monsters. Yet it is hard to imagine how such widely separated people groups all imagined virtually the same thing, if that imagined entity had no basis in reality or in their experience.

In my undergraduate study of literature, one frequent interpretation of archetypes in literature was that people had a universal need to believe in these things, that the human subconscious understood at some deep level the same set of symbols, perhaps gained through their common (supposed) evolutionary ancestry. The most frequent modern interpretation given to myths and archetypes is that they are subconsciously symbolic. One wonders, however, why it is only humankind that has left this constant, ancient record of dealings with dragons, and how such a memory could have lived through millions of years of evolution and changes into entirely different kinds of animals.

For these reasons, even many secular authors have come almost, but not quite, to the conclusion that early people encountered dinosaurs, and passed down the memory of these encounters in tales of dragons. Peter Costello, who researched Lake Monster legends and alleged sightings in considerable depth, wrote, "...as we go through the early accounts of Irish lake monsters we shall find that there is often only a superficial covering of fancy...real animals are clearly behind some of the stories."

The World Book Encyclopedia (1973) notes "the dragons of legend are strangely like actual creatures that have lived in the past. They are much like the giant reptiles which inhabited the earth long before man is supposed to have appeared on earth."

The writer's use of the phrase "is supposed to have appeared" shows that he recognized the problem. Man was not supposed to have appeared until much later, but it surely seems that man did in fact see dinosaurs, drawing pictures and writing about what he saw. How could he have written about something that lay buried deep within the earth, having died out millions of years earlier?

Peter Costello presents the same problem. "The plesiosaur theory," he writes, "which appeared early on, still has many supporters....but again the difficulties, whether it could have survived for sixty million years undetected...are very great."

Daniel Cohen, author of The Greatest Monsters in the World, also says that there is a "sensational possibility" that the dragon legend originated with the dinosaurs, observing that:

no creatures that ever lived looked more like dragons than dinosaurs...there is a problem with this theory. The problem is time. As far as we know, all the dinosaurs died out over 70 million years ago. That long ago, there were no people on earth. So who could remember the dinosaurs?

Cohen says that "some early discoverers of dinosaur bones called them 'dragon bones'." But apparently because the time and evolutionary development problems are so great in the minds of those who have accepted this model of origins, Cohen boldly asserts that "scientists today no longer identify dinosaurs with dragons."

The obvious conclusion is that except for their devotion to evolutionary theory, identification of dinosaurs with dragons would be the logical interpretation of the evidence.

Only two years after the publication of Greatest Monsters, however, Carl Sagan, a renowned astronomer and popularizer of the atheistic evolutionary interpretation of science, published The Dragons of Eden, which in spite of the time and evolutionary development problems asks, "Could there have been man-like creatures who actually encountered Tyrannosaurus Rex?" Sagan asserts, "One way or another, there were dragons in Eden." Outspokenly an evolutionist, Sagan's book is subtitled, "Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence." He does not, of course, view Eden in the classical Christian or Biblical sense of the word. By "Eden," he means an emerging humanity's dawning awareness of their existence. And he doesn't say human beings encountered Rex, but "man-like creatures." But this is still quite a step in the thinking of those tied to their evolutionary time scale.

Dragons in the Bible
For the Bible-believing creationist, of course, no time or evolutionary problems exist, and the facts of ancient literature and prehistoric art square very nicely with the Scriptural account. According to Genesis 1:21-23, water animals were created on the fifth day; according to Genesis 1:24-25, land animals, as well as man and woman, were created on the sixth day. Thus, according to the Bible all animals were created at approximately the same time. There were no long ages when man was not present and when dinosaurs ruled the earth. The Authorized Version utilizes the word "dragon" sixteen times, all in the Old Testament, rendering two Hebrew words which mean "sea or land monster."

But perhaps even more graphic are some Biblical references which use other names for the creatures but which clearly describe dinosaurs. In Job 40:15ff, for example, Behemoth is described: "Is strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly" (40:'16). Behemoth was a huge creature, and reading of it, one schooled in early literature can scarcely help but think of Fafnir, the dragon of early Danish fame. Behemoth, we read, moved his tail like a cedar. A tail as huge and powerful as a cedar tree? What animal can that possibly describe but a dinosaur? "His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron" we read (40:18), perhaps recalling Sigurd, trembling because of the strength of the dragon Fafnir. When the author of Job writes "he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him," can the writer mean that only God is normally able to bring about the death of such a powerful creature? Again, I mentally envision Sigurd hiding in the pit, waiting for just the right moment to strike at one of the few places the dragon was vulnerable. Behemoth is a water creature, for "he lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed, and fens...the willows of the brook compass him about" (40:22). This creature has a huge thirst, for "he drinketh up a river" (40:23). What animal other than a dinosaur can be described like this?

In the next chapter of Job, we read of another great creature, Leviathan. As with Behemoth, the record tells of God describing these creatures, and implies that Job was familiar with them. God is reminding Job of the great difficulty in catching a creature like Leviathan. God had created Leviathan, for He declares, "whatsoever is under the whole heaven is mine" (41:11). Leviathan has terrible teeth and scales or a strong, protective covering, typical of many dinosaurs. Do you see Sigurd trembling before Fafnir when you read, "When he (Leviathan) raiseth himself up, the mighty are afraid" (41:25)? Job is usually considered to be one of the oldest of the Bible books, possibly written when ice covered large parts of Europe and North America shortly after the Great Flood. Many Bible scholars feel that some dinosaurs may have survived the Flood, being water creatures, but that due to severe climactic changes, they died out within a few generations after the Flood. If these small-brained creatures were experiencing hardships to which they were unaccustomed and ill-adapted, one can easily understand why a tradition of monstrous, fearsome dragons is recorded in virtually all early western cultures, which would have developed during or shortly following the time of Job.

The Bible presents this time in history as a time of dispersion (Gen 10,11). People groups were moving out away from Ararat, where their fathers had landed after the Flood, out away from Babel, where they had congregated. They were venturing into the new lands that were to become their homes. The whole earth was unknown to them. At the same time, great climatic changes may have caused the dinosaurs to have been uncharacteristically hostile.

It is true that eastern traditions have not viewed the dragon as fearsome and evil, as have western cultures. We can only speculate as to the reason, but it is possible that the eastward migrating people groups simply did not have the gruesome encounters that their western contemporaries must have experienced. If so, these eastern peoples may have told their children stories of dinosaurs as they were handed down from before the Flood, when life was ideally adapted to their existence, food was plentiful, and perhaps animals and humans did not kill one another for food (Gen. 9:3).

CONCLUSION
I propose that early humanity did encounter dragons, or dinosaurs. This means that humanity did not evolve millions of years after the dinosaurs became extinct, but that the two co-existed. Each piece of evidence by itself may perhaps be explained away, as those who accept evolutionary concepts are prone to do. But the evolutionary model of history which separates humanity and dinosaurs by millions of years leaves too many unanswered questions. How could a people draw pictures of dinosaurs on ancient cave walls, if none were around to serve as models? How is it that so many ancient cultures wrote about dinosaurs (dragons), if they were unknown to early humanity? How do the early literary accounts of dragons end up being so realistic, down to the smallest details?

The evidence for the co-existence of humanity with dinosaurs is overwhelming. I have often heard it said that if evidence can be adduced from a number of different disciplines, it is strong indication to the veracity of a hypothesis. I have shown evidence from archaeology, prehistoric art, ancient literature, legend and mythology, and the Bible. This evidence leads me to the conclusion that human beings shortly after the dispersal from Babel did indeed encounter dinosaurs in the early earth, and that they drew them, wrote of them and passed on tales of them to their children. The dragons of ancient art and literature, I conclude, were in fact dinosaurs.