Word Study: “and God created the dinosaurs!”
So, I've come across this cat, Gerald Schroeder. I love love LOVE when physicist are believers! They have the most compelling witnesses for God. Right away he goes into an explanation of "erev" (night) and "boker" (morning) from Genesis. I've heard other Bible-believing physicists talk about this, but he gave a little different insight. I decided to dig into some of his writings and found an excellent mini-word study on dinosaurs. His full article can be found HERE.
Schroeder points us to Genesis 1:21, “and God created the big taneneem…”
את־התנינם
et-hattanninim
He then goes on to explain some translational problems of the past.
"The entire problem originates with the 2200 year old translation of the Hebrew Bible in to Greek, The Septuagint. There big taneneem is translated as big whales. Elsewhere I have seen big crocodiles, even big dragons. There is an irony of these multiple misunderstandings to the word, taneneem, since it is essentially defined in the second book of the Bible, Exodus. Moses is at the Burning Bush and God tells him to throw his shepherd staff on the ground. It becomes a snake. In Hebrew the word for snake is nahash (Exodus 4:3). This meaning of nahash as snake is well known in the Bible. The meaning of taneneem is the question. Moses with his staff returns to Egypt. Joined by his brother Aaron, they confront Pharaoh: “Let my people go.” Pharaoh demands that they show him a miracle. Aaron at this point throws Moses’ staff on the ground and it becomes a taneen, the singular of taneneem (Exodus 7:10). Since neither Moses nor Aaron express any surprise at the appearance of a taneen, clearly taneen has within it the meaning of nahash, snake. If the staff had become a whale or a crocodile as previous translations in Genesis, obviously Moses and Aaron [and Pharaoh too] would had shown amazement. But the Bible makes it clear that they were not surprised".
A quick dig of תַּנִּין (tannin) gave me these results. This shows that, for the most part, "tannin" is translated as "snake" or "dragon". Schroeder continues:
"Nahash means snake. That is certain from its multiple uses elsewhere in the Bible. We also know that since taneneem is used in the opening chapter of the Bible it must be a general category, since other than Adam, only general categories are used in that chapter. Hence taneneem is the general category within which snake falls. The category into which snakes fall is reptile. The correct English translation of big taneneem is the big reptiles. The irony is that if we translate big reptiles, the big taneneem, into Greek, as was the task of the Septuagint, we read dino (big or terrible) saurus (reptiles), dinosaurus. Had the Greek translation 2200 years ago been faithful to the Hebrew we would have read in Genesis 1:21 something similar to: “and God created the dinosaurs!”"
Little nuances like these are why it is so important to dig into the word yourself and ask the Holy Spirit to give you discernment. Sometimes it takes a while, but if you ask, you will be guided toward the answers.
Schroeder points us to Genesis 1:21, “and God created the big taneneem…”
את־התנינם
et-hattanninim
He then goes on to explain some translational problems of the past.
"The entire problem originates with the 2200 year old translation of the Hebrew Bible in to Greek, The Septuagint. There big taneneem is translated as big whales. Elsewhere I have seen big crocodiles, even big dragons. There is an irony of these multiple misunderstandings to the word, taneneem, since it is essentially defined in the second book of the Bible, Exodus. Moses is at the Burning Bush and God tells him to throw his shepherd staff on the ground. It becomes a snake. In Hebrew the word for snake is nahash (Exodus 4:3). This meaning of nahash as snake is well known in the Bible. The meaning of taneneem is the question. Moses with his staff returns to Egypt. Joined by his brother Aaron, they confront Pharaoh: “Let my people go.” Pharaoh demands that they show him a miracle. Aaron at this point throws Moses’ staff on the ground and it becomes a taneen, the singular of taneneem (Exodus 7:10). Since neither Moses nor Aaron express any surprise at the appearance of a taneen, clearly taneen has within it the meaning of nahash, snake. If the staff had become a whale or a crocodile as previous translations in Genesis, obviously Moses and Aaron [and Pharaoh too] would had shown amazement. But the Bible makes it clear that they were not surprised".
A quick dig of תַּנִּין (tannin) gave me these results. This shows that, for the most part, "tannin" is translated as "snake" or "dragon". Schroeder continues:
"Nahash means snake. That is certain from its multiple uses elsewhere in the Bible. We also know that since taneneem is used in the opening chapter of the Bible it must be a general category, since other than Adam, only general categories are used in that chapter. Hence taneneem is the general category within which snake falls. The category into which snakes fall is reptile. The correct English translation of big taneneem is the big reptiles. The irony is that if we translate big reptiles, the big taneneem, into Greek, as was the task of the Septuagint, we read dino (big or terrible) saurus (reptiles), dinosaurus. Had the Greek translation 2200 years ago been faithful to the Hebrew we would have read in Genesis 1:21 something similar to: “and God created the dinosaurs!”"
Little nuances like these are why it is so important to dig into the word yourself and ask the Holy Spirit to give you discernment. Sometimes it takes a while, but if you ask, you will be guided toward the answers.