Two of the major roles in the story are reptiles. Well, Satan is represented as a reptile, but leviathan also has a starring scene. For the entire 41st chapter of the Bible’s book of Job, God is speaking about nothing but this sea monster and the lessons we can learn from him. In fact, these are God’s concluding remarks and Job agreed that this was sufficient prompt for repentance. As did the 41st chapter, this blog post will also focus on leviathan.
God speaks of leviathan as a monstrously huge, fire-breathing, invincible reptile. In legends and mythology, the word for this would be dragon. The scientific name might be dinosaur, but this term does not strictly include all large reptiles. Whether leviathan was a dinosaur or not, he certainly was a terrible lizard.
For the story, we are using some back-story to explain our model for this monster. To start with, we will address this idea, expressed in some Bible edition footnotes, that leviathan was a crocodile. When was the last time you saw a fire-breathing crocodile? OK, so while this is clearly an error, it may not be as far off as it first seems. If you significantly increase the size, add a fire-breathing feature and extend the armour plating, then this could fit the Biblical description. What is interesting is that there is fossil evidence of extremely large crocodiles, called sarcosuchus, that many Biblical creationists think may be a good candidate for leviathan. He even has a large bulb on the end of his snout, which could house the chemical factory for igniting the flame. You can find this mentioned on AiG’s website as well as the book “Dragons of the Deep” by Carl Wieland, published by Master Books, and the video “Dragons or Dinosaurs” produced by Cloud Ten Pictures.
To this we have added to our model a methane chamber and gastrolith dust. When circus performers breathe fire, they spit some flammable substance out of their mouth, igniting the stream with a flaming torch. Our leviathan has a methane chamber for collecting digestive gases, to be expelled at will from the mouth. In conjunction, “his neesings” would ignite the expelled methane stream. This concept is reminiscent of the bombardier beetles’ chemical chambers. Also, many animals of this type have gastroliths, which are stones in the leading section of the digestive tract. These stones would rub together, over time, making sand and dust. As the methane is expelled, some of the dust would be caught up and also expelled, thus being super-heated, forming sparks.
God talks about leviathan for quite some time, and this will be quoted, by God, directly from the Bible, in the movie. So, this will give us ample opportunity to show off the attributes of this magnificent creature.
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Personally, I’m still on the hunt for the ideal Leviathan candidate. Since the gharial croc that lives in India has a similar nob on its nose I wouldn’t count on fire-breathing capabilities in Super-Croc. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Of course, it seems a crocodile of its size would fit the invincible nature of Leviathan and the teeth “round about”. Tylosaurus had a nose that came to a hard, pointed end. Scientists believe it may have rammed prey, befitting the “piercing lizard”. Mososaur remains have been found with dermal plates but it has yet to be determined if the plates covered the whole animal or just its neck. New marine fossils and new sea creatures are being discovered at comparitively frequent intervals. So, I’m still hoping…
By the way, Mark Hodges put a Leviathan (“Leviathanus Sarcosucus” variety) encounter in his book Brutus, First King of Britain. The characters referred to it as the “kronos”. I read it on my kindle.
Thanks for that input. I agree that the jury is still out on the precise identity of leviathan. I haven’t heard of anyone who is convinced that a particular creature “must be” the one. Maybe archeology, or even zoology, will turn up some more clues.
That sounds like a very interesting book. It is now on my list. Thanks!