Landis, Jonathan
JOURNAL ENTRY 06

The middle of the night, I can't sleep. The room across the hall is stirring with whispered conversation. Two men I noticed in intense debate at tonight's dinner, the discourse apparently traveling back to one of their rooms. From what I can gather, one of the men seems to be a scientist or zoologist. The other might be a religious expert of some caliber. Leaning up in my bed, I can see into their open room where the conversation escalates in volume but quickly dips when people pass by in the hallway.

"How many do you think are here? Fifty maybe?" the first man says, as if the question is rhetorical.

"Probably more. Seems like a lot more."

"Exactly! We have this idea passed down by our textbooks that the world was teeming with them before people got here. But in actuality we have a lot fewer specimens than you'd expect."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, take the Tyrannosaurus, one of the most popular dinosaurs. We've only found about twenty specimens of the thing in the whole world, and a lot of those are scattered. That's an animal we claim to know with great confidence."

"Twenty specimens?"

"Exactly. Believe me, many more than that we've only found an anklebone or footprint. Science is often about bridging big factual gaps with theories. Now take an ancient religious text that many scholars believe authentic, regardless of the validity of the particular religion."

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is that we have ancient texts that most respected theologians will agree, 'Yeah, someone wrote this in 55 A.D.' They might not concur on the nature of the material, but they can decide conclusively when it was written."

"Okay..."

"So, with that in mind, what ancient religious texts mention dinosaur-like creatures, and in what context?"

"Well, there's the 'Behemoth' and the sea creature called 'Leviathan' mentioned in the psalms and the book of Isaiah. The book of Job speaks at some length about it. Nowadays even religious folks mostly accept the two creatures as a hippo and a crocodile."

"Is that in keeping with the descriptions?"

"Yes and no. Biblical poetry is often a difficult translation. The Behemoth is described as having a tail that 'moves like a cedar'. That doesn't exactly fit the description of an elephant or hippo. Tail could be a euphemism for its genitals—which are also mentioned. We're not exactly sure."

"Why would we want to explain away something that more conclusively substantiates an answer for all these skeletons we have lying around?

"I'm not sure. Rationality? Science?"

"That's my point. Creationists typically argue that dinosaurs coexisted with man in the beginning. It stands to reason they'd be mentioned in ancient biblical texts."

"Well, it isn't that simple. Take Leviathan for example. One of the Psalms suggests it has several heads. Later in the Bible, it becomes another name for Satan."

"Which makes me wonder, the irony can't be lost on Belial. I mean, look at the name he chooses to go by."

"I think Belial just enjoys toying with certain religious stigmas."

"Of course. But perhaps the reasoning behind it is much older than we might assume. Aren't there any other unexplained creatures in the scriptures?"

"Of course. Much of what we know of scripture is shrouded in mystery. Genesis mentions creatures called Nephilim, which might have been the offspring of demons and human women. Several similar terms typically become translated as humanoid giants. One such example, the Anakim, actually means something like 'the long-necked ones.'"

"Is it a coincidence that all of these mysterious terms have to do with giants? Long-necked creatures? Reptilian monsters?"

"Perhaps. Perhaps not."

"And if we go this route, theoretically, what is the correlation between this information and current living-dinosaur theories."

"Current living-dinosaur theories are no longer theories."

"Yes, but before the T.O.G., before Belial and the desert and everything. History is freckled with stories of dragons. Cultures all over the world have been describing the same animal for as long as history can track. All the way back to ancient texts about human life."

"Of course."

There is a silence while the more inquisitive man sits back against the wall.

"I wonder," he finally says. "Everything changing, this new way of things. How long has it been coming?"