The Great Dragon Lie
The next question asks, "Is there another word for dinosaurs?" Answer: Except birds, No. No other word for dinosaur. But Ham, the liar, thinks there is. But it's not "birds" he's referring to, but dragons, mythical monsters Ham and other creationists, without proof of evidence, insist they're real because the Bible allegedly tells them so. In the next section, Ham brings on the fabrication about dinosaurs being dragons people once saw alive, ignoring the word 'dragon' coming from the Greek word 'drakon' meaning "snake" or "serpent" and that it involves only snakes, not dinosaurs. The only reason why creationists invent such a dragon/dinosaur lie is because dinosaurs are big, huge, monstrous, and scaly just like dragons.
The only difference between the two is that unlike dragons, dinosaurs don't have serpentine bodies. Neither do Pterosaurs and Mesozoic Marine reptiles have bodies and features that match that of dragons. Worldwide sightings of fossil remains of dinosaurs, mammoths, and other extinct animals may have inspired dragon and monster myths, NOT sightings of live dinosaurs and their extinct relatives.
The Baryonyx That Isn't
Creationists has a knack nowadays to make up dragon caricatures and falsely call them "dinosaurs." A trait first brought on by a dino/dragon caricature shown on page 81 in Duane Gish's idiot book Dinosaurs By Design and then carried on into this book, where a modified version of this particular fictional caricature is being blatantly shown on page 29. To add insult to injury, this dragon caricature is given the name "Baryonyx" a name used by creationists to spread their stupid lies further about dinosaurs, claiming the caricature to be the same as the real Baryonyx, a large bipedal primitive Spinosaurid that lived 125 million years ago during the early Cretaceous Period in what is now England. Baryonyx, meaning "Heavy Claw", is named to describe a massive claw that is growing on his first digit finger on each hand. This imaginary caricature is the creationists' own "hopeful monster," a monstrous, make-believe, 4-horned, spiked bodied stereotype creationists imagined up and used to promote their false belief of dinosaurs-always-living-with-man fallacy. The name "Baryonyx" is real. The dragon in the creationist literature isn't.
They reason, "If it looks like a dragon and it comes from England where dragon tales were told, then it must be a dragon that Knights like St. George has killed long ago. And since Baryonyx is found in a country where dragon legends are prevalent throughout the country, why not?" or so they falsely reasoned. Another possible reason to why they made Baryonyx into a horny, dragon-ish caricature is because to them, it must have resemble horned dragons with arrow shaped heads as depicted in many Medieval art. Especially art that was made from England, France and other European countries.
One look at the red dragon design on the Flag of Wales and the YECs conclude falsely that it must be Baryonyx whom people must have saw since the YEEs themselves knew that the remains of the dinosaur have been found in England in 1983 in the town of Surrey in a country where dragon stories have often been told over there. The reality is that none of the dragon images and descriptions of them match that of Baryonyx (i.e. bat or bird wings, extra horns, multiple heads, cat-like bodies, fiery and/or poison breath, woman's breasts, dog-like ears, etc). YEEs, out of blind ignorance of the actual fossil of Baryonyx which shows none of what the caricature has, made the dinosaur into a genderless dragon caricature with dog ears, arrow tail tip, and 3 additional horns and say falsely that Baryonyx is the dragon that St. George has slain, never mind the dragons, especially the winged heraldic dragon St. George has really killed, never resembling Baryonyx in one form or another and vice versa.
Here is the caricature, claimed by Ham to be Baryonyx, the alleged dinosaur St. George killed in battle as depicted on page 29.
All make believe. This is nothing more than a larger, more elaborate version of a small dragon modeled after a cat located within a large menagerie of cats that was drawn and sketched by the famous Renaissance artist Leonardo Da Vinci. Unlike the fictitious creature above, Baryonyx in real life completely lacked dog-like ears, three or four horns on its crocodile-like face, a tail with an arrow like point at the end, an s-shaped neck (His neck is actually straight, not curved.), additional spines on its back and elbows, bat wings, and a fiery breath.
Now, here's exactly what Baryonyx really looks like in real life based on fossil evidence (Painting by Luis Rey):
It was a fish eater, yet occasionally scavenged among the dinosaur carcasses for food. Something Ham left out in his false descriptions of it. Inside the stomach area of the dinosaur alongside fish remains, there are skeletal remains of a young Iguanodon. Baryonyx must have either killed or scavenged what was found inside. Unlike most flesh-eaters of his time, Baryonyx's had teeth that were straight not curved. All the better to get a grip on a very slippery fish with.
It was an primitive Spinosaurid, dinosaurs with tall spines on their backs, including Spinosaurus, a well known spinosaurid from 90 million years ago in Africa. Another dinosaur creationists made into a false caricature of a dragon and exploit it along with Baryonyx to fit their own beliefs of what a dragon is like.
Verse Mining
Another distortion of dragons and dinosaurs is shown on pages 30-32 by giving out a distorted interpretation of Isaiah 43:20 in the King James Bible that when interpreted and translated rightly, the verse actually describes wolves and or jackals among owls living in ruins of cities and towns.
More On The Pseudo-Dinosaur
There, Ham gives out a distorted description of Baryonyx claiming it was "rediscovered" in 1980. That's wrong. Baryonyx was actually discovered in 1983.
Can't Ham ever get his dino history right? Obviously, no he can't. Instead he just makes up one stupid, unfounded lie after another such as the notion of the Genesis 2 passage being an account of Adam becoming the first person to discover dinosaurs. Wrong again. Adam made no discoveries at all. He was only presented with the animals by God who brought them to Adam so he can name them and see if one of them can be his suitable choice for a mate. God brought the animals to Adam so he can name them and choose a mate from one of them which he wasn't able to find. So, God put Adam to sleep, took a rib from his body, made a woman out of it, and presented her to Adam who fell in love with her and took her in to be his wife.
Then, Ham tells about how the dinosaur have been unearthed and assembled. Then he asserts that the dinosaur at one time lived on a pre-fall diet of plants, wasting his precious teeth and stomach of a meat-eater away. Ham lies and says that if the reader looks at the dinosaur at the museum, then he is looking at the dragon that St. George has slain. All total bullcrap and absolutely an unfounded lie.
In reality, the famous tale is actually a Christianized version of a Greek Mythological tale of a great hero named Perseus who saved Andromeda, a beautiful lady from a fierce serpentine dragon named Cetus, who lived in the sea. The actual dragon in the St George tale is nothing more than a winged dragon with bat or bird wings, a serpentine body, 4 or 2 limbs, forked tail and tongue, woman's breasts, poisoned breath, and dog ears. Something Baryonyx completely lacks thereof.
Fabricating Dragon Tales
To prove their falsehood, creationists deliberately take dragon tales out of context and fabricating them to fit their beliefs. All these fabrications have 100% failed miserably to explain how come there are no dinosaur remains (let alone other prehistoric remains) found mixed with human and modern animal remains in the fossil record despite creationists' assertions of them being the so-called "evidence" confirming their warped belief in a world where dinosaurs once lived with man.
Ham mentions on page 32, of an Anglo-Saxon history book that tells of the history of the early British and claims that there are accounts of people seeing dragons. Dragons, Ham falsely claims, to have descriptions that fit with dinosaurs. They don't. I looked at an online version of the book and it tells NONE of what Ham claims in the book.
There is only one mentioning of dragons in the book. It is only located in the 793 AD or CE account, where people saw a bad omen in the sky which it includes huge sheets of light, whirlwinds, and dragons flying in the air. No descriptions was made of what they are like at all. What Ham claims is nothing more than a direct fabrication of ancient sightings of shooting stars, comets, or meteor showers sighted by the ancient people who didn't know what they were. So, they regard them as "dragons" streaking across the sky, giving them a very bad omen of what's to come that could spell doom, destruction, and despair for the people living in the area where they saw the lights in the sky. Click here to see a page from the online book and see what I mean and how Ham, who probably have never look into the book, is wrong on what the book claimed to have said.
List of Fabrications
Next, Ham shows a list of fabrications taken from Paul Taylor's idiot book The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible book and film. This list contains what he believes to be accounts found in other forms of ancient literature of people meeting up with live dinosaurs, while they are really in fact fabrications creationists like Ham made up by taking in pieces of what they want to take in and throw out the rest of the context that clearly states that the “dragons” are not really dinosaurs at all,
"A Sumerian story dating back to 2000 BC or earlier tells of a hero named Gilgamesh, who, when he went to fell cedars in a remote forest, encountered a huge vicious dragon that he slew, cutting off its head as a trophy."
Gilgamesh actually killed a humanoid demon named Humbaba by cutting off his head and was cursed by Humbaba's creator because of this deed.
"When Alexander the Great (c. 330 BC) and his soldiers marched into India, they found that the Indians worshipped huge hissing reptiles that they kept in caves."
They actually saw only one serpentine dragon in the cave, blowing, hissing, and popping only its head out of the cave from time to time whenever an army passes by. The serpent is said to measure about 120 feet long and has huge eyes the size and shape of a Macedonian shield. No dinosaur eyes were ever that big, nor did they have serpentine bodies.
"China is renowned for its dragon stories, and dragons are prominent on Chinese pottery, embroidery, and carvings."
All feature a serpentine body with a compositor of nine modern animals, the horns of a deer; the head of a camel; the eyes of a devil; the neck of a snake; the abdomen of a large cockle; the scales of a carp; the claws of an eagle; the paws of a tiger; and the ears of an ox. No dinosaur descriptions here.
"England and several other cultures retain the story of St. George, who slew a dragon that lived in a cave."
He actually slew a winged dragon with a poisonous breath that lived in the water. No dinosaur descriptions here.
"There is the story of a tenth-century Irishman who wrote of his encounter with what appears to have been a Stegosaurus."
Wrong. The Irishmen encountered a winged limbless serpent named Paiste whom was tricked by the Irishmen into being binded by 3 rods and sent to the sea to await his punishment from God.
"In the 1500s, a European scientific book, Historia Animalium, listed several living animals that we would call dinosaurs. A well-known naturalist of the time, Ulysses Aldrovandus, recorded an encounter between a peasant named Baptista and a dragon whose description fits that of the small dinosaur Tanystropheus. The encounter was on May 13, 1572, near Bologna in Italy, and the peasant killed the dragon."
Tanystropheous looked nothing at all like the dragon that's now considered a hoax. It was more of a drake or a fat Lindorm than the Triassic Archosaur. The dragon Baptista claims to have seen and killed had a neck and head that resembles a coiling snake, a curling tail, a pair of bat wings, a big fat belly, and only 2 limbs. Tanystropheus, on the other hand, had a 10 foot long stiffen neck, 4 legs, a skinny body, and a tail that snaps off when attacked by a predator like a modern lizard of today. This lizard is ill equipped for both water life or land life. Yet, scientists are still trying to learn as much as they can about this special Triassic archosaur which probably spends its time on the ocean shores feeding on fish, ammonites, and other forms of sea life.
"Petroglyphs (drawings carved on rock) of dinosaurlike creatures have also been found."
They're all either modern drawings created as a publicity stunt, including the so-called carving that's really a pareidolia resembling a dinosaur puppet facing a trunkless mammoth stuff toy, or an attempt made to illustrate Paleozoic invertebrates on rock walls after seeing fossil remains of them nearby (Citations: Adrienne Mayor's Fossil legends and The First Americans pg. 337, 403).
This is one of the many examples of creationists misidentifying ancient artist conceptions of modern and mythical animals as dinosaurs simply because of they're shaped like them, never mind the details clearly saying that they're not. The best example of this is a Native American drawing shown in various creationist literature, which was made better sense of by Dr. Stephen Meyer of Institute for Biblical & Scientific Studies (IBSS) who concluded in the February 2008 article that the infamous petroglyph, in which creationists long use as evidence of live dinosaurs living alongside humans and modern animals, actually depicts an eagle, a modern dinosaur we call a bird.
Misusing Bible Verses
Next, Ham wrongfully claims that the Hebrew word "tannim" should also mean "dinosaur" as well as "dragon." Problem is, this is not the actual translation of the word. When translated correctly, the word "tannim" actually means "wolf" or "jackal" not "dragon" or "dinosaur." Note how Ham verse mined the 2 KJV Bible verses, Malachi 1:3 and Jeremiah 14:6 found also on page 33 out of context and fixed it to mean dinosaurs, while in fact when translated accurately and put it all in full context, it actually refers to wolves panting during a drought and jackals roaming in the wilderness among the ruins of many cities. Skipping a few pages to page 37, we find Ham claiming that there were "dragons" living in the sea as told in Psalm 74:13 and Isaiah 27:1. These verses are all mined too. The verse in Psalms put in context describes of how God destroyed a seven headed monster called Leviathan and fed its body to the animals of the desert. And no dinosaur have such a body with many heads on it. The other verse in Isaiah, when put in context, is actually saying that God will destroy Leviathan, the twisting, coiling snake like monster. No Mesozoic sea reptile like Kronosaurus, Tylosaurus, Plesiosaurus ever coiled up their bodies like snakes. They're too stiff and bulky for that.
Plesiosaur Falsehood
Backtracking on page 35-37, skipping the Plesiosaur image on page 34 and its outdated classification right next to it, there is a section on the Plesiosaur that is nothing but strawman descriptions as well as twisted, distorted lies and myths about the Jurassic/Cretaceous creatures, including Clyptoclidus, a plesiosaur from the late Jurassic Period.
Here, Ham, in his delusional imagination, pretends that before the Fall of Man, the marine reptiles ate nothing but low nutritional, mushy, indigestible kelp, seaweed, and algae, wasting their sharp tooth jaws and stomach for fish, mollusks, and other marine animals away that God has given them, making them highly useless and the poor creatures very, very sick; suffer, even die from indigestion, competing with other animals for plants, not giving the plants any chances to survive, and bringing the underwater plant kingdom into extinction, never to be given a chance to reproduce, grow, and rejuvenate.
Then what will Plesiosaur eat? Rocks? Ham states that some of them may have survived the Flood into modern times, which is false. All nothing but distorted tales and stupid lies creationists like Ham made up to fit their own fabricated views about cryptozoology, something creationists have been known to take advantage of concerning about alleged sightings of animals such as the Loch Ness monster and Big Foot.
Kronosaurus Is NOT Leviathan
On page 38-41, Ham makes up this imaginary claim about Kronosaurus being the Leviathan of the Bible. Kronosaurus was a pliosaur that lived during the early Cretaceous period 112 million years ago. Yet, Ham wrongfully brands this pliosaur as the fabled Leviathan of Job 41 and Psalms 104:26, while ignorant of the fact that Kronosaurus completely lack armor all over his body and a fiery breath. Many, faulty strawman descriptions is made of the pliosaur, including the hilarious, unfounded imaginary concept about the sharp teeth and powerful jaws of the pliosaur, supposedly used for crushing ammonites and fish, gets wasted and render useless on mushy, low nutritious plant food, especially air choking algae during the alleged pre-fall era.
Here's a picture of a fictional dragon caricature claimed by Ham to be Kronosaurus, the alleged Leviathan of the Bible. The name Kronosaurus is real, the caricature pictured below isn't.
And here's what the marine reptile actually looks like in real life (from DK Publishing).
Finally on the top of Page 42, Ham claims the word "whale" in Genesis 1:21 is a word for "dragon." The word "dragon" does not refer to any Mesozoic Marine reptile, because none of them have bodies that resembled snakes, unlike Leviathan, the snake-like sea monster in which according to one reference it had multiple heads, about 7 of them according to other religious writings. Instead the marine reptiles have bodies that resembled dolphins, crocodiles, and sea turtles with long necks threaded through them.
To know the truth about the real Leviathan of the Bible who is in fact neither a crocodile nor a pliosaur, click here.
Pterosaur Fallacy
Now on page 42, we get to the Pterosaur fallacy based on Isaiah 30:6 KJV where in it Ham claims that the "fiery flying serpents" mention in Isaiah 30:6 refers to only pterosaurs, which is entirely false. The ‘fiery flying serpents’ described by Isaiah may have been referring to Amphitheres which are described to have colorful scales, no limbs, and bird-like wings, and reproduce by killing off the male after they mate, only for the female to die afterwords when the babies hatched inside her body and devour their way out of her. The term, ‘fiery flying serpents’ in the verse is only used to describe the Amphitheres and their painful poisonous bite that can be compared to a painful burn after one carelessly touched hot flames on a stove or an open fire. Pterosaurs are in fact none of such monsters. Pteorsaurs in reality are Mesozoic flying reptiles that are described to have a coat of hair on their bodies, 4 limbs, skinned wings each supported by one elongated 4th finger, and reproduce by being eggs layers.
Ham's Description of Pteranodon
Moving on down to page 44-45, passing page 43 that shows an image of <em>Pteranodon</em> and the strawman classification next to it, there is a distorted description of Pteranodon. Pteranodon is a very well known pterosaur who lived during the Cretaceous period 70-65 million years ago. This pterosaur is about the size of a human being and has a wing span of 27 feet. Ham thinks this pterosaur is among the "fowl in the air" as told in Genesis 1:20-23.
Ham, in his foolish ignorance, claims that the word "fowl" doesn't necessary mean "bird." Sorry, Ham. Fowl does mean "bird" and only refers to such as doves and chickens. Pterosaurs are not birds and are not included in the fowl category and Ham knows it. Ham then gives out his distorted version of the discovery of Pteranodon and claim that evolutionists theorizes that pterosaurs soar above the water surface in search of fish to eat due to the discovery of Pterosaur remains in ocean sedimentary layers. This "theory" is factual. It is based on factual evidence that has zero to do with Noah's flood. Pterosaurs in most cases did live above the beaches, the shores, the coastlines, everywhere that has to do with water and livelihoods of fish, squid, and other forms of sea food. Some pterosaurs did lived inland where they soar above the skies in search of carcasses to eat like vultures do today. Ham states that pterosaurs could not have eaten fish before the Fall because fish, like all animals and man have "nephesh" meaning "spirit" or "soul" inside of them. Since when?
Explaining Nephesh
Since when do fish processed the ability to show feelings and emotions like monkeys and elephants do? This is pure example of Ham being a total crank when he makes such statements like that, knowing nothing of what the Hebrew word really refers to in real life.
The word nephesh according to Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary literally means “a breathing creature.” Even plants breathe although they don’t breath the same way humans and animals breathe. Instead of lungs or gills, plants breathe through stomata, tiny holes underneath the leaves that takes in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen as well as absorb light during the process of photosynthesis which occurs during the daylight hours. They also do the opposite during the process of respiration which occurs both day and night. During respiration, the plant takes in oxygen and give out carbon dioxide. Both process is done through the stomata, the “nose” of the plant. So, you might say that plants were the first nephesh creatures God has ever made before He created 5 more nephesh creatures, fish, birds, wild and tame animals, and man. All organisms are nephesh creatures because they all breathe the air through lungs, gills, or stomata.
The word nephesh also means “a spirit”, too which only humans have in them. Nearly every part of the Bible that has the word nephesh in them refers only to humans– spiritual beings created by God who gave mankind a soul. Creationists asserts that plants are not alive in a sense because they don’t have a spirit or a nephesh in them. Neither do animals have a “nephesh” in them, but do the creationists care? Nope. They rather ignore the fact that throughout the Bible the word nephesh is used to describe only humans, who are the only beings that possess nephesh in them. This is something that was given exclusively to them by God. Neither animals, nor plants have nepheshim (plural) in them. Obviously this is all imagined up to compromise pagan beliefs that says animals have what the webmaster calls “a spirit, consciousness or soul” and to ignore the fact that most Christians believe that only humans have souls in them, not animals and definitely not plants.
Like humans and animals, plants are alive! They eat and drink from their roots. They breathe through stomata. They grow and reproduce. They are either male or female depending on gender. When inflicted, they bleed sap (and yes, some plants do have blood). Creationists thinks plants that whither doesn't necessary mean that they die. They do. When plants whither, they die. Plants are no different then any living being on earth. The only certain thing in the world that doesn't have nephesh in them is rocks!
Pterosaurs are falsely called "flying serpents" by the extremists who claimed that people like Herodotus and Isaiah once saw them at one time which is false as mentioned above. The flying serpents in the stories, especially told by Herodotus, are said to have no legs. Pterosaurs have legs. This is what Ham fails to mention in every idiot literature he produces and distributes for personal gain. No one really ever saw a living Pterosaur at all. Not even Herodotus nor the prophet Isaiah. No pterosaur fossils have in fact been found above and below the Mesozoic strata and never will be. Instead, Herodotus must have saw Amphitheres with bird wings, colorful scales, no limbs, and a poison bite that can inflict great burning pain. Isaiah must have saw the same thing as well and used them, instead of Pterosaurs, that were long dead by the time humans came about, to speak figuratively to the people of his time.
The Real Difference Between Ham's Dragon Caricatures and The Real Dragons of Folklore
Now page 46 features a summary that claims that people are familiar with dragons and that some descriptions of dragons fit with dinosaurs, which is false. Not one Dinosaur have snake-like bodies, fiery breath, women's breasts, the power to create storms, eat maidens, etc. The only dinosaurs that are mentioned in the Bible are not fabled dragons, behemoths, and/or leviathans, but in fact birds. Eagles, doves, vultures, even sparrows just to name a few. Birds are the only dinosaurs to be mentioned in the Bible.
All these dragon stories are in fact not historical evidence whatsoever of dinosaurs living beside people, because not only they're creationist-made fabrications, they also all failed miserably to explain how come there are no dinosaur remains found above and below the Mesozoic strata as well as mixed with human and modern animal remains in the fossil record.
