Dinosaurs in the Bible

While preparing this week's Vintage Dinosaur Art post, I was struck by how the illustrations were reminiscent of those in a certain other book that I'd owned as a child. A book that I hadn't seen for a long time, but was sure that I still had stashed away in a dark corner of my wardrobe. Eventually, it dawned on me...it was an illustrated Bible that I'd been given for my christening in 1988.

Hang on - didn't that Bible have dinosaurs in it? I just had to go and check it out - and oh yes, it has dinosaurs all right.

Well, OK, it has a Burianesque amphibious brachiosaur, sharing its habitat with a black marine reptile thingy and some pterosaurs (one of which is unmistakably Pteranodon). They pop up while the book's main character, a sort of all-powerful supernatural lunatic, is poofing things into existence as is his wont. There's no mention of them anywhere in the text (excepting birds, obviously), which is essentially a light simplification of the King James version (this isn't an attempt to lure in the kids by some Ken Ham-alike).

Furthermore, this is the only appearance made by any prehistoric animals in the entire book; there are no banana-munching tyrannosaurs gambolling in the Garden of Eden, nor any distressed-looking Triceratops being swept up in the swirling waters of a global flood. Nor, indeed, are the angels depicted as pterosaurs, although they should have been. And that's what's wonderful about these beasties - they're here apropos of nothing.

I should probably get back to that other book, though. See you later in the week!