Deeper Insights into Behemoth with Tommy Lohman

Okay, so we're going there we go. Okay.

Okay, I'm Terry camera cell and I'm here on behalf of creation fellowship Santee, and we're a group of friends bound by our common agreement that the creation account as told in Genesis is a true depiction of how

God created all life and everything. Just in just six days, about 6000 years ago.

We've been meeting online here in zoom since June of 2020, and we've been blessed with great speakers who have spanned a good blend of site creation science, other theology topics and even some current events, you can find links to most of our past presentations by typing in tiny url .com

forward slash CF Santee that see like creation F like fellowship and Santee is spelled s a n t e.

You can also email us at creation fellowship Santee at gmail .com so that you get on our newsletter, we won't spam you but we will make sure to send you links to all of our upcoming speakers.

Tonight we are definitely blessed with the creation science topic we have Tommy Lohman joining us.

Tommy Lohman is the vice president of the foundation advancing creation truth. He also serves as the field paleontologist for the

Glendive dinosaur and fossil museum in Glendive Montana. He holds a bachelor's in religion from Liberty University.

Tommy's work in paleontology during the summers focuses on field excavation work and fossil prep work.

He is currently in the lab on working in the lab on preparing the fossilized bones of a triceratops.

Also his studies in paleontology are presently focusing on the biomechanics and physiology of dinosaurs, with an emphasis on Hell Creek dinosaurs and sauropods.

Tommy is married to Martha, they have two grown daughters and six grandchildren. He owns a commercial painting business in the

Nashville, Tennessee area. He serves as an elder at Calvary Bible Church in Joelton, Tennessee, where he is a regular

Bible teacher focusing on apologetics, biblical theology and the relationship between science and theology.

And with that, Tommy, we're happy to turn it over to you. Sounds good. Thank you very much, Terry. Let me get this screen engaged here.

It's so good to be with you all tonight. I always look forward to these opportunities to get to share.

And the Lord has blessed me with moments like this, to be able to look into what

God has done. As I was thinking about this evening, there's so much of what

I am able to do now, particularly for children. It reminds me of what I wished

I had when I was a young man growing up, really the ability to understand the connection between science and theology.

I grew up with a real disconnected view of those two ideas. And what

I see is science is really the pursuit of the world that God created.

And in doing so, science ought to be bearing testimony to what it sees in reality of God's hand upon creation.

Our theology, our understanding of the Bible, its word, gives us this depth, this comprehension of what is contained within scripture, reveals

God as creator. And so both the creation and our study through science and the

Bible will point both to God as the eternal, pre -existent creator of all things.

Tonight I'm going to be talking about some deeper insights into behemoth. Behemoth is a fascinating animal that we'll look at in Job 40.

I believe we're looking at what we call a sauropod and kind of unpack some of that.

In that, we're going to look at some of the biomechanics and physiology of dinosaurs and begin to kind of process through that.

Now, my work, as Terry mentioned, is a field paleontologist at the

Glendive Dinosaur and Fossil Museum. This is our entrance. The T. rex hasn't gotten out, as you see him breaking through the building there.

If you've been there before, you've enjoyed the museum. If you haven't, come join us sometime in Eastern Montana and trust you'll enjoy the experience.

We present everything that we do in the context of biblical history. It's one of the first things we tell people as they come in the door.

Part of it is just so they won't be surprised, but also to kind of orient their thinking and understand what basis we're doing this upon.

This is our main exhibit hall. You'll see the T. rex and the

Aquacanthosaurus right there in the middle. Those are cast, and we have a Triceratops, Stegosaur, and others.

We also have a lot of real bone out, and as Terry had mentioned, I'm currently working on a

Triceratops. We've got probably 30 -35 % of the skeleton, and hopefully in the next couple of years we'll have it all prepped and ready for display.

That's a slow process, but I enjoy the work. When we go out in the field each summer, we're spending our summers looking for new fossils or working on existing sites.

This is an opportunity we had last summer to work out on a site close in the area. I get to spend some time on an

Edmontosaurus skeleton. You can see some of the people there that joined me on that day on the left, and then you can see me working on the right there.

I believe that looks like a femur, and you may be able to distinguish where the bone is just to the right of my knife.

As we're working through the fossil, we're working to dig down, stabilize it with glues, things of that nature, and then we'll eventually begin to work on putting a field jacket on it and excavate it and get it out of the ground, and then take it back to the lab for future prep work.

When we get into the lab, this is our main fossil prep lab right here, we use a range of tools, really just starting with something as simple as a dental pick, as we begin to get familiar with the bone itself, pick through some of the dirt, begin to open up what's bone, what's dirt, and then begin to get into a little microjack, micron blaster tools that begin to clean the bone, get the dirt loose.

We call that dirt matrix, and we're working to remove the matrix from the bone and stabilize the bone in the process with glues and keep what we call

PVA to help kind of give it a way to hold it together as we work through and spend some time.

A lot of times we just get tucked in, get a group of people, sometimes there's good conversation, sometimes we all just kind of get quiet and just kind of settle in and work on our individual projects.

So if you'd like to come up sometime, please reach out to us, go to creationtruth .org,

and we have a specific week -long dig the last weekend of June, I'd love you to come up.

So check us out there, go to the website, again, creationtruth .org. When I think about being a paleontologist, it is not just simply a thing you do, it's not one hat you wear, but it's really many hats that you're going to wear in the process, because you're really trying to understand so many things that are going on in the ground with the bones, and even as you get back to the lab and do additional study.

And so when I think about what we're trying to do, first of all, you've got to be part biologist, meaning as you study the bones, you don't have muscles, you don't have tendons for the most part, and occasionally you do, but you're not seeing the animal walking around.

And so what we do is we try to understand living organisms, how they function, how they move, how their muscles are attached in various places to the bones, and then make relevant application of how we can then begin to make some approximations about how dinosaurs might have moved.

One of the great arguments that's been around for years is did the Tyrannosaurus Rex, was he a runner?

Was he a walker? What happened if you fell? And you begin to kind of work through the mechanics of what's possible in that process.

You also have to be a little bit of a geneticist to the extent you have to understand that the genetic information is tucked in the

DNA. And for me, that begins to really begin to look at the created kinds when we think about the evolutionary model of common descent.

And that's not what we see in the fossil record in life. That is not evidence.

That is not observed, should I say. But what we can recognize is genetically speaking, life is created in kinds, and I'll talk more about that in just a moment.

And the genetics is really where that idea is anchored. And to be part geologist, as you understand the lay of the ground, when you're going out, and I'll tell people, point out to them is that you're looking at layers.

You'll see stratified layers, and really that idea is something you'll see literally all over the planet.

That stratification occurs only as a result of water. And when you start having hills that are hundreds of feet thick, or an example like the

Grand Canyon, where you're talking several thousand feet thick of stratified layers, you're talking an immense amount of water.

Now, when we think about historically, the Bible gives us an account which would explain what we observe in the field.

And so we're beginning to make this connection. The Bible describes the Genesis flood as a global deluge.

Now we can go out in the field and begin to see that. When I'm working on fossils, I'm recognizing that they work in a particular layer.

So when I find a bone in a particular spot, I'm recognizing it's going to work into a very horizontal fashion.

I'm not going to dig in a random manner, but in a very flat layer and chase bones or chase a skeleton, if you will, in that fashion.

I also had to be part engineer, as I've already touched on a little bit of this. It's just thinking about how complex systems work.

Life is complex. It's irreducibly complex. And so, again, just understanding the basics of structure and function and movement and how complexity works in this integrated fashion.

And I find that to be really an interesting study. And then finally, you have to be part historian and you begin to recognize that science is really about what you can observe in the moment.

When I dig up a dinosaur fossil, I'm not digging up the past. I'm digging up the present.

Now, is there a history behind it? Yes. Is there a past behind it? Yes. But digging up a fossil is an in the moment thing.

And so the past must be interpreted. For me, I look to the Bible as a framework for history that's trusted and true.

In the beginning, God created six days of creation. I look at the flood as this catastrophic deluge across the planet.

And these kinds of historic events, while having spiritual implications in them, are real moments that happened in history that I can use to give me an interpretive framework for the fossils that I begin to excavate.

So when we understand dinosaurs from a biblical worldview, what we're trying to accomplish is really understand the

Bible presents itself as a history book of the universe. And while it is certainly more than that, it is certainly at least that.

And so when we look at the Genesis 1 narrative on day five, we see

God said, let the earth waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament.

And we see this this last verse, be fruitful multiply, fill the waters in the seas and let the fowl multiply in the earth.

And here we have on day five, the flyers and the swimmers are being created by God, and then we see this phrase after their kind attached to each one of them.

On day six, we see God speaking land animals into existence or land life into existence, the living creature, the cattle, the creeping thing, the beast of the earth, each one after its kind.

And this phrasing after its kind is quite important. It gives us an understanding of how

God brought life into existence, but within boundaries. And so these boundaries are quite important.

Common descent evolution, Darwinian or neo -Darwinian evolution would have us to believe that all life has sprung from a single organism and branched out in complexity, but that's not observed.

So from one common kind, all kinds come, that's not observed. But what we can recognize, and this is what this created after their kind phrasing is giving us, is from each kind, only similar kinds come.

And we see that dinosaurs would fall into this same category. And so just to kind of summarize that, when we think about dinosaurs, dinosaurs are land animals, land animals were created on the sixth day of the creation week, therefore, we would have dinosaurs being created at that time.

And would have existed with all other animals and would have existed with man, been alive at the time of the flood, and essentially would have not completely died out, but the fossil record would have been established at that time.

There would have been a few, there would have been certain kinds that would have been on the ark and would have subsequently gone extinct after the flood.

Sometimes, in some cases, several thousand years, but they would have gone extinct eventually. So when we think about this created kind,

I look at the Ceratopsians with the great variety of brow horns, nose horn, shape of the frill, that's important to recognize these distinctions.

So as we move into really begin to press ourselves into behemoth, what

I want to look at really is to talk about some of the biomechanics and physiology of behemoth, and really dinosaurs in general.

Biomechanics is just really life movement. How does, how do animals move and study that and physiology is how life works.

And so when we are intrigued, particularly about animal movement, animals move in such an interesting range, as I just mentioned with God creating the flyers, the swimmers, the land animals, the crawlers on days five and six, those broad categories brought in some unique function of how life would have moved.

Jumping, flying, swimming, hanging, crawling. And we so we see that and each has its own distinct capacities built into it by God at the creation.

So when we think about the biomechanics of life and apply that to apply today's life to past animals.

I like to kind of use the cheetah and the elephant and compare that with the raptor and the diplodocus.

The diplodocus is one of the long neck long tail sauropods. And so what we're going to do is we're going to take a little bit of a look at the cheetah and the elephant and make some application to the raptor and the diplodocus and see what we can at least make some logical deductions about.

Now when I think about the cheetah here, I enjoy watching this guy run right here.

Get that music out. It's fascinating to watch, but he is able to do something that most animals cannot.

And so his function his form is built so that he can can run with great straight line speed.

And so we think about what enables a cheetah to run fast. Well, he overall has a fairly light body mass as opposed to a tiger.

He has proportionally long slender legs point out here.

My laser pointing here. So you've got fairly long legs.

If you see he's got a lean torso but fairly long legs here long feet.

So this would be the metatarsal. This is his foot right here. This is a tibia and fibula right here and the femur here.

And then he's got minimal foot contact with the ground. So when his feet are running across the ground, there's not a lot of contact with the ground, which makes the engagement with the ground lighter and more fluid.

And he has lean quick twitch muscles and we can see that just as the video was just showing you and how he's able to run there's an explosiveness that we can visualize as he's running.

Now the question I began to ask and make the parallel is, so when we look at a raptor.

Could the raptor do some of the same things and if so, why can we make some applications here.

Well, when I look at the overall body mass, the raptor skeleton appears to have a lighter build to it.

So it's not, its skeleton is not designed to carry weight.

I can go into the museum and take a raptor femur and then take a Tyrannosaurus Rex femur.

And while I recognize they're quite different in their overall size, the proportions really suggest that the raptor is built for speed, due to the more slender shaft that the bones have.

He seems to have proportionally long slender legs, long feet and long feet here.

This would be the metatarsals if I just mentioned that with the cheetah. This is his foot. This is the tibia and the fibula and you see the femur right here.

In fact, it's interesting, he has a little bit of a shorter femur proportionally and fairly long tibia, fibula and metatarsal.

And that would again suggest the capacity for speed. Now can we assume lean quick twitch muscles.

Well, I don't have any muscle to really make a strong comparison, but when we look at the skeleton, the skeleton helps us give some limiting parameters on how much muscle mass would be present with a raptor.

And so while I can't say he had quick twitch muscles, it's logical to assume he's doing the same thing and potentially in a similar fashion than the cheetah.

Can we assume a higher capacity for straight line speed than most other dinosaurs?

And I think we can, even without making the observation, even without being overly hard and fast on the particular, this is what he did,

I think it's logical to assume. And so when we compare the cheetah and the raptor, they seem to be doing the same thing, even though they have some very significant differences or some noteworthy differences.

First of all, is the means of balance. The cheetah has four legs and his means of balance is basically distributed through the four limbs where the raptor only has two limbs.

So what brings his balance to be? Well, this really comes out of his tail.

You'll notice the cheetah, his tail is fairly lean and slender.

Even when he was running, he had it out and I'm sure it provided some stability. But what's interesting about the raptor tail is it's,

I don't know if you can see these more slender lines that are above and below the tail vertebra.

Those are tendons and they're really interwoven throughout all of the tail vertebra to keep it very stiff.

And so it seems logical that when the raptor is moving his tail is not doing a lot of floppy movement that gives him a lot of basic strength.

Even within the hips, you'll see how much smaller the cheetah's hip structure, the ilium here is because there's not as much load bearing.

The load is carried amongst all four limbs where the raptor's hips are a little bit more substantial because the weight, the full weight of the animal is going through the hind limbs alone.

When we look at the elephant, we have a similar idea of strength and size, muscle mass, thicker bones, a more maximal foot contact with the ground.

We can tell, even if we don't see the elephant moving, we recognize that he's doing something different physically, biomechanically.

And so we can make these same applications, I believe, within reason for the

Diplodocus. That he's doing something similar. He's a strong animal.

He's got large bones and therefore we can logically deduce he had strong, thick muscles because the skeleton gives us a larger parameter for larger, thicker muscles for movement.

It's interesting here when we compare the elephant and the cheetah, if I were to simply say this animal has a head, a backbone, ribs, four limbs and a tail, would you know which animal

I was talking about? And you wouldn't because both of them do the same, but yet they're very distinct animals.

And what distinguishes them, and this is what God did during the creation week,

I think this is even part of what Adam is doing in chapter two of Genesis, we see

Adam naming the animals. He's not simply pulling the name out of the hat, but he's actually describing what's the essence of that animal.

The essence of the elephant is one of strength and power. And so his skeletal proportions and likely his muscular proportions are much greater than the cheetah's, plus the nose, the trunk, the ears, the tusks, things of that nature are much different.

And so we can recognize the distinction. And in the same way, you can make some of the same similar assessments of the

Diplodocus and the Velociraptor, and yet they're very distinct due to proportions and unique features that each one would possess.

As we begin to look at Job 40 and look at behemoth, this is something

I've been aware of for years is that the likelihood that behemoth is a sauropod, and it's chiefly because the tail, but really there's some additional information here that's worth noting.

We see here in the passage, beginning with verse 15.

Let me read for us here. Let his maker bring near his sword.

And what I find interesting about these verses right here is there's an anatomical list here.

They're descriptors of the makeup of the animal, and we even see a little bit of physiology as we see each grass like an ox.

And so there's a grandness that's being described as we see in verse 19. He is the chief of the ways of God.

I think we're seeing the description of the greatest land animal, the sauropods, that has ever walked the face of the planet.

And in that, God saw fit to give additional descriptions here of this animal that are important.

So let's walk through some of this. First of all, why do I think we have a sauropod here?

Well, as I look at verses 16 and 17 and 18, we just read the description, we see key features such as strength of muscles, strength in the loins, the size of the bones, the length of the tail.

And as I begin to look at modern day animals, such as the crocodile, the Komodo dragon, you might say they have the certainly a powerful tail, but they're sprawlers.

Their legs would never be described here as you see bones or tubes of bronze, his limbs are like bars of iron.

Then I think about animals that have bigger more powerful legs, but they just lack in the tail.

And so this seems logical to me that this is a sauropod that we're looking at, behemoth would be a sauropod.

Now I just was recently up in Chicago, if you've ever been up to the Field Museum up there, it's an interesting, although a secular perspective

I enjoy the displays and really beginning enjoy engaging with the arguments that are there.

They have a Patagotitan mayorum, they call it Maximo, and he is 122 feet long, which just blows my mind to think that there's one animal that's 122 feet in length, his head height is 28 feet.

You see the people there, that platform that he is standing on is probably at best two feet tall, now that's a cast.

There are not any real bone in that cast, but that should be taken off real bone assessments or bones that existed and modeled after them.

So you can see everybody's able to walk completely under his abdomen down there, I was able to get down there and take some pictures as well.

And a weight estimate of 70 tons. This animal is longer than a blue whale.

And so it's just a massive animal and I believe this is something of what we're looking at.

I don't know if behemoth is this type of sauropod, or if he's a different species of sauropod, but I believe we're seeing this huge animal being described here.

As we begin to work through some of the key points here, verse 15 says,

Behold now behemoth which I made with you as well, he eats grass like an ox. This is not describing behemoth in his chewing mechanism as being like a mammal, like an ox.

This is describing the means by which of the volume of vegetation.

When you think about like a cow, as an example, they're always eating grass. Some of our travels out west we get into herds of bison, and their heads are always down, they're always munching on the grass.

And I believe that's what's being described here. Now their teeth were either peg like or spoon shaped, which made them really ideal for biting into a bunch of vegetation and stripping it away and then really just swallowing it down and letting the acids in the stomach just work through breaking the food down.

But think of his teeth more in terms of a garden rake. So there were no grinding teeth, there were no slicing teeth.

Here is a couple of drawings of a brachiosaur and a diplodocus.

Now, what we have here, this is what's called the mandible. This is the lower jaw.

You can see the teeth and how they set into the jaw. And this pink muscle down here would be the muscle that would help open the mouth.

So as he's reaching into a large amount of vegetation, he's going to open his mouth.

And then these purple muscles that attach right here at the hinge point of the mandible would actually run up inside the skull and anchor up in here.

This would also be the area where his brain case would be. Once these muscles contract, his mouth would close.

Now, the brachiosaur might have had some capacity to break down some of the food in his mouth, but very little.

And the diplodocus has really got just teeth out here on the end. And so he's not breaking food down at all.

He's simply swallowing it all back and digesting it. And so they would have had enormous torsos with large organs and a large digestive system to help break all that food down.

They probably would have spent quite a bit of time just simply eating. It is really based upon some of the fossil evidence for plant life.

It's close proximity to some of the sauropods that they would have eaten. Gymnosperms, which is kind of like a conifer.

And I think it's interesting that you're now beginning to see one example of a living fossil here is that they're finding cones, conifers, in the fossil record.

And this is a fossil record that in their terms would date back in advance beyond 65, 70 million years.

And we're seeing them alive today. Now, that's not a timeline I believe in. And I certainly believe that we are seeing a younger

Earth perspective here. But it's interesting to see the living fossils, which is a fairly common thing.

Now, I'm not going to digress into that tonight. But that's certainly, if you're interested, an area worth chasing and study.

Now, to begin to think about the dinosaur and the long, long neck and the eating.

How do you keep that neck, that head up for extended amounts of time, really all the time, to begin to digest food and take in what he's got?

When I think about what's going on here is you've got the forelimbs and you've got a solid chest and an anchor point and that neck sticking out in the front.

Think about it like a construction crane. If you'll notice here in this construction crane is we have a nice tall tower.

This would be the forelimbs right here. And this begins to be what we call the dorsal process of the vertebrae.

And for a sauropod, these would occur all the way through here. But this cable here in the crane extends from this tower point all the way out to the end to give stability.

Now, if this tower, just this portion were shorter, it would actually make this strengthening capacity minimized.

If it were taller, it would actually help enhance it. So there's a balance in here.

If you were to add more cables, it would strengthen it. And in many respects, this is what we're seeing in the sauropods as we think about what keeps that neck out in the distance or the head up.

If I were to just simply stick my arm out, the muscle in my shoulder is keeping my arm up.

But that's not what is happening here with the dinosaur. They have multiple cervical vertebrae that are designed to carry load.

And across the top, there would be a tendon that would help or a ligament, should I say, that would help carry the load.

This is a Diplodocus. And this is the cast. This is the Carnegie Diplodocus models in Utah.

Now, I've drawn the yellow and the red lines because Diplodocus means double beamed and along the neck and even through the torso.

Instead of having just one process that sticks up in the back, they've got two.

And so these two processes sticking up would be the bridge point at which these tendons would flow all the way across bridging from one to the next, giving some rigid stability.

So the muscles are still working here, but they're not the sole means of carrying the load and capacity.

Here's a cross section of the neck. And you'll see here where the supraspinal ligaments would actually attach at the top.

Here's a side view. I've got the green highlighted. And these ligaments would run across.

And this helps keep the head up. You also see cavities here, the diverticula, where there would be empty spaces within the neck vertebra as well.

So we're lightening the load and we're creating a means of which a system would help functionally, structurally keep the neck up throughout.

We see this in horses where the horse neck has good strong muscles, but there are neck ligaments that help bridge each vertebra back to the shoulder to help anchor and keep its head up throughout its life.

Now, when I look at the sauropods, I think of them in terms of really just looking at his overall skeleton is really almost like a bridge, a really big structural bridge with lots of beams and steel that are working in an integrated fashion to carry a load.

When we see here verses 16, 17, and 18, again, we see the strength in the loins, in his loins, in his power, his muscles of his belly.

That's what I've got this yellow circle here highlighting is that what the Joe passage is telling us is the center of his power, his strength is right there in his hips, or just, if you will, right in front of his stomach.

And what's interesting and what modern paleontology has discovered is that for the sauropod, the center point of mass.

So if you just divide the mass in half of a sauropod, the center of that is just in front of the hips and the belly.

And so modern paleontology has affirmed what Joe 40 is telling us.

The strength of this animal is sitting right here at this place. He bends his tail like a cedar.

The tail needs a good anchor point, the hips give him that. The sinews of his thighs are knit together.

This is talking about the muscles. Likely visually you could see the muscles moving through the skin when he was alive.

And his bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs are like bars of iron. And so this is a, if you will, a poetic way of recognizing the strength in these legs.

The femur, which is this upper leg bone right here on some of the bigger sauropods can be eight, nine feet in length.

Just one bone, which is just amazing to think about. Now, when I think about this structure, this is what

I see here from a bridge standpoint is the columns, the legs become the columns, the middle blue horizontal band is the bridge, and then the two on either side tie in, if you will, into the ground so that we could drive across.

And that begins to kind of give us a really solid framework.

I would imagine that between the hind limbs and the forelimbs, including the legs, the torso, the backbone,

I would easily say 80 % of the weight of this animal is right there in the middle. Now, when we think about on the sauropod, the head and the neck or the tail and the neck are hanging out, and that's in structural terms, it's called a cantilever.

When you look at a tyrannosaur, its hip point becomes that center point, that fulcrum where the tail is going to cantilever off the back and the torso and head are going to cantilever off the front.

And so to some degree, they provide a counterbalance for one another. Now, the tyrannosaur is a very powerful animal and running right through his hips, right here, this femur, all the way through his tibia and fibula, and down into his foot right here.

He's got a lot of power. In fact, it's interesting, the foot has three bones that really integrate themselves together because the tendency with weight is to cause it to splay out.

But there would be these bones and the way they're structured to really anchor into one another, and then there would be tendons wrapping around that.

And so he would have very powerful feet to help anchor himself and maintain good balance.

Now, when we think about, and again, I'm just fascinated by what we see going on just within the head itself and the movements, we've been talking about already about how when you eat, when the sauropod would have eaten, how his neck would have worked, but what about getting a drink of water?

You know, you've got some dinosaurs like the brachiosaurus, who are a little bit more elevated in the front, their heads can be 40, 50 feet up in the air, and they've got to take that head all the way down to the ground just to get a drink of water.

If they don't have systems built in, if God did not design something for them, they would be blacking out.

If their head's up high and they drop it down low, and there's no system in place, the blood's going to rush to the head or vice versa.

If they lift their head too quickly, like you know how we can do, we get lightheaded when we do that, then all the blood would rush out of the head.

So surely God has implemented certain things into sauropods to help mitigate this shift in blood pressure.

I was intrigued, one is, you think about really just needing a big, strong, powerful heart.

Now I'm not aware to date that a sauropod, fossilized sauropod heart has been found.

I believe there has been a couple in some duckbill dinosaurs, fossil -based hearts have been found. But I begin to think, if sauropods in size are comparable to blue whales, then what would a blue whale's heart look like?

And is that something that we might be looking at here? And I think it's reasonable. This is an actual blue whale heart.

A blue whale beached itself several years ago. A biologist came and extracted some of the organs, ran this through some chemical processes, and this is on display now.

And you begin to see the size that you've got here, 440 pounds, pumps 58 gallons of blood every beat.

And so I can see the sauropod needing a heart of this size, but this doesn't completely take care of this shift in blood pressure as he raises or lowers his head.

And so it seems logical that the giraffe may give us some insights because of how they have to do the same thing.

Giraffes have valves in their neck and particularly at the base of their skull, and they also have very tight skin around their lower legs that helps restrict these rapid shifts in blood flow so that it can literally raise its head up and drop its head back down for water and exist and function just fine.

These are necessary for this animal to exist, and they would have been necessary for behemoth to simply get a drink of water.

Now as we look at the tail, and it says here in Joe 40, 16 through 18 again, we see he bends his tail like a cedar.

That's an interesting phrasing. As you begin to think about the early days of dinosaurs, they were seen as very reptilian, lizard -like, and so they were drawn as tail draggers.

You see Charles Knight, one of the early paleo artists, who had many drawings, some of you are probably familiar with, and so often he would have the tails dragged on the ground.

I remember even as a little boy seeing some of the pictures from some of my old dinosaur books and seeing this very sluggish, lizard -like.

In many respects, how paleontologists view dinosaurs has undergone quite a renaissance in the past 30 -40 years, and they see them as much more active animals.

In the early days, and I still look at these drawings and these sketches, and I think how impractical this looks, and yet this was the view or the logical outcome of seeing these animals as very reptilian, lizard -like, belly draggers, tail draggers.

But they didn't really find the evidence of such as they began to look at trackways.

Here's the Carnegie Diplodocus, and you'll notice there on the left how the tail swoops down, and again they've got it laying on the ground.

As they begin to find sauropod trackways, they were noticing a few things.

First of all, there's no tail drag marks. Now, just a quick side note, what

I see with this is as the flood begins to inundate the land, as waters are washing in with sediment, there are going to be areas where sediment is going to be washed in, and almost cement -like sediment, and then the water will come back out, leaving that deposit, animals will walk on that, it will solidify, and then eventually everything will be inundated and buried until it becomes eroded and discovered several thousand years later.

You think about what's called quick crete, a bag of cement where you're putting a fence in or a mailbox post, pouring a sidewalk, how you can still, once it's solidified to some degree, you can still scratch your name in it, and then once it gets set, it's there, and that's what we're looking at here.

So there's no tail drag marks, and if you'll notice how close the legs are together. This is called a parasagittal stance, that's the one all the way on the right.

The sprawling was the original way they were thinking, but on the right represents how they see dinosaurs today, sauropods specifically.

This would have really helped carry load well, the sprawling stance was just not practical or feasible in light of their size.

As you begin to look at this stance and begin to look at the trackways, you can begin to get some really interesting details of these trackways, because as they look at their feet of the sauropods, they're somewhat like elephants' feet, in particular the forelimbs, the banus.

Elephants walk on their tiptoes, and there's a fatty pad under their heel, you'll see that in the bottom right hand picture.

And so the thinking is, that's what dinosaurs were doing, these sauropods were doing as well, is that they were walking on their toes, so to speak, where their metatarsals, or metacarpals in this case, were very vertical in their orientation, banded together by tendons, and leaving these interesting depressions, and you'll see the picture on the right.

I was able to go out to Utah, my wife and I, and talked her into making a stop at a couple of dinosaur trackway sites this summer, or this past summer, and we found this

Copper Ridge sauropod trackway site, it's in northeastern Utah. This is the forelimb, and if you'll notice, let me pull up my pointer here again, this is the general outline of the footprint right here.

It would have had what we call an ungle or a toenail, if you want to call it that, or a claw, and you'll begin to see some of the impressions here.

This is the pes, or the hind foot, and this would be the general outline of this particular foot right here.

The hind limbs are the ones that you think specifically would have had some type of fatty tissue, because the bone orientation would not create this alone, but the fatty tissue behind, under the heel, so to speak, would be back here, and this would be the full foot, and again, you'll see some of the claws.

Also, you've got to think of this in terms of it being mud or cement -like material at some point, and then it would have solidified.

There's this, if you'll notice right here in the bottom right here, is this layering right here, either by simply stepping in, or as the animal would have moved forward, you're seeing a slight pressing back of material, and this is a little buildup of mud, that once the animal moved on and the ground's fully solidified, then it would have left not only the impression, but also the energy that the animal was exerting and moving, and a little bit of buildup here.

And while you're not seeing any skeleton, any bones here, just these depressions in the ground, what you are seeing is activity, and that's why

I find trackways really particularly interesting, because you begin to see movement, and you can get an idea of the width of the gate, as we've already talked about.

You can estimate, based on length of leg, how fast they might have been moving. This particular area had what they think was an allosaur, and its right gate was a little bit shorter than its left gate, thus suggesting, at least per the literature there, that this animal might have been injured, and it was moving in an odd fashion, is the outline.

Here's an overall view of the tracks, and what we're seeing here is it appears the animal is going this direction, and then makes basically a right -hand turn and works its way up this hill here.

Obviously, a lot of this is looking a lot different than when this animal walked through this area, and it was kind of challenging trying to sort out left -right through all this.

This is another angle of the same thing. But you begin to get a sense, as you're looking at Behemoth, and you think about the text and how it's describing the power in the legs, the strength of the skeleton, and you begin to translate that to the feet and see what's going on as it depresses into the ground and creates force as it moves forward.

As we come back to this idea of the tail here in verse 17, he bends his tail like a cedar.

A lot of animals, including crocodilians today, have a muscle that attaches at the back of the femur, that's the upper leg bone, and it ties into that upper leg bone.

You'll see that right here in the orange. And then from that point, it flows back into the tail.

It's called the caudal femoralis longus. And when that muscle contracts, it draws the femur back and creates forward motion for the animal.

The sauropods would have had this as well. Now, what's interesting here, as you begin to think, the text is telling us that the sauropod, the behemoth, should

I say, moved his tail like a cedar. And when

I think about this description, I think about some very tall trees blowing in the wind, just gently swaying back and forth.

I don't think this text is telling us that he's wagging his tail, but swaying his tail.

Well, a couple of things have to be possible for this text to be accurate. First of all, in order for that tail to sway, the tail has to be up.

And so we've already walked through that and recognized that that's the case. The tail is up.

And even fossil evidence and trackways have affirmed that. But this caudal femoralis, in its contraction left and right, as it draws the leg, the femur, back for forward motion, a residual part of that energy as that muscle contracts will move the tail slightly back and forth.

And so what I see here in Job 40, and the tail being swayed, is one, it's up.

Two, I think this animal is being described as walking, as moving. And so what you're seeing is this full integration of tail, legs, hips, strength, muscles, all working together.

And as God is describing what is present before Job, I believe

Job is looking at this animal. He is seeing an animal of great strength, great power.

As we saw in the picture, Job would have been dwarfed by this animal. And we're just looking at the fossils that we found.

I've heard estimates of sauropods even being bigger than the one I showed you earlier. And so Job is seeing an animal that's the chief of the ways of God.

Behemoth, a sauropod, is the chief of the ways of God. And so when

I think about what we are seeing here in Job 40, this is a great range of text here.

We're seeing a description of a dinosaur. Dinosaurs existed to bring

God glory. As we discover more about dinosaurs, the more we are reminded about how

God's incredible creative power is present. God gave us the desire and ability to know he exists by spreading his invisible attributes, his eternal power, and his divine nature all over creation for us to discover.

The more we learn about creation, the more we learn about its creator. A closer examination of dinosaurs will naturally lead us to see the hand of God all the more.

And so our study of dinosaurs can lead us to see the greatness of God in the process.

So I thank you for allowing me to share with you tonight. And Terry, I am ready for you to come back.

That was really awesome. Thank you. Terry is our spokesperson.

Terry, where did you go? I'm here. That was really great.

It was very informative. And we do have some questions. So we're going to start.

Robin has posted several, but if people have other questions, please feel free to post them.

If you're in Zoom, you can post them in the chat. And Zoom, if you're watching on Facebook, you can post them in the comments on Facebook.

So first of all, can you now you talked about at the beginning about the digs that you do.

Can you tell us how many digs that you're doing this summer and how people can find more information about them?

Well, that would be is going to creationtruth .org and going to our website. We we've got a couple of sites we work on.

And so we schedule things, scheduled days to dig through the summer. I've got other projects I work on as well.

So I go to the website and you can see what dates we have available. We've got a lot of our summer already filled up.

But I know specifically that last week in June, that is going to be a week long dig. And we've got room for that.

If you're if you're interested, I think it's five hundred dollars per person. And that's like a

Monday afternoon through Friday morning. And we'll be digging into a museum tour stuff.

OK, great. Next, what is your opinion of how they draw the

T -Rex? Does the bone structure allow for the artistic depiction of a T -Rex?

Boy, that's an interesting question. You know, when you think about when you get into the

Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies, there is a they're trying to create a character. And so there could be certain embellishments of soft tissue in general dinosaurs.

There's been a great argument as to how particular the most the how the muscles and the skeletons work together.

And so how can you make that look realistic? And you've got to take some creative license, an artistic license there to kind of explain that, because there's so much that could be present on these animals that we don't know about.

I would say in general, I think it's a reasonable depiction. Of what we see typically with the tyrannosaur and really all dinosaurs,

I think they're working to be as accurate as possible. I was just wondering if that was my question, because he looks so fierce.

But if all you see are bones, you know, he may not have.

So do they have anything they're basing this depiction on? Do we have we seen a complete head or anything like that?

Yes, yes, there are. I want to say 11, but there may be more than that fairly complete skulls.

We've got one in our museum. We've got a cast of one called Stan in our museum.

And so you've got the full size skull. You know how big it is. You know where the teeth are.

You know how big the openings are for the eyes, eye sockets, nasal cavities, things of that nature.

You can get a sense of where the muscles, because bones, fossilized bones are going to have a little bit of scarring where soft tissue tendons were once attached.

And while that may not give you exactly how big that muscle might have been, you can get a general idea of how they were attached and where they might have tied to.

That's why we we study modern animals to see what they're doing and then try to make relevant and appropriate application to the extinct animals.

That was very helpful. Thank you. So then then Robin's next question is, if the raptor was more like the cheetah, could the

T -Rex be quick like that, too? Well, that's certainly been a big debate really for years is the

T -Rex with his size. What was he capable of doing? Could he run like we see in Jurassic Park?

Was he just a fast walker with his weight? I mean, some T -Rexes, you know, they've got him weighing eight, nine, 10 tons.

And so his proportions, if you look at the raptor as an example with the chest cavity, his chest cavity based on the ribs is not huge.

But you go to a T -Rex and he's got a very barrel chest. You look at the size of the femur in comparison to the raptor and you can see a lot of strength.

So that size seems to minimize his ability to run like a raptor.

The latest literature I've seen with respect to study of his feet. And his hips is he probably was more quick and even had the capacity to turn well, but would not have been a runner, but more of a fast walker.

That seems to be the latest literature. But paleontologists are always doing studies and coming out with the latest thing.

And I won't say they're out to refute one another, but they certainly are out to have an opportunity to be known.

And Tyrannosaurus is probably the most studied dinosaur ever. I was just thinking about if when a person runs, if they trip and fall, having arms to help you land.

But a T -Rex is not going to have a face plant.

And, you know, and that's a question that I've never seen any reasonable answer that explains why a

Tyrannosaur of that size has such short arms. And as you're suggesting, I mean, if he's going down, he's going down hard.

Yeah. But I think he was.

But I think that's why he probably was careful in how he moved. Yeah. You know, if if we don't feel even within us humans, if there is a limit to our capacities, we're not likely to push that.

And so I think he would have would have restricted himself with that kind of movement. I like the

T -Rex because as a person who is not a fan of conflict, I've been called that, you know, somebody cover my eyes.

I can't watch. So Bob would like to know, what are your thoughts on the idea that there might be some dinosaurs still alive today?

You know, I think it's a possibility. I would love it to be the case. I've heard reports of Mekele Bembe in Africa, different ones in different parts of the world.

Pterosaurs, pterodactyls, still sightings in different places of the world.

But I've yet to hear anything or see anything that is that I would call conclusive.

Everything is pretty much eyewitness testimony. Now, I think that's a viable means. Eyewitness testimony is certainly credible.

I guess I would say is I'm cautiously optimistic and hopeful, but I'm not

I'm not hanging my hat on that either. And then somebody following along on Facebook just mentioned with the arms, helping them to raise up from a resting or sleeping position would be one main use for them.

Yeah, but it would only go so far. They'd have to be really strong little arms.

Yes, they would. And I've read studies that they think they were strong arms, but their length would minimize that.

And then here back in Zoom, Alan says, I'm sure the design of their feet or legs made them very stable.

They probably didn't fall down much. No. Yeah. And one thing, you know, you're saying all this, what we're digging up and the fossils we're seeing are really, we're seeing animals that were alive just before the flood.

And when you go back to Genesis chapter three and we see God cursing the animals and cursing the ground, those animals, those tyrannosaurs, if you will, that were in the garden and the ones that died in the flood could have had some interesting genetic changes along the way.

I'm not saying they would have evolved from some other animal. I'm just saying genetically, there could have been some interesting shifts and a shorter arm is not beyond the possibility.

Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, um, let's move on that now.

Okay. Jessica says I love the quote you used about dinosaurs exist for the glory of God.

She says thank you for studying researching and digging so that we can enjoy and get a glimpse of God's creativity and intelligence, and she'd like to know at what age did you know that you wanted to study paleontology.

Yes, interesting journey. Thank you for asking. I was like a lot of little boys and girls as a child,

I was fascinated with them. I was raised in church, but my, I was raised in a time when people weren't doing science in church.

There was no integration there. So I've told people, I went to church and never heard anything scientific never heard dinosaurs mentioned, and I would go to school and never heard anything theological never heard anything about God so there was a real disconnect.

And I remember asking my pastor at the time I was 17. If he could help me kind of figure that out because what

I was recognizing I was battling with two different worldviews as I was beginning to merge the two together, and I recognized inconsistency and he didn't have an answer for me.

And I think I did what a lot of people wound up doing is you begin to look at the Bible, you assume scientists are just giving you the facts.

And we just don't really understand the Bible, and therefore, it probably didn't mean six literal days so on and so forth.

And it wasn't until Jurassic Park came out in 1993 that I began to ask the questions again.

I wasn't satisfied with the answers I had gotten as a teenager, and I began to recognize the importance of integrating these two ideas here.

So, the Lord brought me back to paleontology really about 15 years ago.

And so I don't have a history of education in it, I am a field paleontologist.

But I am enjoying studying and really getting to do much like what we're doing tonight is a get to share with people and encourage and exhort and tell them

God's Word is true and you can study and enjoy science at the same time. And sometimes

I don't know if it's what I say or that I'm able to say it with some level of conviction, and let people who have kind of thought that kind of felt that but weren't really confident, and then kind of give them that push to say yes, you can do both think both but just be sure you understand the

Word of God is the authority over science. I hope

I answered your question well. Oh, I think you did a good job and in fact you she had posted a second question which was, did you ever believe in evolution before creation so you so you covered it all.

So good job. Um, next question comes from Bob I've heard arguments that T Rex was a vegetarian and not carnivorous which post flood dinos dinosaurs, do you believe were carnivores, if any.

I think typically when we look at dinosaurs we think about in terms of Genesis chapter one verse 30

I think it is where it says he's given all the green herbs plants vegetables to all of life to eat.

And so the Tyrannosaurus any animal that we would look at its teeth today and say okay you likely meet.

He was eating vegetables in the garden before the fall. When enemies sin, the world began to change

God curse the ground curses the animals. And I believe it's at least logical that animals might have been able begun to violate that condition that God had placed upon them.

As far as what animals, it was what dinosaurs, a meat after the flood.

We have a thing at the museum where we ask, can you tell when an animal ate by looking at its teeth.

We've got a fruit bat and a Chinese water deer Chinese water deers got they have fangs.

They're like three inches long. I mean they look like they would rip your hide off. And yet they plants.

The fruit bat eats fruit. And so what we recognize is we can't really know what an animal ate unless we've seen it alive, eating.

Now do I think Tyrannosaurus rex ate meat, well it seems logical based on the teeth, but I don't know so try to answer the question becomes more challenging.

Didn't find green stuff in their teeth. I thought I read that they found plant material or green stains on their teeth.

Or also, that's in the stomach contents would you find have have things been found.

Yeah, they know that the Tyrannosaur there has been some loosely connected stomach contents, or there was a small mammal inside of a

Tyrannosaur. And so, you know, I'm not saying Tyrannosaurus didn't eat meat

I think they did. And I think they were eating meat before the flood. And I think when they came off the arc, they were still eating meat.

But I just want to cautious as to not try to answer his question fully make is is difficult because we haven't seen all these animals alive.

Um, the, the Kyle on who's been posting comments on Facebook says coal lights stomach contents show the diets of many dinosaurs.

So, that's copyright. Okay. Um, another question.

Oh, Julie, it's not so much a question but just a comment. Julie here in zoom says

I'm in sixth grade and really enjoy your presentation. It was very interesting and I'm so happy to hear about dinosaurs in the

Bible I really want to be a paleontologist and go on one of your digs. Well, we'd love to have her come up sometime so tell her to look us up.

Um, next, Jessica has another question or comment.

She says Dr. Dr. Lyle Jason last but one of our speakers before makes note that for the animals with sharp teeth that eat plants and veg vegetables only some vegetables and fruits have tough exteriors, which would require sharp teeth.

Yeah, I see that. That makes sense. And, and Joyce pointed out that chickens will eat mice.

Chickens will eat chicken to chickens can be quite creative that way.

The only chickens I study are on my plate. The fried kind.

Correct. Chicken. But I would think that the T rex would be his mouth would be perfect for eating a big watermelon.

I mean I love watermelon so much that I kind of wish that I could just eat the watermelon whole.

But, um, so I don't know I guess maybe I've seen some depictions of him eating the watermelons too.

But you think that he was a meat eater. I think he was a meat eater but I think answers in Genesis and I used to do some artwork that would depict him eating.

But I think the point of that artwork was to describe him in a pre fall state.

What was the original create created kind what was he doing in the Garden of Eden, if you will.

But you know when you think think about animals I've heard of tigers, who in captivity will eat vegetables to some degree.

It's, I guess I would caution us all is we're making. It's difficult to make assessments about animals that we've not seen a line and what they might do.

Because even when we look at the animals we have around us today. They're so far removed from their original creation, they're so far removed from being perfect.

There's so much into a fallen world. They modified genetically to some degree to adapt to certain diets.

It's difficult to make full assessments about animals that we've not seen a line. That makes that makes good sense.

Yes. My granddad Maverick would would eat literally anything broccoli cauliflower watermelon popcorn.

And it just makes you wonder is what's possible you know if they if they were allowed to, you know, if we kind of press them into a particular direction with a diet, would we see a modification in the diet.

Yeah. Well, I'm Carolyn has a question

Carolyn's asking, what's your opinion about some scientists trying to recreate some of the dinosaurs with DNA, DNA from soft tissue.

You know there's, I answer that question from a couple of venues one is a little boy

I would love to still, I would love to see a living dinosaur you know, there would be a fascination but.

I also recognize here at this point in life that God is God has brought an end to many species of animals.

With respect to man's pursuit, I think, man does things scientifically that he shouldn't try.

I think man is pursuing things that were not meant for him to try to grab a hold of the capacity and the ability for them to create a new genetic living dinosaur

I think is probably going to be impossible. I think the most likely thing and this is something

I've read on a little bit is mammoths mastodons. You know they're finding some of them that have been frozen in a snap freeze and so they've got a little bit

DNA and soft tissue there. And then they thinking maybe we can take a modern elephant and produce an offspring.

But from what I read on that, even the DNA is quite different, even within that.

So, I think it would be a very difficult task to do that even for a mammoth or mastodon, but that doesn't mean that's going to stop them from trying.

Of course not. And we and we sometimes touch on topics like that like when we had

Alex Newman come on and talk about transhumanism. Oh yeah, you know a lot of things about that.

We talked about the consequences of evolutionary thinking and how man thinks that he can he can outdo

God. So, um, one of the things we do, I think we can safely say is we're seeing fallen humanity work to distort the created order.

And I believe in some way that was going on in Genesis six at the fall is we are seeing the

Nephilim and the sons of God, you know, we're seeing a distortion of the created order and we're seeing that coming with all these things going on right now.

Yeah. Okay, we have one, one last question here on zoom and then we're going to go ahead and wrap up our, our public streaming our live stream.

Michelle is asking what dinosaurs are most likely candidates for Leviathan. You know that's,

I've typically gravitated towards something along the lines of a mosasaur which would be a marine reptile because I typically think of Leviathan in those terms.

It's interesting as much anatomical description as we get that we can kind of I think sink our teeth into with behemoths.

We don't really get that with Leviathan. We describe, we see it described in some very general terms about its thick hide or its ability to breathe fire.

But as far as an anatomy list. We're not really getting much of that.

I've seen some interesting study with respect to Spinosaurus, whether they were possibly

Leviathans. I do think whatever creature it was,

I do believe it had the capacity to breathe fire and certainly like the bombardier beetle gives us a modern day example that that's certainly a possibility.

That's not an irrational pursuit. I've seen some possibilities of some of the larger crocodilians.

I believe what we're looking at is an animal that either was full time aquatic or semi aquatic and would have been known by people to stay away from certain regions that he would have had a viciousness about him.

Much like behemoth is an imposing figure that brings glory to God and it's a demonstration of his power,

Leviathan I think is doing the same thing. I wish I could give you a better answer than that, but that's kind of where I land.

Which and being aquatic means that it wouldn't have been a dinosaur, right? It was some other type of an animal.

The only exception could be is Spinosaurus would be a dinosaur, but that becomes more of a land animal.

But it seems like every two years they're doing something different with Spinosaurus anyway. All right.

Well, Tommy, this has been so interesting and we really have appreciated you. Please tell people one more time how they can find you, how they can support your ministry, how they can sign up for a dig.

Well, go to creationtruth .org and there's a tab at the top that says digs and there should be some contact information, a form with some dates, creationtruth .org

and check it out. And that's the best way to go about getting a hold of me and we'll be glad to, whether it's this summer or in the future, we do groups, church groups, youth groups.

So if you want to do something more than just a single day thing, or you can just call the museum,

Glendive Dinosaur and Fossil Museum in Glendive, Montana. I want to do the number off the top of my head.

I think it's 406 -377 -3228, but check it out. Okay. And I did put a link in the comments on Facebook and Robin posted a link here in the chat on Zoom so people can have the link to go to.

And of course we're Creation Fellowship Santee and you can find links to most of our past presentations by typing in tinyurl .com

forward slash CF Santee, that's C like creation, F like fellowship, Santee is

S -A -N -T -E -E. And you can also email us at creationfellowshipsantee at gmail .com

so that you get on our email list so you don't miss any of our upcoming speakers.

And speaking of upcoming speakers, next week we have one of our more current events topics, which is also known as Consequences of Evolutionary Thinking.

We're going to welcome back filmmaker and journalist Trevor Loudon, who's going to be talking about how socialism and Marxism has infiltrated our top political leaders.

So join us for that. Isn't he going to talk about how Darwin has destroyed our education system?

That will probably be included. Okay. Thank you so much.

I enjoyed my evening with you all. Yeah, and if you just stay back we're going to go off the air but we're going to stay in our