Crouching tiger, hidden dinosaur?
The entry in A Chinese-English Dictionary (published in China in 1979) for dragon gives the meanings as:
dragon
imperial (as in imperial robe)
a huge extinct reptile: dinosaur
a surname.
Clearly, the dictionary recognizes that dragons were real animals and the language also connects dinosaurs to them. Indeed, the characters rendering ‘dinosaur’ in a paleontology context, (‘konglong’ 恐龙), literally mean ‘fearsome dragon’—remember that the English word ‘dinosaur’ was not invented until 1841.
Also, there are many sayings in Chinese that connect dragons with still-living animals, such as tigers. For example:
‘like a coiling dragon and crouching tiger’—meaning a forbidding strategic point. A variation on this saying inspired the title of the recent award-winning Chinese movie, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, meaning a benign looking place with powerful hidden forces.
‘dragon’s pool and tiger’s den’—meaning a dangerous place.
‘dragons rising and tigers leaping’—meaning a scene of bustling activity.
Furthermore, of the twelve symbols used in the Chinese lunar calendar cycle, eleven are real animals (pig, rat, rabbit, tiger, etc.), suggesting that the remaining one, the dragon, is equally real.
The above evidence is consistent with identifying dinosaurs with the dragons of Chinese history as real animals that have lived not too long ago. This contradicts the whole idea of an ‘age of dinosaurs’ millions of years before people existed, and further supports the Biblical account of the real history of the world.
Readers’ comments
David C said, "David E. Jones argues that belief in dragons is so widespread among ancient cultures because evolution embedded an innate fear of predators in the human mind."
But what's his actual evidence for that, David?
Or is this just an 'evolution of the gaps' argument?
This question is answered in chapter 15 of the Creation Answers Book, Where are the human fossils?
I'm wondering how secular scientist respond to the protein, red blood cells etc. that are being found in the bones? I can't really find that much about it. And how they respond to the evidence that people did know how the dinosaurs looked like according to the many depictions that have been found?
I have studied this topic for about twenty years. I focussed on China and Chinese artifacts for a number of years. I found it interesting that the further back in time one went in China, the more realistic the depictions (of dragons) were when compared to reconstructions of dinosaurs (or other supposedly extinct reptiles). Accurate examples exist from the Hongshan Culture. These can be seen in my book mentioned below.
However as one progresses toward the present, the dragon depiction became standardized, and essentially this more “modernized” version does not resemble in detail either early artifacts or dinosaurs/“extinct” reptiles. So in essence, this more recent dragon depiction from China is mainly mythological. (Memories had become faded over time.)
I hope this helps. See my book, Untold Secrets of Planet Earth: Dire Dragons for more information, available from Creation Ministries International.
Vance Nelson
Everyone who wants to believe in the mythology of deep time and/or evolution (the only view permitted in the Smithsonian) has to deny the possibility of dinosaurs existing with humans. If the multi-faceted historical evidence for this very thing were allowed to penetrate the concrete walls of naturalism erected to keep out unwanted thoughts and it were acknowledged that dinosaurs did not die out on earth 66 million years ago, then of course the whole evolutionary facade would come crashing down.
I hope our readers find amusement in your grasping-at-straws 'explanations' for the historical records of clearly-identified dinosaurs/dragons. For example, that the magic wand of 'evolution' planted fear of large creatures into our brains, etc. Carl Sagan saw some of the evidence that dragons and dinosaurs were one and the same and it bothered him. I think he was the first one to posit that 'evolution' programmed us with a memory of dinosaurs (because of our supposed reptilian origins), which gave rise to dragon stories, etc. See: The year the water dragon roared.
And we also have abundant scientific evidence that dinosaur fossils are not at least 66 million years old, but much younger. See (e.g.): Double decade dinosaur disquiet. And there's much more on creation.com, including dealing with the pathetic attempts to explain away the scientific evidence as well!
Keep thinking David!
Last week I was in Utah and Arizona for vacation. We stopped at a place outside of Tuba City Arizona that claimed to have dinosaur tracks on their Navajo land. So we stopped and sure enough there laid countless dinosaur tracks, fossilized eggs, and even dinosaur poop (at least according to this Navajo man). They even had a skeleton of a raptor exposed right there in the middle of this. He claimed all these tracks were 130 million years old and used all the talking point we hear about all the time (evolved from birds, etc).
As I stood there I just couldn’t get myself to believe that those foot prints and that Skelton had been there for 130 million years old. As much time as I’ve spent on this site, I couldn’t do anything but just sit there and think about this website. But I have a couple questions:
1. How recent do Creation scientists believe dinosaurs died off? If we don’t believe they are 130 million years old, then what’s are age? If Job was writing about one then I’d have to assume we’re talking 3,000-4,000 years or so ago?
2. How were so many different kinds of dinosaurs able to evolve (micro-evolution) in such a short time from leaving the Ark, covering most of the earth, and then dying off?
3. As far as finding red blood cells, soft tissues, etc in Dino bones like we do, would we expect to find the same thing if we dug up a human skeleton that was, let’s say, 200-300 (or older) years old?
2. The number of created kinds is almost certainly less than 100. Please see (e.g.): Too many dinosaur names. I think that there were possibly 35 or so. The variation within a created kind is not great (think of the variety of dog breeds that there are). The extent of coverage of the earth after the Flood is not known (we can't go on where fossils are found, as the fossils were formed during the inundatory phase of the Flood).
3. Depending on the circumstances of burial and preservation, you might expect to find evidence of proteins, DNA, etc., in a human skeleton of that age.
Please check out the wealth of articles at Dinosaur questions and answers.
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