Daniel and the Dinosaur Den?

CLAIM: The Biblical Daniel slayed a dinosaur in ancient Babylon. (Hodge & Welch, 2011, p. 4, 14) (Thomas, 2013, p. 18) (Hovind, 2003, 28:26)

RESPONSE: The idea that the prophet Daniel may have slain a dinosaur during the reign of Cyrus over Babylon only makes sense if more likely interpretations of the text are ignored for a modern reading (similar to the idea that Marco Polo saw living dinosaurs during his travels in China).

Dr. Brian Thomas of the Institute for Creation Research describes the case briefly in his 2015 book Dinosaurs and the Bible while discussing proposed historical encounters between humans and dinosaurs as an argument for young-Earth creationism:

"The few dinosaurs that remained were often hunted, as many dragon legends portray. St. George was reputed to have slain a dragon in the Middle East in the late AD 200s, and another legend holds that the prophet Daniel killed a dragon near Babylon centuries earlier. These two examples represent scores of historical accounts from around the world." (Thomas, 2015, p. 18)

While Thomas describes the account as a "legend", the story is actually recounted in Daniel 14:23-27, where the prophet Daniel puts to death a large reptile that was worshiped by the Babylonians during the reign of Cyrus the Great (559-530 B.C.E.). As the biblical narrative goes:

There was also a great dragon, which the Babylonians revered. And the king said to Daniel, "You cannot deny that this is a living god; so worship him." Daniel said, "I will worship the Lord my God, for he is the living God. But if you, O king, will give me permission, I will slay the dragon without sword or club." The king said, "I give you permission." Then Daniel took pitch, fat, and hair, and boiled them together and made cakes, which he fed to the dragon. The dragon ate them, and burst open. And Daniel said, "See what you have been worshiping!" (Daniel 14:23-27, RSVCE)

While the original account of Daniel and the dragon is believed to have been written in Hebrew, the oldest surviving standard version of the text we have is from the Hellenistic Jewish scholar Theodotion's translation of the Greek Septuagint, who used the Greek word drakon to describe the creature that Daniel killed. (McLay, 2015) While the Greeks did use the word drakon to describe the large serpentine monsters of their myths, they also used it to refer to common snakes, specifically those that killed by constriction - the word is related to the standard Greek ophis, which refers to snakes in a general sense. (Moore, 1977, p. 141-142; Senter et al., 2016, p. 67) Constrictors have long been identified as the likely basis for various dragons in folklore - for example, the drakons kept in the temple of Asclepius for ritual purposes prior to the fifth century B.C.E. were the nearly seven-foot long constricting snake Zamenis longissimus, and Pliny the Elder's Indian draco was the Indian rock python. (Moore, 1977, p. 67, 142; Senter, 2013; Senter et al., 2016, p. 67, 72-73, 87; Wickkiser, 2008, p. 106) Even the drakon of Aristotle was described as a snake that was preyed upon by eagles. (Senter, 2013)

Thus, given this information, it makes much more sense to interpret Daniel's dragon as a great, constricting snake. While speculative, it could have been possible for the Babylonians under Cyrus the Great to either keep or be aware of great, constricting snakes. Ancient menageries were maintained by rulers of the Near East to showcase their control over diverse ecosystems, serving as displays of wealth and power, as well as religious symbols or as sources of diplomatic gifts. They included a diverse range of exotic plants and animals, including giraffes, monkeys, even seals, bears, and various types of foreign fish. (Foster, 1999 p. 64) Before Cyrus' death, he had expanded the limits of his empire to come into contact with the western regions of India and northern portions of Africa. By doing this, he brought the empire into contact with peoples who would have been familiar with some of the largest snakes in the world, such as the Central African rock python (Python sebae), the Indian python (Python molurus), or even the longest snake in the world, the reticulated python (Malayopython reticulatus). All of these snakes were 3-4x longer than the drakon snakes of the Greeks' Asclepian temples, and pythons are known to take down prey much larger than themselves, including deer, antelopes, and even people. (Currin, 2019) Snake worship is widely attested throughout the Persian Gulf during the Iron Age (approx. 1200-550 B.C.E.), with worshipers gathering in elaborate temple complexes dedicated specifically to this purpose. (Benoist, 2007; Potts, 2007; Viegas, 2007) This makes the dinosaur interpretation much less likely - snake worship was not unfamiliar to the Israelites. Just over a century before the prophet Daniel was born, King Hezekiah of Judah had to destroy the bronze serpent that Moses had crafted during the Israelites' journey through the wilderness because his subjects had begun to worship it. (Awabdy, 2022) Given what we know about the region and the period in which this story takes place, it seems much more likely that Daniel had come across a temple dedicated to worshiping exotic snakes rather than housing an anomalously late surviving dinosaur.

Until creation paleontologists can put forward a better argument for Daniel's dragon being a dinosaur, it is not recommended that young-Earth creationists use it as an argument for a human-dinosaur coexistence.

REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING

Awabdy, M. A. (2022) Snake Iconography, Mythology, and the Meaning of the Bronze Snake Image in Numbers 21:4-9 and 2 Kings 18:4. The Asbury Journal, 77(2), 217-244.

Benoist, A. (2007) An Iron Age II Snake Cult in the Oman Peninsula: Evidence from Bithnah (Emirate of Fujairah). Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy, 18(1), 34-54.

Currin, G. (2019, October 12) What's The Biggest Animal That a Snake Can Swallow? LiveScience.

Edmonds, N. J. (2024, December 25) Did Marco Polo see dinosaurs in China? Paleodragonology.

Edmonds, N. J. (2025, February 13) Did St. George kill a dinosaur? Paleodragonology.

Foster, K. P. (1999) The Earliest Zoos and Gardens. Scientific American, 281(1), 64-71.

McLay, R. T. (2015) Daniel (Old Greek and Theodotion). In J. K. Aitken (Ed.) T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (544-554). T&T Clark.

Moore, C. A. (1977) Daniel, Esther and Jeremiah: The Additions - A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Doubleday & Company, Inc.

Potts, D. T. (2007) Revisiting the snake burials of the Late Dilmun building complex on Bahrain. Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy, 18(1), 55-74.

Senter, P. (2013) Dinosaurs and pterosaurs in Greek and Roman art and literature? An investigation of young-earth creationist claims. Palaeontologia Electronica, 16(3), 25A.

Senter, P., Mattox, U., Haddad, E. E. (2016) Snake to Monster: Conrad Gessner's Schlangenbuch and the Evolution of the Dragon in the Literature of Natural History. Journal of Folklore Research, 53(1), 67-142.

Viegas, J. (2007, May 18) Snake cults once common in Middle East. ABC Science.

Wickkiser, B. (2008) Asklepios, Medicine, and the Politics of Healing in Fifth-century Greece: Between Craft and Cult. Johns Hopkins Press.