Ridiculous KJV Bible Corrections:
Job 40, Behemoth

by John Hinton, Ph.D.
jhinton@post.harvard.edu

Job 40:15 KJV Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox. 16 Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. 17 He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together. 18 His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron. 19 He is the chief of the ways of God: he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him. 20 Surely the mountains bring him forth food, where all the beasts of the field play. 21 He lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed, and fens. 22 The shady trees cover him with their shadow; the willows of the brook compass him about. 23 Behold, he drinketh up a river, and hasteth not: he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth. 24 He taketh it with his eyes: his nose pierceth through snares.

This is a clear description of a dinosaur in the Bible. Modern man has become so braindead due to being indoctrinated by science falsely so called that the common sense implications of this verse go way over their heads. As Kent Hovind, Henry Morris, and numerous other creation scientists have pointed out, this is a description of the mightiest of beasts and appears to fit the description of a sauropod. The endless number of descriptions and artistic representations of dragons, i.e. dinosaurs, that have come down to us through history make it abundantly obvious that man was quite aware of the existence of dinosaurs long before Richard Owen's discovery of dinosaur bones in the mid 19th century. It also is apparent that they lived at the same time as man. It is one thing for modern scientists falsely so called to be deluded in this respect, but it is another thing entirely for alleged Christians to be deluded on the issue. When "Christians" deny that man and dinosaurs lived side by side they are denying the Word of God itself. God created man and dinosaurs during the same week and Adam named all the beasts of the world. The modern versions have all knuckled down to Darwinism by contorting these verses in Job in order to transform a dinosaur into a modern beast or a mythological figure. This is an act of rebellion against God, and it is what one would expect from Bible-scoffing atheists and third rate scientists. What does this tell us about the modern translators? It tells us that they answer to false science and not to God. So why do professed Christians use them? What particularly confuses me is why so many anti-Darwinist creation scientists attack God's Word, which is the King James Bible, and promote Darwinist corruptions of Scripture. They should be smart enough to know better, but unfortunately most are only second rate scientists. The KJV translators did not know what a behemoth was so they did what honest translators are forced to do in such a situation, they transliterated the Hebrew proper name. Their translation of the description of behemoth was not guided by the desire to make the beast look like any particular animal. It ended up appearing like a description of a brachiosaur-like animal any prejudice or predisposed ideas. This is in sharp contrast to what many of the modern version translators have done.

Many modern versions also used the proper name, but used footnotes to try to define the animal. When they did they showed themselves to be fools

ASV: Behold now, behemoth, which I made as well as thee; He eateth grass as an ox.

My original 1901 edition of the ASV added a footnote reading: "That is, the hippopotamus."

RSV: "Behold, Be’hemoth, which I made as I made you; he eats grass like an ox." The RSV adds a footnote that reads: "Or the hippopotamus."

NIV footnote: "Possibly the hippopotamus or the elephant."

New Jerusalem: Footnote: "Lit. 'the Beast', sometimes a mythical buffalo, but here the hippopotamus."

NAB footnote:"Behemoth: the hippopotamus."

Other modern versions try to define behemoth within the text itself.

NLV: "see now the hippopotamus, which I made as well as you.

Moffat: [[Look at the hippopotamus there, munching grass like an ox....his tail is stiff as any cedar.

Amp: Behold now the behemoth (the hippopotamus), which I created as I did you; he eats grass like an ox.

NASV footnote "Or, the hippopotamus."

CEV: I created both you and the hippopotamus...

NLT: Look at the mighty hippopotamus... Its tail is as straight as cedar.

How do we know it is not a hippopotamus, elephant, or ox? The overall description describes a beast that is much mightier than any of these beasts, but most important is the description of the tail. The tail of the creature is described to be like a cedar. This makes the above descriptions downright stupid. The culprits who produced the CEV, NLT, and similar hack jobs most likely just did what most incompetent pseudo-translators do; they hacked off bits and pieced of miscellaneous translations and stuck them together as they saw fit, and then reworded the product. As for the versions that used real language scholars, the problem with the tail did not escape their notice. In order to accommodate this difficulty they played with the verb of the sentence, which is hpß. This is a tricky verse due to the fact that hpß normally means to desire or to will. However, on analogy with the Arabic verb hf?, to bend, the meaning to bend or move has been derived, which fits this occurrence. Wishing to make the preposterous claim that behemoth refers to hippos, translators like Moffat, Pope, and various others have invented other meanings of the verb in order to explain away the obvious contradiction. The NLT pulled the word "straight" out of thin air to decribe his tail. Moffat's "stiff tail" was based on wild conjecture as well, and was probably based on obscene suggestions that were made by a few commentators. Pope's Anchor Bible version of Job gives the translation of an arched tail? This is plain foolishness. Pope has derived this meaning from the above mentioned Arabic cognate. This might be a possible meaning of the Arabic verb, but it is stretching it to suggest that it applies to the Hebrew here. Since when does a hippopotamus arch its tail and why would the Book of Job make allusion to such a puny tail arching? Furthermore, how does the comparison with a cedar relate to arching? There have been a number of other silly suggestions for defining the beast. The NEB actually tried to define it as a crocodile. The word behema has the primary meaning of a large quadrapedic land beast. The -ot ending is thought to be a intensive suffix rather than a plural as it is in most instances. A crocodile is an unlikely candidate.

NEB: Consider the chief of beasts, the crocodile, who devours cattle as if they were grass.

Notice that in order to do this they presented behemoth as a devourer of cattle. This might convince many easily duped people into falling for this translation, but it requires a complete ignorance of Hebrew. The NEB had to rejuxtapose the words in the second half of the clause. They have taken the Hebrew ka (as) and moved it from the word for cow and moved it to the word for grass. This was an act of incompetence and dishonesty.

The American Baptist Publication Society version took behemoths to be river oxen.

ABPS: Behold now the river-ox...

This haphazard guess is undoubtedly derived from a theory that behemoth is derived from an Egyptian word pi‘-ehe-mout that would mean ox of the river. Unfortunately for such theorists no such word is known to exist in either Egyptian or Coptic, and the Egyptian word for water is mou, not mout. In other words it was an act of creativity on the part of the translators and nothing more.

NCV footnote reads "A large land animal. It could refer to the hippopotamus, the elephant or a monster."

The New Children's Version above not only gives two ludicrous suggestions for living animals, but it also suggests that it is purely mythological. This suggestion is in line with the view of Pope and many other modern scoffers. Is this what modern Christians want to tell their children, that the Bible is a book of mythology and that we should trust the evolutionists and atheist Ugariticists over the Bible?

The Message: Look at the land beast, Behemoth, I created him as well as you. Grazing on grass, docile as a cow.

Surprisingly, Peterson did not try to identify the beast. I would have expected Peterson to provide us with something really amusing for this passage such as "the mighty walrus," or the like, but he has disappointed me. Instead he has made up details about behemoths that are found nowhere in the Hebrew text, such as its being a docile beast. There is no word in the Hebrew that has anything to do with docility. Aside from this outlandish addition to the text, he has capitalized the word behemoth in order to transform the word into a name, which is his way of mythologizing the behemoth, thereby destroying the Bible's superiority over modern science and transforming it into a fairy tale book.

As is usually the case, the absurdities and perversions of modern English versions may be viewed in Bible perversions from all over the world. The French Louis Segonde, Romanian Cornilescu, are just two examples for which no reader should require a translation to see what has been done.

LSg (40-10) Voici l’hippopotame, à qui j’ai donné la vie comme à toi! Il mange de l’herbe comme le boeuf.

Rom Uitæ-te la ipopotamul, cæruia i-am dat viaflæ ca øi flie! El mænîncæ iarbæ ca boul.

It is a crying shame, and a grievous sin, that modern Christians are denying God's Word and distorting the Bible for the purpose of propping up the theories of atheist scientists and scholars whose goals are to destroy Christianity. Most so-called biblical creation scientists even promote these perversions of history and shun the one book that does not, which is the King James Bible! What a ridiculous world we are now living in! We don't see vegetarians promoting wild game cookbooks. PETA does not promote the writings of the North American Hunting Association, and the reverse is also true. Likewise, Orthodox Jews do not promote the literature of Hamas or Islamic Jihad. That would be irrational and bizarre behavior, but it is the behavior of modern church-goers and creation scientists to undermine the only true source that they have for their worldview. It is mind boggling indeed.

The preceeding is part of a series of examples of KJV verses that arrogant would-be scholars have tried to correct and showed themselves to be fools. These examples are for the benefit of those who would like more ammunition to defend God's Word against the attacks of the arrogant Bible "correcting" modernists. I hope that some of you find them useful.

Your servant in Christ,
John Hinton, Ph.D.
Bible Restoration Ministry
A ministry seeking the translating and reprinting of KJV equivalent Bibles in all the languages of the world.