Here’s the Job 40 passage:
“Look at Behemoth,
which I made along with you
and which feeds on grass like an ox.
16 What strength it has in its loins,
what power in the muscles of its belly!
17 Its tail sways like a cedar;
the sinews of its thighs are close-knit.
18 Its bones are tubes of bronze,
its limbs like rods of iron.
19 It ranks first among the works of God,
yet its Maker can approach it with his sword.
20 The hills bring it their produce,
and all the wild animals play nearby.
21 Under the lotus plants it lies,
hidden among the reeds in the marsh.
22 The lotuses conceal it in their shadow;
the poplars by the stream surround it.
23 A raging river does not alarm it;
it is secure, though the Jordan should surge against its mouth.
24 Can anyone capture it by the eyes,
or trap it and pierce its nose?
(1) J.E.S. what aspect of the description do you believe fails to match an elephant?
(2) A resting elephant can indeed hide under lotus plants (which grow to about six or seven feet tall) and hide among the reeds. Most of the people I’ve known who claim BEHEMOTH was a sauropod consider it a much much larger animal. Do you have a rebuttal for this problem?
(3) One of the best times to safely view elephants is from the other side of a river while the elephant herd wades into the water along the opposite bank. Job 40 describes such a situation quite beautifully. (The KJV in verse 23 says, “Behold, he drinketh up a river, and hasteth not: he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth.” That sure sounds like an elephant to me!)
Of course, it is quite feasible for the author of the book of Job to have seen (or heard descriptions of) an elephant. It is extremely doubtful (and there is zero evidence) that any sauropod species survived to recent millennia. Thus, seeing how an elephant fits the description (and a sauropod doesn’t), it is easy to see why BEHEMOTH=sauropod is a very recent claim popularized by only a few origins-ministry entrepreneurs (who are neither scientists nor Hebrew exegetes.)
The explanation is quite simple: various ancient civilizations found dinosaur fossils. It doesn’t take massive scientific knowledge to unearth a protoceratops (for example), examine what appear to be skeletal remains, and conclude: “This is what’s left of a massive animal which roamed this area.” (Have you ever noticed how gargoyles on European buildings look a lot like dragons/dinosaurs? There is plenty of evidence that people have long been fascinated by unearthed dinosaur fossils. Indeed, I recall some stories of Chinese emperors having such unearthed treasures on display in their royal residences, including fossilized dinosaur eggs from the Gobi desert.)
Have you ever wondered how the Cyclops creature arose in ancient myths? If you’ve seen an elephant skull, you know that there is a large hole in the middle of the “face” of the skull where the trunk emerges. Yet, to the ancients it appeared to be the skull of a one-eyed giant man. So it is no great surprise that the ancient Greeks crafted a tale of the mighty Cyclops.
Indeed, the best explanation often tends to be the simplest explanation—especially when massive evidence tells us that most dinosaurs died out many millions of years ago.