Powerful post. You have convince me. But there is still one thing I don't understand. How do dinosaurs fit into the equation?
Tanniyn is always translated into another word when we write it in English. Tanniyn occurs 28 times in the Bible and is normally translated "dragon." It is also translated "serpent," "sea monster," "dinosaur," "great creature," and "reptile." Behemoth and Leviathan are relatively specific creatures, perhaps each was a single kind of animal. Tanniyn is a more general term, and it can be thought of as the original version of the word "dinosaur." The word "dinosaur" was originally coined in 1841, more than three thousand years after the Bible first referred to "Tanniyn."
What do you see described in Job 40:15-24? What animal is described in Job chapter 41, Psalm 104:25,26 and Isaiah 27:1?
We would expect behemoth to be a large land animal whose bones are like beams of bronze and so forth, so whatever a behemoth is, it is large. A key phrase is "He is the first of the ways of God." This phrase in the original Hebrew implied that behemoth was the biggest animal created. Although an elephant or a hippopotamus are big, they are less than one-tenth the size of a Brachiosaurus, the largest (complete) dinosaur ever discovered. A Brachiosaurus could therefore easily be described as "the first of the ways of God" only if it was actually witnessed by the author.
Unlike behemoth, who is huge, Leviathan is ferocious and terrifying. Many references refer to the sea, so Leviathan is probably a sea creature. Although some bibles refer to Leviathan as an alligator or crocodile, neither of these are sea creatures. They like the water, but they spend much of their time on land. Furthermotr, the question "Who can open the doors of his face. . . ." implies that nobody can open Leviathan’s jaws. Although an alligator's jaws cannot normally be forced open, a punch to their sensitive snout or poke in eye might startle them enough to release their grip. Although this is a good description of an alligator characteristic, it does not fit perfectly with the description of Leviathan, which in the context was supposed to describe an essentially impossible event, and we are not done yet.
Compared to Leviathan’s armor, iron is like straw and arrows can not make it flee. Let’s face it, an arrow can do a lot of damage to a crocodile or alligator. This is not a description of either of them, or any living animal I'm aware of. It is hard to read Job 41:18-21 without realizing the Bible is telling us that Leviathan breathes fire. That alone will eliminate almost every living animal (the bombardier beetle). I have a hard time believing the account is describing a bomardier beetle (not even a big one).
The history of every culture is filled with stories of fire-breathing dragons. If you think about it, in all the past ages wouldn’t someone have "made up" a story of a fire-breathing lion or something? Nope, they didn't need to make anything up, because the dragon stories are based on truth, and only "dragons" breathed fire. It is easy to imagine Leviathan as a member of the dragon (tanniyn) family. (Plus, Isaiah 27:1 strongly implies this connection.)
Furthermore, many fossil dinosaur skulls contain unexplained, empty passages. Scientists have not been able to guess the reason for these passages. Based on the Scripture's cited, would it make sense that some dinosaurs used these passages as "gas tanks" for the combustible mixture used to "breathe fire?" Nah, that's right out of the question and totally impossible. Anyways, those are my thoughts on the matter.