April 11th: “Beasts of the Bible” On Again
Posted by: Loren Coleman on April 10th, 2010
Missed it the first time? Here it is again.
Animal Planet’s “Beasts of the Bible” will have a repeat broadcast on April 11, 2010, from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. EDT.
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Additional input, as per the comments below:
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
I rather enjoyed the program the first time around, the commentary on Aaron’s staff turning into a Nile croc rather than a serpent was very interesting and was intrigued by the section on Jonah. The mermaid section was a bit of a stretch. That all being said, I have to call you out on the Mokele-mbembe theories. While I understand, and respect, your thoughts on MM not being a sauropod but rather a relic Pleistocene era animal, the wooden statuette representing the “other” MM seemed to undermine your argument. As an artist I have some insight on “reading” stylized material and that looked for all the world to be a ceratopsian like the Styracosaurus. Keep in mind I would have been more accepting of the rhino theory save for two points: the head fill, and the large “cedar”-like tail. Rhinos don’t have head frills and no large mammals (that we are aware of) have large tails. Even small mammals don’t have tails that large (proportionally speaking). While the one horn is enticing, the rest of the statue shows something reptilian not mammalian. Obviously the only way to know for certain is to find one, but for my money the natives are describing at least one relic dino if not two.
Oh, I agree with you sirupapers, with footnotes.
Remember, the program “Beasts of the Bible” is television, not a scholarly conference on cryptids. In various takes and pre-production conversations, I discussed the chipekwe and the emela-ntouka, which leaves tracks “like a rhinoceros.” This creature is known by these two local names (and others) and is described as the horned “killer of elephants.” It is often confused with the mokele-mbembe, by the general public and doc producers. I even used a wooden carving of a rhino, on set (as can be seen in the top photo above), to illustrate my points and the differences.
However, like I said, this is television. Through targeted questioning, standard editing, audio selections, and L-cuts, the producers, director, and editors got what images and sound bytes they wanted, removed the rhino replica, kept the Ray Mackal-proposed ceratopsian dino Monoclonius subtly in the program, and made it sound like I was directly associating Mokele-mbembe with the carving you saw in the scene.
If you notice, I was used as a lead-in to a theory they wanted to champion, namely that Mokele-mbembes are hippos. The editing of what I was saying in both segments where I appeared (Mokele-mbembes and Merbeings) was structured to be bridges to where the program wished to go, and, of course, skipped any foundation thoughts or diversity of opinions I might have shared.
What can I say? We all know the downside of being on these documentaries, even programs like this one that basely appeared to be open-minded. Nevertheless, such a documentary is not comprehensive and cannot be George Eberhart’s encyclopedia, Mysterious Creatures or Coleman’s/Clark’s Cryptozoology A to Z, now can it? Does that mean all of us should avoid them? I tend to be hopeful that the overall illustration is that cryptozoologists can be aware of natural history mysteries, and suggest some alternative explanations that will encourage the studying of such topics, as opposed to ignoring them.
i really want to watch that show. 😉 So many to talk about. Especially the Behemoth’s Mysterious Figure including the Leviathan and other serpents the bible is talking about! The leviathan is what triggers my mind the most since it breaths fire. Then again the behemoth also triggers my mind because of the sightings of Mokele-Mbembe. I can say that it could of be a mysterious animal not known in the museums.