How did the Inca stone artists know how to depict dermal patterns and cartridge frills that were unknown in the 1960's?
You believe that hundreds of dinosaur depictions from every corner of the globe over thousands of years were the result of ancient dinosaur bone excavations? Where is the evidence for this?
Without evidence, it's just another "Just So" story designed to save a paradigm in crisis. I do understand that paradigms are very hard to let go of once entrenched in specific world-views.
Notwithstanding, the description in Job 41 rules out Leviathan as a mythical creature. The passage describes where Leviathan lived (in the sea but sometimes on shore). It had armor scaling that was so tightly-knit that no air could pass between (capable of deflecting spears). It left luminescent wakes and had a mouth that was ringed with terrorizing teeth. We know from Psalm 104 that Leviathan “played around in ancient shipping lanes.” Few doubt the reality of the horse, ostrich, eagle, goat, and other animals that God described for Job along with Leviathan. The Bible places Leviathan in a realistic context.
So if Leviathan isn't a dinosaur, what is it.? While many extinct fossil candidates have been proposed over the years, Sarcosuchus or Spinosaurus known from fossils may fit. Sarcosuchus was massive (36–39 ft) that may have weighed up to nine tons and had a sail-like fin on its back. Its length surpassed even the Tyrannosaurus.
One possibility pointed out by Brian Thomas is a giant creature that was on display in ancient Rome. He wrote:
In his book The Authenticity of the Book of Jonah, historian Bill Cooper relayed a passage from Pliny the Elder’s Natural History: ‘The bones of this monster, to which Andromeda was said to have been exposed, were brought by Marcus Scaurus from Joppa in Judaea during his aedileship and shown at Rome among the rest of the amazing items displayed. The monster was over 40 feet long, and the height of its ribs was greater than that of Indian elephants, while its spine was 1-1/2 feet thick.’
The dragons of legend are strangely like actual creatures that have lived in the past. They are much like the great reptiles which inhabited the earth long before man is supposed to have appeared on earth…. Every country had them in its mythology.” (Lindall, Carl, “Dragon,” The World Book Encyclopedia, vol. 5, 1996, p. 265-266.)
Funny how "every country" believed in dinosaurs (dragons) and came up with the same myth.
Secularists have way more faith than Christians. I certainly don't have that kind of faith.