Dinosaurs and the Bible.
Friday, March 23 - Day 35 of Lent.
I am not going to try and find the answer to this, but I will share my thoughts on it from my Bible-reading and research. One theory supporting dinosaurs in the Bible is that dinosaurs were created by God, became corrupt and then were wiped out in the flood. Another theory is that they even went onto the ark with Noah, but were wiped out afterwards.
The traditional depiction of dinosaurs as gigantic and ferocious lizards makes it hard to believe that God would have included them in the garden of Eden. Yet, before sin corrupted life, isn’t it possible that dinosaurs might have been peaceful?
Isaiah 11:6-7 shares this picture of heaven:
“ The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, The leopard shall lie down with the young goat, The calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; Their young ones shall lie down together; And the lion shall eat straw like the ox. "
Perhaps animals were always made to be peaceful, but when the forbidden fruit was eaten and sin was introduced, so was death and corruption. After all, we have proof that serpents could walk and climb trees before the fall of mankind. So anything could have been possible.
Here is an interesting set of verses from the book of Job, which is deemed one of the oldest books in the bible. He describes a creature, the “behemoth” that fits the description of a dinosaur (brackets are added by me):
15 “Look now at the behemoth,which I made along with you; he eats grass like an ox. 16See now, his strength is in his hips, and his power is in his stomach muscles (big stomach). 17 He moves his tail like a cedar (big tail); the sinews of his thighs are tightly knit. 18 His bones are like beams of bronze, his ribs like bars of iron. 19He is the first of the ways of God (biggest thing that God has created, big as He is); only He who made him can bring near His sword (only God can come near him). 20Surely the mountains yield food for him, and all the beasts of the field play there. 21 He lies under the lotus trees, in a covert of reeds and marsh. 22The lotus trees cover him with their shade; the willows by the brook surround him. 23 Indeed the river may rage, yet he is not disturbed; he is confident, though the Jordan gushes into his mouth, 24 Though he takes it in his eyes, or one pierces his nose with a snare."
Some think that this description matches that of a hippo or an elephant. However, neither a hippo nor an elephant match the description of the tail moving like a cedar tree, as elephants’ and hippos’ tails are tiny! Furthermore, the phrase, “He is the first of the ways of God”, in the original Hebrew translates to “he is the BIGGEST animal that God created”. Although the elephant and hippo are large, they are not even one tenth of the size of a Brachiosaurus, the largest dinosaur ever to exist. Take the Brachiosaurus and try to apply it to the above description. It works! Furthermore, the phrase, “Only He who made him can bring near His sword” directly states that no mere human can approach this creature with a sword. Ask yourself, how easy is it to go near an elephant? Granted, it’s not the simplest thing, but don’t tell me that no human could possibly ever near one with a sword. A dinosaur makes more sense here.
There’s another similar description of a dinosaur-like creature in Job 41:1-2,7,12-32. This description is interesting because it references the Leviathan, a creature who is of the sea and breathes fire. The history books of many cultures refer to ‘fire-breathing dragons’ in their ancient tales. It’s a wonder why, across many different cultures, it was always a dragon, and not like, a lion or something. That is because the fire-breathing dragons are likely based on truth. The Leviathan also has armour that makes iron look “like straw”, and arrows “cannot make it flee”. The descriptions indeed do not fit any earthly creature that we know of, and could reference dinosaurs that existed before the flood.
Remember, only after sin was death created! You cannot have death before sin, and sin only came in the Garden of Eden.
The common belief of how dinosaurs became extinct is that a large object from space (meteor or the like) hit the earth, and raised enough dust to block out the sun for months. Plants and animals died. But this doesn’t explain why some life-forms survived and others didn’t. Why was extinction selective?
From a biblical perspective, a likely reason for the extinction of the dinosaurs is the worldwide flood detailed in Genesis 6-7. After the flood, mankind changed from being able to live about 900 years, to gradually only living 80-120 years. It was possible that God made a class of very large animals perish in the flood, because He knew that the strength of man would decrease, and that such animals would not be able to be controlled by feeble man anymore.
Alternatively, a theory in which the dinosaurs survived the flood is still biblically sound. I mean, consider this: If the flood drowned the dinosaurs, it certainly would never have drowned the sea dinosaurs. Everything that exists in the sea before the flood still exists today. But the fact is that approximately 95% of the world’s seas have not yet been discovered. Let that sink in for a moment. Who knows what could still be down there?
If dinosaurs escaped the ark, the dramatic change in climate due to the falling of the “waters from above” that are referenced in Genesis 1:6, would have caused many dinosaurs to perish in the sudden heat, as well as being an explanation for the drop in the life-expectancy for humans (because the sun was now shining directly on them, without the water blocking the sun from above). So, dinosaurs started dropping like flies. Furthermore, in the same way that hunters kill bears and other wild beasts who are a threat to their families, in a world where dinosaurs and man co-existed, it is only natural to assume that man hunted dinosaurs for thousands of years (according to this theory).
How many bears, crocodiles and tigers are on suburban land today? Zero! And how many bears, crocodiles and tigers were on suburban land 100 years ago? Many! Dinosaurs were hunted and endangered as men continued to hunt them, as our very own familiar beasts are.
There are even theories to suggest that small dinosaurs (the unhunted), as well as the deep sea dinosaurs, still exist today! There have been numerous sightings of ‘sea serpents’ ‘monsters’ (Loch Ness, for example, a beast that has been sighted individually over 9000 times), and dinosaur-like creatures in countries all over the world. There is a swamp in the African Congo, which remains approximately 80% undiscovered and is the home to many natives. Scientific expeditions out there have recorded the natives reporting many sightings of ‘Mokele-mbembe’, a water-dwelling creature that looks identical to a dinosaur.
I don’t believe it to be mere coincidence that the different monsters sighted in Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the Congo and many other countries are all of similar size, shape and likeness to a dinosaur. More specifically, a chilling amount of them, from report, bear specific similarity to a Plesiosaurus. How can that be coincidence? Or anything else, especially given that the natives in the Congo -- who drew pictures of a Plesiosaurus when asked to produce an image of what ‘Mokele-mbembe’ looked like -- have literally zero communication with any other country in the world.
If this stuff interests you, please watch the first link provided below, as I can assure you there are hundreds of stories of similar sightings all over the world.
Another theory is that in God’s 7 days of creating the earth, the story did not mean literal days. After all, as Peter says in 2 Peter 3:8:
“But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”
By this logic, the ‘day’ in which God created “the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind,” (Genesis 1:21) could have lasted a lot longer than our 24 hours of a day.
If you have time and would like to dive into the theory of creationism+dinosaurs, this lecture is an excellent one to watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsQIF7Yh3hI
Nobody was around to see what actually happened to dinosaurs. I wasn’t. You weren’t. Even Charles Darwin wasn’t. It seems that prior to the 19th century, the oldest historical text to follow was the Bible, and other reliable texts such as ancient wall-paintings, texts, myths, legends and stories (a lot of which included ‘fire breathing dragons’ or creatures of the like). For this reason, before the 19th century it is probable that many subscribed to the theory of creationism, or whatever was taught/proved as fact by these texts. After 1801, the beginning of the 19th century, technology made enough progression to welcome in other feasible theories based on what radioactive and carbon dating could ‘prove’ (please see link below for dispute on this by evolutionist-turned-Christian John Mackay). Is it possible that Satan used this technological development to plant incorrect theories in our minds about dinosaurs, so that we and our children would doubt the Bible?
These are all very interesting questions. I have recently been listening to John Mackay, a man who used to be a devout evolutionist, but now devotes his life to disproving common theories of evolution. His interview below is definitely worth a watch!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24T7ebvjdq4
And here is a clip of him debating Richard Dawkins casually! :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DH2_j7bpsLo
Regardless of when or for how long dinosaurs existed, there is certainly support in the Bible that dinosaurs did, in fact, exist, and perhaps even in the time of mankind. Whether their extinction was by a meteor or the great flood, the integrity of the Bible does not suffer. If, for some reason, someone found a little dinosaur running around in some deep forest TODAY, it would not really affect our understanding of the Bible or our faith. Whereas, evolutionists would have to redefine and change their whole system of thought if they found a dinosaur in today’s world.
The importance is, it doesn’t matter! Our faith is still the same! And it’s great!