Dinosaurs, where?

Pre-flood, regardless of whether someone subscribes to young earth creationism or not. Some have hypothesized that the leviathan and the behemoth mentioned in Job may be dinosaurs. I don't take a hard stance on this, I prefer to keep my mind open.

Yes, I believe the dinosaurs were in Job's time (circa 1500 BC), as shown in Scripture; and there is much record of such monsters in ancient history (which atheists like to call just mythology) --yet it comes from many reliable reports.

One can visit the sound site at icr.org to see what scientists who are real Christians say about this --a very good place for science understandings.

Between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. But I don't know if Behemoth and Leviathan were dinosaurs or different animals.

Non avian dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago. Avian dinosaurs--birds--are still around. Anatomically modern humans, homo sapiens sapiens, arose out from Africa about 200,000 years ago.

The Bible doesn't have anything to say on these matters because:

A) The Biblical authors didn't have knowledge of things they didn't and couldn't have known. They likewise never mention Norway, NASA's Apollo space program, the Theory of General Relativity, Germ Theory, or Starbucks.

B) The Bible isn't an encyclopedia of general knowledge; but a collection of texts regarded as inspired of God which deliver to man the knowledge of God and His love for the world, the love of God for the world in and through the person of Jesus Christ who is the centerpiece of Holy Scripture and the object of the Christian faith.

-CryptoLutheran

alexiscurious said:

Using the Bible as a timeline, at what point in time would we find dinosaurs? Science has revealed these creatures to be millions of years old. Were they around way before God created Adam/Eve?

I'm just confused. Thanks.

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Alex,

Why would we expect the Bible to mention anything about Dinosaurs when the earliest civilizations knew next to nothing about them? The only way this expectation comes about is if people (and a number of Fundamentalist Christians) interpret the Bible in such a way that they assume it was meant to be some kind of comprehensive treatise of man's history. I myself don't (and never have) assumed the Bible was some kind of ultra-literal, historical record meant to give us every detail of man's existence thus far; no, I've seen it as a representation of what early minds could understand about human nature via inspiration from God, inspiration being rather a divine 'motivator' rather than a divine 'informer' of data. Thus, the Bible provides no mention of those fearsome creatures from millions of years ago.

The Bible IS God's Word and counsel for man in all ages, and all that He expects us to hold even today. We will be responsible before God as to how we regarded His Word, not in our own ideas and rationale.

ViaCrucis said:

Non avian dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago. Avian dinosaurs--birds--are still around. Anatomically modern humans, homo sapiens sapiens, arose out from Africa about 200,000 years ago.

The Bible doesn't have anything to say on these matters because:

A) The Biblical authors didn't have knowledge of things they didn't and couldn't have known. They likewise never mention Norway, NASA's Apollo space program, the Theory of General Relativity, Germ Theory, or Starbucks.

B) The Bible isn't an encyclopedia of general knowledge; but a collection of texts regarded as inspired of God which deliver to man the knowledge of God and His love for the world, the love of God for the world in and through the person of Jesus Christ who is the centerpiece of Holy Scripture and the object of the Christian faith.

-CryptoLutheran

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Excellent answer! I agree 100%!

alexiscurious said:

[...]What about those Christians who believe the earth is only thousands of years old? Why are they being deceived?

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.
.
I wouldn't necessarily say 'deceived'. The age of the world, or the
universe for that matter is nowhere mentioned in the Bible because
it has no immediate bearing on the purpose of the god inspired
collection of books that make up the Bible.

It's exactly as ViaCrucis said:

ViaCrucis said:

[...]but a collection of texts regarded as inspired of God which deliver to man the knowledge of God and His love for the world, the love of God for the world in and through the person of Jesus Christ who is the centerpiece of Holy Scripture and the object of the Christian faith.

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alexiscurious said:

So God intentionally created some dinosaurs 65 million years before he created man?

What about those Christians who believe the earth is only thousands of years old? Why are they being deceived?

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They are buying into incorrect doctrines and ignoring scientific evidence. The Bible never says the Earth is 6,000 years old, that is only what some people have assumed and never opened themselves to the possibility that the earth could be much older.

Yes God created dinosaurs before man. In fact he created many things before man, including the angels and Satan.

alexiscurious said:

So God intentionally created some dinosaurs 65 million years before he created man?

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Closer to 230 million, the first dinosaurs show up in the fossil record about 20 million years after the Permian-Triassic extinction event. They went extinct about 65 million years ago, well the non-avian dinosaurs at least, at the end of the Cretaceous.

What about those Christians who believe the earth is only thousands of years old? Why are they being deceived?

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Young Earth Creationism became very popular in America with the publication of the The Genesis Flood in the mid 20th century, before then most Fundamentalists were Old Earth Creationists. Why the popularity of Young Earth Creationism among American Fundamentalists? No idea.

-CryptoLutheran

The site below provides some arguments that support the young-earth view. Short-comings with carbon dating...human fossils found at the same level at which some dinosaurs are found, etc.

Dinosaurs, dating and the age of the earth - creation.com

If one truly is a sincere seeker after truth, I recommend a visit to the sound site at to see what scientists who are real Christians can show about creation, the age of the earth, and other truths about God's world. Those who are just religious types who don't esteem God's Word will probably go on with their religious ideas, and what secular science is saying in their philosophies and religious ideologies.

To each his own, and I would not debate it, for I hold to what God has provided us in the way of knowledge of His purposes. After-all we will have to answer to Him --not to man.

Real scientists who are real Christians and who do real science--such as Francis Collins, John Polkinghorne, Robert Bakker, and Alister McGrath--are available to see how they don't find any trouble or conflict between science and religious faith.

Francis Collins is the former head of the Human Genome Project.
John Polkinghorne is a well established physicist.
Robert Bakker is one of the most important paleontologists of the 20th century.

No longer living, we should also mention Theodosius Dobzhansky and Georges Lemaitre; Dobzhansky is considered the father of modern evolutionary synthesis and Lemaitre like Polkinghorne worked as a physicist, and is also credited as one who (following Hubble) helped establish the modern theory of rapid expansion of the universe, aka the "Big Bang".

These men are not only practicing Christians--and in the case of McGrath and Polkinghorne priests and respected theologians--they are credible scientists who do credible science.

Something that can't be said for the numerous "creation scientists" many of whom lack any sort of formal education or scientific credentials and whose work has never gone through the necessary peer review process that is required for real, actual science.

Real scientists accept evolution. That includes the Christian ones. And they are real Christians, they believe in "one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen" and "in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God" and "He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, buried and dead" "and on t he third day rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father from whence He shall come again to judge the quick and the dead". They believe this, and they are also actual scientists who do actual science.

Because actual science and normative, orthodox Christianity are not mutually exclusive.

The only ones who see a conflict are the ones who want there to be one.

-CryptoLutheran

1watchman said:

...I recommend a visit to the sound site at to see what scientists ... show about creation, the age of the earth, and other truths about God's world.

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Thanks for the site ref. I like that one. You might like this one also:
http://creation.com/creation-scientists#presentsci

It includes a long list of scientists who favor the creationist view. In order to make it on this list, each one has to possess a doctorate in a science-related field.

So I think it's fair to say that we have real scientists (who are Christians) who favor an old-age view and also real scientists (who are also Christians) who favor a young-earth view.

The bible don't have an excat date line of when things happened. I remember ask the same question in the non-denom forums and several people explained that the word "begot" is not the same as "the father of", rather it means "is the line of", so there could be many people in between, and the excat date can't be determined.

The question is not a matter of how many people we can find who are "scientists" who subscribe to one view or the other; the question is whether or not the scientists in question are arriving to their views scientifically.

When I looked at the list presented above I first clicked on Dr. James Alan, a geneticist. What I took note of was that Dr. Alan's change from embracing evolutionary theory to young earth creationism was not a result of scientific inquiry and the scientific method, but instead a result of rejecting those very things in favor of a particular dogma. Alan's "double conversion" was first to Christianity, and then a rejection of science and the scientific method.

That does not provide evidence of a scientist who accepts YEC, that provides evidence of a scientist who has rejected the science.

Now there very well may be credible scientists who reject evolutionary theory--I'll permit that as possible. But when "credible scientists" are offered and one reads about their why for rejecting evolutionary theory in favor of YEC, and the reason has not to do with any actual science but is with an emphatic rejection of science--such as in Dr. Alan's case--that doesn't bode well for an argument in favor of credible scientists being on both sides of the debate.

Consistently I have found that that "creation science" involves the same basic quackery that one also finds in other pseudoscientic fields, that is, there is at the core a rejection of valid scientific inquiry and the scientific method. Science is not the place for matters of faith, what is scientific is not what we hold to be true by faith, but rather what can be explained through the scientific method involving observation, hypothesis, experimentation, etc.

My belief--my faith--in the good Creator God who made all things and who has condescended to meet us in and as the person of Jesus Christ, who suffered and died for our sins and who rose from the dead and is coming again are matters of faith and dogma.

My belief in the roundness of the earth, in the gravitational pull of celestial bodies, in the existence of germs; these are not faith-based beliefs, but matters of accepting reasoned, substantiated, observed realities--empirical realities.

Science is science, and faith is faith. The two are not mutually exclusive, but neither are the the same thing. These are different ways of engaging with the world, one a matter of reason, logic, observation, and the empirical; the other a matter of faith, hope, and the unseen.

What I reject is a paradigm that would insist that they are the same sort of thing or should be perceived as such, resulting either in a rejection of science or else resulting in a rejection of religion. The fundamentalist does the former, the atheist the latter.

As a Christian I can be neither a fundamentalist nor an atheist.

-CryptoLutheran

If you believe in the bible then it seems that you should believe this:

(Gen 1:2) And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.


This was the condition if the earth just before creation. So there couldn't have been any life on it--it was void, dark, and there was water.----
soooo, seems like God at some point in time hurled the start of the earth into place, and then left it that way. It could have been in that state for eons until He began the creation week--so the fact that there are rocks that are millions of years old shouldn't surprise anyone.

I hear you loud and clear, ViaCrusis, Christian brother whom I so often enjoy reading your responses and agree with quite often. I'm trying to avoid the impression that there is a debate going on, but rather a discussion.

I should say that I have considered both sides (not just from faith but from scientific observation like you say) but I have problems with the old-age view.

On my side of the fence, what I find so often is that Creation scientists point out quite a few particulars that have been found in nature, and the old-earth view doesn't seem to be able to explain it, but YEC does. And when we point out those particulars to Old-age earthers, we never get a response but instead get answers like "only old-age earth scientists are doing "real science"".

It's like, "hey, old-age earther, why doesn't this piece of evidence support an old earth view", and we hear (like WC Fields) "Get away from me kid, you're bothering me."

So I try to politely provide websites that talk about these evidences and hope that maybe an old-age earther will take the time to investigate the problems we're talking about.

But I respect your right to disagree, and know that we are still united in Christ. So maybe one day, you will browse through the ICR and Creation sites sometime. In any case, have a good day.