Dinosaurs

[tonychanyt]

According to paleontologists, dinosaurs (except birds) went extinct about 65 million years ago (at the end of the Cretaceous Period) after living on Earth for about 165 million years. As a technical term, dinosaur is not written in the Bible. Nevertheless, God could have created the earth with embedded records of dinosaur fossils. These are not fake records but summary records of events in space-time history.

Did they walk on the earth during those million years?

I'd treat it like they did because those are the real scientific records. However, the Bible focuses on redemption, saving people for eternal life. Dinosaurs were amoral creatures. They were not targets of the redemption story.

Is Behemoth a dinosaur?

Job 40:

15 “Look at Behemoth, which I made along with you and which feeds on grass like an ox.

Behemoth was not a dinosaur in the scientific sense. Even if it was, its existence should not affect the redemption story or our walk with God.

=======================================================================

Appendix: Scientific definition of dinosaur

The next section is from UC Museum of Palenenlogy:

Archosaurs are a group of specialized reptiles which ruled the Earth during the Age of Dinosaurs. The only archosaurs that survive today are crocodiles and birds. Birds are the only group of dinosaurs that survived the extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period, 65 million years ago. Your holiday turkey is a saurischian dinosaur, like Apatosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, and Velociraptor.


The Dinosaur Family Tree

The next section is from Thought.Co:

While most people intuitively describe dinosaurs as "big, scaly, dangerous lizards that went extinct millions of years ago," experts take a much narrower view.

In evolutionary terms, dinosaurs were the land-dwelling descendants of the archosaurs, egg-laying reptiles that survived the Permian-Triassic extinction event 250 million years ago. Technically, dinosaurs can be distinguished from the other animals descended from archosaurs (pterosaurs and crocodiles) by a handful of anatomical quirks. Chief among these is posture: Dinosaurs had either an upright, bipedal gait (like that of modern birds), or if they were quadrupeds, they had a stiff, straight-legged style of walking on all fours (unlike modern lizards, turtles, and crocodiles, whose limbs splay beneath them when they walk).

You may have noticed that the definition of dinosaurs provided at the start of this article refers only to land-dwelling reptiles, which technically excludes marine reptiles like Kronosaurus and flying reptiles like Pterodactylus from the dinosaur umbrella (the first is technically a pliosaur, the second a pterosaur). Also occasionally mistaken for true dinosaurs are the large therapsids and pelycosaurs of the Permian period, such as Dimetrodon and Moschops. While some of these ancient reptiles would have given your average Deinonychus a run for its money, rest assured they weren't allowed to wear "dinosaur" name tags during the school dances of the Jurassic period.

 

[awstar]

I'd treat it like they did because those are the real scientific records.

Those real scientific records may not be describing real scientific findings.

Not So Dry Bones: An interview with Mary Schweitzer - Article - BioLogos

In 2005, paleontologist Mary Schweitzer made a landmark discovery—the first evidence for soft tissues in a 68-million-year-old bone. In this interview, she discusses her life, faith, and work.

biologos.org

Not So Dry Bones: An interview with Mary Schweitzer
By
Emily Ruppel
and
Mary Schweitzer

on July 21, 2014

In 2005, paleontologist Mary Schweitzer made a landmark discovery—the first evidence for soft tissues in a 68-million-year-old bone. In this interview, she discusses her life, faith, and work.
…

from a review of the linked article

Dr. Schweitzer, who continues to be one of the leading researchers in dinosaur tissue, has provided a valuable summary of the discovery. She concludes that we have “two alternatives for interpretation: either the dinosaurs aren’t as old as we think they are, or maybe we don’t know exactly how these things get preserved.” Fair enough. The problem is that the evolutionary community does not really consider the first alternative as a possibility. Thus, it really is not an “either/or” option. In their view the fossils must be old, therefore the tissue must somehow have survived (biochemical contradictions not withstanding).

 

[tonychanyt]

Those real scientific records may not be describing real scientific findings.

Do you have any international scientific journal articles on this? Thanks.

 

[awstar]

Do you have any international scientific journal articles on this? Thanks.

Are asking about dinosaurs specifically? or scientific records vs findings in general?

 

[BeyondET]

Those real scientific records may not be describing real scientific findings.

Not So Dry Bones: An interview with Mary Schweitzer - Article - BioLogos

In 2005, paleontologist Mary Schweitzer made a landmark discovery—the first evidence for soft tissues in a 68-million-year-old bone. In this interview, she discusses her life, faith, and work.

biologos.org

from a review of the linked article

That's misrepresented in the article.

"Soft Tissue" in Dinosaur Bones: What Does the Evidence Really Say? - BioLogos

biologos.org

 

[awstar]

I said:


Those real scientific records may not be describing real scientific findings.


You said:


That's misrepresented in the article.

The article I pointed to is from an organization whose members are professing Christians and hold certain presuppositions that prevents them from believing everything they read in the Bible as being absolutely true.

I hold certain presuppositions that prevent me from believing everything I read from scientists as being absolutely true.

That being said, here’s a link to a scientist’s opinion about dinosaur tissue, who although he is a scientist, also holds presuppositions more like mine.

It has been my experience over the past twenty years of following these debates, that arguments based on presuppositions are not fruitful. So take from this other article anything or nothing. It doesn’t matter to me. There's nothing you can say that's going to make me change my presuppositions. And there's nothing I can say that's going to make you change your presuppositions.

May the Peace of Christ be with you.

Solid Answers on Soft Tissue

Hardly a month passes without new reports of “soft tissue” discovered in fossils. Could this material last millions of years?

answersingenesis.org

Solid Answers on Soft Tissue
Paleontology
by Brian Thomas

So we see that two fossil observations confirm biblical creation: biomaterials have a shelf-life significantly shorter than a million years, and certain fossils from around the world still contain original biomaterials. But we need to heed a couple of cautions before we hit the streets with this news.

First, we have to read reports carefully. Phrases like “remarkable preservation” and “soft tissue preservation” do not always mean original tissue or molecules. They often refer either to fossils that merely preserve the shape of a tissue—like dinosaur skin that has been replaced by minerals (mineralized)—or to impressions like footprints. Minerals can enter a body and last much longer than its original biochemicals, so, while interesting, these finds do not enter our main discussion.

Second, we should limit our focus to biochemicals that have measured decay rates, like collagen and DNA. Several reports mention original hemoglobin (blood proteins) and pigments (like squid ink), but we don’t yet know their survival times with experimental certainty.

With these cautions in mind, believers in creation should graciously challenge others to explain how original tissue fossils can exist in an old earth. If honest, they may eventually admit that recent creation, as recorded in God’s Word, provides the most scientifically solid answer

 

[BeyondET]

The article I pointed to is from an organization whose members are professing Christians and hold certain presuppositions that prevents them from believing everything they read in the Bible as being absolutely true.

I hold certain presuppositions that prevent me from believing everything I read from scientists as being absolutely true.

That being said, here’s a link to a scientist’s opinion about dinosaur tissue, who although he is a scientist, also holds presuppositions more like mine.

It has been my experience over the past twenty years of following these debates, that arguments based on presuppositions are not fruitful. So take from this other article anything or nothing. It doesn’t matter to me. There's nothing you can say that's going to make me change my presuppositions. And there's nothing I can say that's going to make you change your presuppositions.

May the Peace of Christ be with you.

Except it's been debunked

"Soft Tissue" in Dinosaur Bones: What Does the Evidence Really Say? - BioLogos

biologos.org

 

[tonychanyt]

Are asking about dinosaurs specifically?

Do you have any international scientific journal publications supporting that dinosaur findings were not real?

 

[awstar]

Do you have any international scientific journal publications supporting that dinosaur findings were not real?

I may have used sloppy English. What I intended to say was that the findings are real. The reporting is in error. Ref. BeyondET's link that reports "These remarks pertain mainly to thigh bones from two dinosaur specimens, a T. rex (approx. 68 million years old) and a duckbill hadrosaur (approx. 80 million years old)." But the second link I provided says: "So we see that two fossil observations confirm biblical creation: biomaterials have a shelf-life significantly shorter than a million years, and certain fossils from around the world still contain original biomaterials. " and the author references two studies that say so. BeyondET says those studies have been debunked. So in a way he agrees with me in that any scientific reports may not truthfully represent the findings -- which are real.

 

[Richard T]

According to paleontologists, dinosaurs went extinct about 65 million years ago (at the end of the Cretaceous Period), after living on Earth for about 165 million years. As a technical term, dinosaur is not written in the Bible. Nevertheless, God could have created the earth with embedded records of dinosaur fossils. These are not fake records but summary records of events in space-time history.

Did they walk on the earth during those million years?

I'd treat it like they did because those are the real scientific records. However, the Bible focuses on redemption, saving people for eternal life. Dinosaurs were amoral creatures. They were not targets of the redemption story.

Is Behemoth a dinosaur?

Job 40:


Behemoth was likely not a dinosaur. Even if it was, its existence should not affect the redemption story or our walk with God.

I never thought about the Behometh before. Glad you picked up on that question. I do believe in what Finnis Dake's and others call the "gap theory of creation. This basically says that the earth was form and void and God then recreated it. It was during this formless and void period that there were dinosaurs.
Genesis 1:1-2 (YLT)
1 In the beginning of God's preparing the heavens and the earth—
2 the earth hath existed waste and void, and darkness is on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God fluttering on the face of the waters.

Here is a decent teaching on this possibility. Jurassic Earth — Bob Yandian Ministries



That the earth was re-created.

 

[tonychanyt]

gap theory of creation

I put more weight on How old is the earth?