What About The Dinosaurs!

Mar 2, 20236 min read

Updated: Mar 6, 2023

"God created the great sea monsters..." - Genesis 1:21

You will not find the word 'dinosaur' anywhere in the Bible - the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments. According to evolutionary history:

The prehistoric reptiles known as dinosaurs arose during the Middle to Late Triassic Period of the Mesozoic Era, some 230 million years ago. They were members of a subclass of reptiles called the archosaurs (“ruling reptiles”), a group that also includes birds and crocodiles [1].

Abundant fossil bones, teeth, trackways, and other hard evidence have revealed that Earth was the domain of the dinosaurs for at least 230 million years. But so far, not a single trace of dinosaur remains has been found in rocks younger than about 66 million years. At that point, as the Cretaceous period yielded to the Paleogene, it seems that all nonavian dinosaurs suddenly ceased to exist [2].

There are various places in the United States where dinosaur fossils can be found including Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North and South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming.

Does the existence of dinosaur fossils discredit the Bible?

The Fossil Record

Many falsely believe that fossils and the fossil record are evidence that opposes the creation account in Genesis 1-2, a young earth, and a worldwide flood because this record points to millions of years of evolutionary history.

Britannica defines a fossil as a remnant, impression, or trace of an animal or plant of a past geologic age that has been preserved in the Earth’s crust [3].

Did it take millions of years for extinct dinosaurs to become fossilized? The answer to this question depends on your worldview. When you visit a national park that showcases dinosaur fossils, everyone sees the same evidence that dinosaurs once walked the earth. Your worldview dictates how you interpret this evidence. If you hold to a secular humanist worldview, you will conclude that some catastrophic event that occurred 66 million years ago, such as an asteroid striking the earth or large-scale climate change due to several volcanic eruptions, killed the dinosaurs. If you hold to a Biblical worldview, you will agree that a catastrophic event, a worldwide flood as recorded in Genesis 7-8, happened around 6000 years ago.

In an article written for the Smithsonian Magazine called "Evidence for a Flood" (James Trefil, April 1, 2000), the author wrote Sediment layers suggests that 7500 years ago Mediterranean water roared into the Black Sea. Even though the author said the flood account in Genesis is part of a familiar tale, he points out

The biblical story is similar to a much older Mesopotamian flood story in the epic of Gilgamesh. Scholars usually attribute things like the worldwide occurrence of flood stories to common human experiences and our love of repeating good stories, but recently scientists have started to uncover evidence that Noah's flood may have a basis in some rather astonishing events that took place around the Black Sea some 7,500 years ago. He also states The scientific version of Noah's flood actually starts long before that, back during the last great glaciation some 20,000 years ago [4].

20,000 years is very different from 66 million years!

The Genesis flood was a worldwide, not a local event as some suggest, which quickly destroyed all life except for Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives, and every beast after its kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, all sorts of birds (Genesis 7:13-14).

Genesis 7:19-20 records that the water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered. The water prevailed fifteen cubits higher, and the mountains were covered. If you were looking at the earth from the moon, all you would see is ocean. Every land mass at the time, including the highest mountains were under massive amounts of water. Can you imagine the large amount of sediment that broke loose from the earth when, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened (Genesis 7:11). All one needs to do is see what happens when the storm surge of a hurricane hits land. When the flood waters finally dried up, all remnants of life were buried under tons of sediment, thus preserving these remnants in the earth's crust.

The survival of DNA found in dinosaur bones is powerful evidence against the 66 million years age of dinosaur fossils.

"Scientists have proposed that DNA can survive as long as a million years, but definitely not more than 5 million or 6 million years," Dr. Mary Schweitzer (molecular paleontologist at North Carolina State University) said. That's woefully short of 65 million years ago, when the asteroid slammed into Earth and killed the nonavian dinosaurs [5].

Will there ever come a day when science catches up with the Bible? Probably not in my lifetime!

God Created Dinosaurs

On the fifth day of creation God created the great sea monsters (Genesis 1:21). He created the beasts of the earth after their kind (Genesis 1:25) on the sixth day of creation.

Job 3:8 - “Let those curse it who curse the day, Who are prepared to rouse Leviathan.
Psalm 104:24-26 - O LORD, how many are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all; The earth is full of Your possessions. There is the sea, great and broad, In which are swarms without number, Animals both small and great. There the ships move along, And Leviathan, which You have formed to sport in it.
Jeremiah 27:5 - “I have made the earth, the men and the beasts which are on the face of the earth by My great power and by My outstretched arm, and I will give it to the one who is pleasing in My sight.

Why Didn't Noah Take Dinosaurs on the Ark?

The Bible doesn't say that Noah did not take dinosaurs on the ark. Dinosaurs are defined as prehistoric reptiles according to evolutionary history. In fact it was God's decision on which creatures entered the ark. Noah's job was to keep them alive.

Genesis 6:19-20 - “And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. “Of the birds after their kind, and of the animals after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive.

Noah was to bring two of every kind from every living thing of all flesh on to the ark. The word 'kind' means a class or type of entity (person, animal, etc.) having similar characteristics. Each kind of creature entering the ark shall be male and female. The reason for this is to repopulate the antediluvian (post-flood) earth.

As the animals left the Ark, they rapidly multiplied and spread over the earth. Within just a few years, animals had reached every continent, including Antarctica, which was still warm. Many animals, such as tortoises, traveled on huge mats of floating logs that circled the earth’s oceans for centuries following the Flood. God preserved every kind of land animal and bird on Noah’s Ark. Descendants of the original pairs ended up on different continents, thousands of miles apart. Even today, these diverse descendants can still breed with each other. For example, the descendants of the first cats can still breed—cougars with leopards, lions with tigers, and wild cats with domestic cats. Each kind of plant and animal had the capacity to produce offspring with different designs to suit them for different environments [6].

Britannica places existing reptiles (turtles, lizards, snakes, crocodiles) in the same 'Reptilia' class as extinct reptiles (plant-eating and meat-eating dinosaurs). A Reptilia class is the group of air-breathing vertebrates that have internal fertilization, amniotic development, and epidermal scales covering part or all of their body [7].

It would be reasonable to assume that, since Noah had to keep the creatures on the ark alive, God only allowed reptiles such as turtles, lizards, snakes, and crocodiles to enter the ark. The would not be enough plants and meat to feed large plant-eating and meat-eating dinosaurs. If they were on the ark, they would have died from starvation if they did not feed on the smaller creatures first! They were on the ark for just over one year, from seven days before the 17th day of the second month (Genesis 7:7-11) to the 27th day of the second month (Genesis 8:14-19).

Closing Remarks

Plant-eating and meat-eating dinosaurs were created by God and walked the earth. The fossil record clearly supports this. But did they become extinct 66 million years ago by some asteroid hitting the earth or climate change resulting from several volcanoes, or were they killed and buried under enormous amounts of sediment caused by a worldwide flood as recorded in Genesis 7-8 around 6000 years ago? It really comes down to your worldview and who you want to believe. I choose to believe God because He is the creator of all things and His Word is true because His Son, Jesus Christ, proved who He said He is - God in the flesh - by dying for my sins and rising from the dead on the third day. This is an irrefutable historical fact.