What about dinosaurs?
Question 60004
Dinosaurs capture the imagination like few other creatures. Children are fascinated by them, museums display their bones, and films bring them roaring back to life. But for many Christians, dinosaurs pose a puzzle. If God created the world thousands of years ago, what do we do with these creatures supposedly extinct for 65 million years? Did dinosaurs exist? Were they on Noah’s Ark? And what happened to them?
Did Dinosaurs Exist?
Let us start with the obvious: dinosaurs were real. The fossil evidence is abundant and undeniable. Bones, teeth, eggs, footprints, and even skin impressions have been found on every continent. Christians need not be embarrassed by dinosaurs or pretend they did not exist. The question is not whether dinosaurs existed but when they lived and what their existence means.
The word “dinosaur” was coined in 1842 by Sir Richard Owen, a British anatomist and palaeontologist. Before this term existed, people simply did not have a category for these creatures. But the concept of large reptilian beasts was not unknown. Ancient cultures around the world have legends of dragons and monsters that bear striking resemblance to what we now call dinosaurs. We shall explore this further in the next question.
When Did Dinosaurs Live?
According to mainstream science, dinosaurs lived during the Mesozoic Era, from approximately 230 million to 65 million years ago. They went extinct, we are told, when an asteroid struck the earth, causing catastrophic climate change.
From a biblical perspective, however, the timeline looks very different. If God created all land animals on Day Six of creation (Genesis 1:24-25), then dinosaurs were created alongside other animals, including human beings. They lived at the same time as Adam and Eve. This may sound extraordinary, but it follows logically from a straightforward reading of Scripture.
Some object that dinosaurs are not mentioned in the Bible. But neither are kangaroos, penguins, or platypuses. The Bible is not a catalogue of every species; it is the story of God’s redemption of humanity through Jesus. We should not expect it to name every creature.
That said, there are intriguing passages that may describe creatures we would recognise as dinosaurs. In Job 40:15-24, God describes a creature called Behemoth: “Behold, Behemoth, which I made as I made you; he eats grass like an ox. Behold, his strength in his loins, and his power in the muscles of his belly. He makes his tail stiff like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are knit together. His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs like bars of iron” (Job 40:15-18).
Some commentators identify Behemoth as a hippopotamus or elephant. But the description of a tail “like a cedar” does not fit these animals at all. A hippopotamus has a small, stubby tail, nothing like the great cedar tree. A large sauropod dinosaur, however, with its massive, muscular tail, fits the description remarkably well.
In Job 41, God describes Leviathan, a fearsome sea creature that breathes fire and cannot be captured by human means. While some identify Leviathan as a crocodile, the description exceeds anything a crocodile could be. Some scholars suggest Leviathan may be a literary or mythological figure, but in the context of Job, God is pointing to real creatures as evidence of His power. Leviathan may represent a kind of creature now extinct, perhaps a marine reptile of immense size.
Were Dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark?
If dinosaurs lived alongside humans before the Flood, they would have been included among the animals God brought to Noah. Genesis 6:19-20 records God’s command: “And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female. Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground, according to its kind, two of every sort shall come in to you to keep them alive.”
The objection immediately arises: how could dinosaurs fit on the Ark? Some dinosaurs were enormous, after all. But this objection overlooks several points.
First, Noah did not need to take full-grown adults. Juvenile dinosaurs would have been much smaller and easier to accommodate. A young sauropod, for instance, would have been a fraction of its adult size.
Second, the number of dinosaur “kinds” may have been relatively small. The biblical kind (min) is not the same as the modern species. A kind may encompass many species that share a common ancestor created by God. Creationists estimate that there were perhaps 50 to 80 dinosaur kinds, not the hundreds of species named by palaeontologists. Many of those species may simply be variations within the same kind.
Third, the Ark was enormous. Genesis 6:15 gives its dimensions: 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high. Using a standard cubit of 18 inches, this gives dimensions of approximately 450 feet by 75 feet by 45 feet. The total volume would have been around 1.5 million cubic feet, equivalent to about 500 railway stock cars. There was plenty of room.
What Happened to the Dinosaurs?
If dinosaurs survived the Flood on the Ark, why are they not around today? The answer is that many animals have gone extinct since the Flood, and dinosaurs are among them.
The post-Flood world was dramatically different from the pre-Flood world. Climate patterns changed. Habitats were disrupted. Food sources were altered. Animals that once thrived may have struggled to adapt. Additionally, humans hunted many large animals to extinction. If dinosaurs survived into the post-Flood era, they would have been prime targets for hunters seeking to protect their families and livestock.
The legends of dragon slayers that appear in cultures around the world may preserve memories of encounters between humans and surviving dinosaurs. St George and the dragon. Beowulf and the monster. The Mesopotamian god Marduk slaying Tiamat. These stories may not be pure fantasy; they may contain echoes of real events.
It is also possible that some dinosaurs survived longer than commonly supposed. Reports of strange creatures in remote regions persist to this day. The Mokele-mbembe of the Congo basin, described by local tribes as a large, long-necked creature, sounds remarkably like a sauropod. While these accounts remain unverified, they remind us that the earth still holds mysteries.
Soft Tissue and the Age of Dinosaurs
One of the most significant discoveries in recent palaeontology is the presence of soft tissue in dinosaur fossils. In 2005, Mary Schweitzer and her team discovered blood vessels, blood cells, and collagen in a Tyrannosaurus rex femur supposedly 68 million years old. Since then, soft tissue has been found in numerous other dinosaur specimens.
This discovery is extremely difficult to reconcile with millions of years. Proteins and other organic molecules decay over time. Even under the most favourable conditions, they should not survive for tens of millions of years. The presence of soft tissue in dinosaur fossils is, however, entirely consistent with these creatures having lived thousands, not millions, of years ago.
Some researchers have proposed preservation mechanisms that might allow soft tissue to survive for millions of years. But these explanations are speculative and have not been demonstrated experimentally. The simplest explanation is that the fossils are not as old as claimed.
Conclusion
Dinosaurs are not a problem for the Bible; they are a confirmation of it. God created these magnificent creatures on Day Six of creation. They lived alongside humans in the ancient world. Representatives of their kinds were preserved on Noah’s Ark. And like many other animals, they eventually went extinct in the changed conditions of the post-Flood world. The fossil record, far from disproving Scripture, provides evidence of the rapid burial and catastrophic conditions we would expect from a global Flood. We can study dinosaurs with wonder and gratitude, marvelling at the creativity of our God who made all things.
“Behold, Behemoth, which I made as I made you; he eats grass like an ox.” Job 40:15
Bibliography
- Ham, Ken. Dinosaurs of Eden. Master Books, 2001.
- Ham, Ken, ed. The New Answers Book 1. Master Books, 2006.
- Morris, John D. The Young Earth. Master Books, 2007.
- Oard, Michael J. Dinosaur Challenges and Mysteries. Creation Book Publishers, 2011.
- Sarfati, Jonathan. Refuting Evolution 2. Master Books, 2002.
- Schweitzer, Mary H., et al. “Soft-Tissue Vessels and Cellular Preservation in Tyrannosaurus rex.” Science 307, no. 5717 (2005): 1952-1955.
- Wieland, Carl. Dragons of the Deep: Ocean Monsters Past and Present. Master Books, 2005.
- Woodmorappe, John. Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study. Institute for Creation Research, 1996.
