Do Christians Believe in Dinosaurs?
9/5/24
The question of dinosaurs comes up fairly frequently. I think it may be due to the combination of many Christians believing a "young earth" model of creation while many archaeologists portray dinosaurs as coming from many thousands of years earlier, along with an assumption that dinosaurs and humans never coexisted.
Whatever your concept of the age of the planet, you do have to recognize that fossilized dinosaur bones have been found, and in fairly large numbers. A more pertinent question, then, has to do with the overall timeline of events. While a catastrophe caused by a giant meteor strike or some other frightening event has been frequently repeated as the cause for a mass extinction, a considerable period before the existence of humans, there are some questions which I think need to remain open for now and which beg for answers.
One such question has to do with the purported fossilized tracks of human and dinosaur feet together in Texas. This could strongly suggest that at least one species of dinosaur was around at the same time that humans were present in that area. Of course, people have been mistaken in the past about identification of geological and biological finds. This site may also be open to some level of questioning.
A non-dinosaur discovery could potentially suggest an answer to the problem. Over the years there have been some suggestions that fossilized animals exist across multiple layers of rock. This suggests that at some time, there was a catastrophic event in which a lot of layers of sediment were laid down in a short period of time, trapping some animals, building up layers from the bottom to the top of the animal quickly, before decay or predation took place. The reason this is important to the period of dinosaurs and a time when numerous species may have become extinct is simple. A catastrophe such as a massive flood would be able to explain a lot of geological formations which are currently explained by causes which take a very long time. So, given the appropriate conditions, it's quite possible that the timeline of fossilized finds may be incorrect, and that the dinosaur fossils are a lot more recent that we might think.
If, in fact, the footprints in Texas are real, there's reason to think that dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time, something which would be suggested by the biblical record in the book of Genesis. A catastrophic flood, as described there, could have wiped out a substantial number of species, though some would have been rescued through the time of the flood.
If we are left with dinosaurs after a time of flood, they are not likely to be the largest of the animals. The account in Genesis 6-9 indicates that some animals of each "kind" were preserved. This would not be every species, but would be enough of the species that the gradual biological divergence into different species could continue.
Now, what about the big scary dinosaurs? Those which were dangerous to humans were likely hunted down, bringing extinction to some species. Those which were unable to live in a world where the climate was different after a catastrophic flood would likely become extinct.
I have only one remaining suggestion for evidence of dinosaurs. Notice that virtually all cultures have stories about creatures which seem a lot like dinosaurs? Those would be dragons. They seem to be basically reptilian creatures, some of which have wings, some of which are predators. It's pretty unlikely that actual dinosaurs would steal gold and pile it up in their lairs underground. But it is certainly plausible that people, scared by the presence of larger creatures, many of which can be found in any book about dinosaurs, would have sought out heroic people to kill the dinosaur/dragon and keep it from harming anybody.
Though I don't expect anyone to give this argument any significant amount of credence, especially recognizing that I'm a theologian and not an archaeo-herpetologist or a crypto-biologist, I do hope I have brought up a few ideas to ponder. I have every reason to think the biblical accounts and fossil records can be reconciled with one another. The real question is whether we reject a biblical account out of hand. The Bible isn't a book about biology, zoology, or even ancient history. It's a theological account of the history of God and His people. Yet it interacts with a lot of important ideas. I hope you go and play with those ideas!
9/5/24
The question of dinosaurs comes up fairly frequently. I think it may be due to the combination of many Christians believing a "young earth" model of creation while many archaeologists portray dinosaurs as coming from many thousands of years earlier, along with an assumption that dinosaurs and humans never coexisted.
Whatever your concept of the age of the planet, you do have to recognize that fossilized dinosaur bones have been found, and in fairly large numbers. A more pertinent question, then, has to do with the overall timeline of events. While a catastrophe caused by a giant meteor strike or some other frightening event has been frequently repeated as the cause for a mass extinction, a considerable period before the existence of humans, there are some questions which I think need to remain open for now and which beg for answers.
One such question has to do with the purported fossilized tracks of human and dinosaur feet together in Texas. This could strongly suggest that at least one species of dinosaur was around at the same time that humans were present in that area. Of course, people have been mistaken in the past about identification of geological and biological finds. This site may also be open to some level of questioning.
A non-dinosaur discovery could potentially suggest an answer to the problem. Over the years there have been some suggestions that fossilized animals exist across multiple layers of rock. This suggests that at some time, there was a catastrophic event in which a lot of layers of sediment were laid down in a short period of time, trapping some animals, building up layers from the bottom to the top of the animal quickly, before decay or predation took place. The reason this is important to the period of dinosaurs and a time when numerous species may have become extinct is simple. A catastrophe such as a massive flood would be able to explain a lot of geological formations which are currently explained by causes which take a very long time. So, given the appropriate conditions, it's quite possible that the timeline of fossilized finds may be incorrect, and that the dinosaur fossils are a lot more recent that we might think.
If, in fact, the footprints in Texas are real, there's reason to think that dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time, something which would be suggested by the biblical record in the book of Genesis. A catastrophic flood, as described there, could have wiped out a substantial number of species, though some would have been rescued through the time of the flood.
If we are left with dinosaurs after a time of flood, they are not likely to be the largest of the animals. The account in Genesis 6-9 indicates that some animals of each "kind" were preserved. This would not be every species, but would be enough of the species that the gradual biological divergence into different species could continue.
Now, what about the big scary dinosaurs? Those which were dangerous to humans were likely hunted down, bringing extinction to some species. Those which were unable to live in a world where the climate was different after a catastrophic flood would likely become extinct.
I have only one remaining suggestion for evidence of dinosaurs. Notice that virtually all cultures have stories about creatures which seem a lot like dinosaurs? Those would be dragons. They seem to be basically reptilian creatures, some of which have wings, some of which are predators. It's pretty unlikely that actual dinosaurs would steal gold and pile it up in their lairs underground. But it is certainly plausible that people, scared by the presence of larger creatures, many of which can be found in any book about dinosaurs, would have sought out heroic people to kill the dinosaur/dragon and keep it from harming anybody.
Though I don't expect anyone to give this argument any significant amount of credence, especially recognizing that I'm a theologian and not an archaeo-herpetologist or a crypto-biologist, I do hope I have brought up a few ideas to ponder. I have every reason to think the biblical accounts and fossil records can be reconciled with one another. The real question is whether we reject a biblical account out of hand. The Bible isn't a book about biology, zoology, or even ancient history. It's a theological account of the history of God and His people. Yet it interacts with a lot of important ideas. I hope you go and play with those ideas!
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