Search here for:
On Dinosaurs, Evolution, & the Scripture
"Evolutionists believe in dinosaurs, right?"
"Right."
"But you believe evolutionary theory is basically incorrect, right?"
"Right."
"Then what do you do with dinosaurs?"
"I do the same thing with dinosaurs that I do with hot fudge sundaes."
"You do what??"
"Friend, to my knowledge, most evolutionists also 'believe in' hot fudge sundaes. But that has never stopped me from also 'believing in' them, as well as thoroughly enjoying them, which is just exactly what I do with the stories and statistics of those great, magnificent creatures God once put on this earth."
"You're saying that you believe God actually created dinosaurs? That dinosaurs and evolution are not two sides of the same coin?"
"Of course I'm saying that God created dinosaurs! And of course dinosaurs and evolution are not two sides of the same coin. Dinosaurs and the theory of evolution are no more co-dependent than hard boiled eggs and the Easter Bunny."
Here are the facts. The Bible says that on Day Five of the creation week God brought into being, among other things, the "great sea monsters" (Hebrew = tannin). That must have included "Leviathan" (Job 41:1), an up-to-50-foot-long Super Crocodile. On Day Six God went on to create all of the "beasts of the earth". That most likely included "Behemoth" (Job 40:15), very possibly Brontosaurus (Apatosaurus), Tyrannosaurus Rex, and all the other land-based dinosaurs.
For centuries these gigantic (some perhaps as big as seven elephants), fascinating, and rather intimidating 30-ton creatures walked the earth. Some of their 18-inch long, three-toed footprints and fossils are still here to prove it. I am privileged to have once personally visited a dinosaur bone excavation site and "working" museum in the western part of our own country. In my opinion, it would take a extremely naive individual with poor eyesight or very slow perception (or both) to seriously deny the historical existence of dinosaurs.
Where Bible teaching does part company with evolutionary theory, however, is in its contention that dinosaurs did not precede men by millions of years, but rather lived simultaneously with men only thousands of years ago.
Frankly, to hold any other position would lead to a conflict with the Biblical chronology of physical death, which Scripture makes clear became a reality only after man was created and subsequently fell into sin (Romans 5:12).
You might say, "Is there any extra-Biblical evidence that dinosaurs and humans were contemporaries?" You bet there is. Dr. Kelly Segraves of the Creation-Science Research Center in San Diego, CA, led an expedition to the Paluxy River Valley (Texas) in 1971 that uncovered a trail of eight sequential barefoot human tracks located in the very same cretaceous limestone rock strata as numerous dinosaur prints. This discovery, more recent and certain than a somewhat dubious 1970 report, has been carefully documented by Segraves in his book The Great Dinosaur Mistake.
Dinosaurs are obviously now extinct. Why? Who knows? Perhaps they were hunted down like so many other endangered species. Perhaps the dramatic changes in climate after the Flood proved too harsh for them. Or perhaps we'll never know, since no one (except maybe God) was there with a camcorder when it actually happened.