Did Dinosaurs Really Exist? Really?

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

It came up in the conversation: “We sent our son to a Christian camp, and they taught him there were no dinosaurs–that unbelievers just made them up. He was confused about it for years.”

I’m always surprised when I hear anyone deny that there was ever any such thing as a dinosaur. True, dinosaurs aren’t mentioned in the Holy Scriptures. Neither are ancient China, the polar regions of the earth, or volcanoes, and Spain is the westernmost country mentioned in the Bible (did you know that?). Furthermore, although dinosaur fossils have been found all over the world, the Middle East–the region where most of the action in the Bible takes place– is singularly impoverished in that respect.

It’s also true that a lot of the things we used to “know” about dinosaurs have turned out to be wrong. When all you’ve got to go on is bones and tracks, it leaves a lot of room for error. Compared to what I was brought up on, some of these feathered monstrosities that are today’s representations of dinosaurs look altogether screwy.

And then we’ve got “behemoth,” in Job 40:15-24–a big, fearsome, awe-inspiring animal described as eating grass and having a tail like a cedar, as in a cedar tree. Whatever it was, behemoth was a herbivore–and can you think of any herbivorous land animal today whose tail would remind you of a cedar tree?

What do you suppose God was talking about, when He spoke to Job and used behemoth as an example to teach Job about His divine sovereignty?

Whether behemoth was a dinosaur or not, one thing we do know is that its like is on the earth no more.

Believing that dinosaurs existed should not threaten anyone’s Christian faith. We don’t want to put ourselves into the position of claiming that the bones–say, a Tyrannosaurus skull, or a brontosaur skeleton–were manufactured by the thousands and thousands and seeded all over the earth by some powerful and fiendishly clever conspiracy formed by persons who otherwise can hardly find their way out of a rest room. [Note: It turns out there really is a conspiracy theory that says the government, or “corporations,” or even God just made up dinosaurs as means of either spreading disbelief or, in God’s case, testing our faith.]

Yes, they are not discussed in the Bible. So what? Does anyone know all there is to know about God and His ways? Like, isn’t that what they were trying to teach poor Job?

Christians are at liberty to enjoy dinosaurs as the work of God’s hands, and to be richly amused by the endless revisions necessary to the scientific study of dinosaurs–and even, if so moved, to jump into that study themselves and lend a hand.

9 comments on “Did Dinosaurs Really Exist? Really?”

  1. A great God-glorifying summer trip for dinosaur aficionados is the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum in Kentucky. They really do have answers for Christians who love the Bible and appreciate good science.

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    1. Oh, you shouldn’t have mentioned that! You’ll hurt Bill Nye the Science Guy’s feelings. People who hate God must always have their feelings handled with great care… not!

  2. There are a lot of unanswered questions which are not covered in scripture. I have read well thought out arguments that dinosaurs could have been contemporaries of early man. I don’t advocate that position, but neither do I denigrate it.

    Recent discoveries of elastic tissue in paleontological sites puts the entire timeline into question. Certain legends of huge, ill-tempered beasts in remote areas, legends of dragons and the North American Thunderbird legend all could be interpreted as describing animals thought to be extinct long before humans existed.

    Keep in mind also, that although dinosaurs can be huge. They can also be smaller. IIRC, the average size of a dinosaur was about the size of a goat. The huge examples that come quickly to mind may have been the rare exception and confined to unpopulated areas.

    I don’t claim to have an authoritative answer. I can see that there is much to learn about all of this and I don’t think that anyone can honestly claim to have the last word on the subject.

    That having been said, I have personally seen the fossilized footprints of Stegosaurs, embedded in stone, within site of metro Denver. I may never of had to chase one out of my yard when I lived in Jefferson County, but I am certain that at one time, they lived nearby. 🙂

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  4. Cute video!

    I was always taught that the Behemoth was a hippo. Perhaps the Cedar-Tailed Hippo did indeed exist but became extinct due to Climbit Change and Heteronormativity. 🙂

    Where I’m concerned, the timeline is a huge question mark. A cataclysmic global flood makes it difficult to know what came before. So, were the dinos hundreds of millions of years ago, or just a few thousand years ago, or possibly both? I have no idea.

    As I mentioned earlier, the presence of elastic tissues in some fossils have brought into question a great deal of what we thought we knew about the timeline. God knows, but I sure don’t.

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