Please ignore the appalling music, and focus on the pictures
Here’s something you don’t often hear from a scientist who is studying a dinosaur fossil:
“It might’ve been walking around a couple of weeks ago.” (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/06/dinosaur-nodosaur-fossil-discovery/)
“It” has been called the most perfectly-preserved fossil of its kind, an armored Nodosaur from the mid-Cretaceous Period in Canada. They have what’s left of the animal from snout to hips. Look closely at the pictures within the National Geographic story. I find them somewhat haunting.
The fossil was found in 2011, and it has taken the Royal Tyrell Museum staff six years to free enough of it from the surrounding rock to allow it to be exhibited. It’s difficult, painstaking, and exciting work.
Alive, paleontologists estimate this Nodosaur would have been around 18 feet long and weighed about 3,000 pounds.
And I ask myself: Just how far away from our own present-day world has God removed the dinosaurs? In my Bell Mountain novels, He brings back ancient animals to usher in a new age of the world, and to demonstrate His sovereign power.
The fossil dinosaur’s face is almost well-preserved enough, when you look at it, to look back at you.
That’s what haunts me.
It really is haunting, but mine is a different reason. All I could think of looking at this was ‘that old dragon’ . . .
When dealing with prehistoric matters, the biggest wildcard is The Flood. Bible believers believe that there was a global flood somewhere around 4,200 years ago and non-believers tend not to. The nature of such a flood would be so catastrophic as to obscure all that happened before.
There are persistent rumors of living dinosaurs, either in a vast, unexplored swamp in the Congo or along the Amazon. I’ve also heard claims that the Native American Thinderbird was based upon sightings of living pterodactyls. I don’t have any way to know if these things are, in any way, true, unless someone comes up with some evidence it will remain an open question in my mind. I certainly believe that God could conceal such creatures if He chose to.
The Bible, along with many legends, speak of dragons, which some believe may have been dinosaurs. Dr. Gerald Schroeder, a retired physics professor from MIT and an authority on ancient Hebrew feels that there are verse in the Hebrew Scriptures which contain words that essentially mean the same thing as dinosaur, which literally means “terrible lizard”.
One thing of which I am certain is that none of God’s creative work is in vain. Satan’s rebellion will have no lingering effects over the long haul and whatever was lost in this fallen world will not be lost forever. Some believe that the dinosaurs were here for a period of time, helping to prepare the world for greater habitation be creatures that had not yet been created, and that they were never design to coexist with men. While I see the reasonableness of this position, I’m not 100% certain that I can accept it. Ultimately, we can’t know the full answer until all things are restored to the way God Himself intended.
One late afternoon, some years ago, Patty and I were coming home from the Seaside boardwalk and driving on Route 34. We had the highway practically to ourselves.
One of us chanced to look up, then the other, and see something strange in the sky. I thought it was a hang glider at first, but there was nowhere for many miles around from where a hang glider could launch. Nor was it any kind of aircraft.
We both saw the same thing, and both thought it looked like nothing so much as some kind of large pterodactyl.
To this day, we don’t know what it was. But there are still some fairly wild and untraveled places in New Jersey; and if what we saw wasn’t a pterodactyl, then we’re just stumped.
One thing’s for sure, this world is not nearly so well explored as the establishment would have us believe.
Now that’s a very eerie experience – especially since you’ve never solved the mystery. (Good thing I checked my spelling – otherwise the word ‘mystery’ would’ve been ‘mysery’ lol
We haven’t solved any mysery, either.
I enjoy reading the latest on dinosaurs and I can’t wait to learn more about the nodosaur. I also like noting the many watery references made in the articles I read. Ancient seabed possibilities, they say. The unbelieving scientists just can’t bring themselves to say, The Flood!
I have a friend who says that when he was in Vietnam years ago, he came across a dimetrodon. I have no reason to doubt him.
Gee, somewhere on this blog I have a post speculating on live dimetrodons. Wow!
When Michael was a Force Recon Marine in Vietnam, a helicopter was just arriving to extract them from an area near the DMZ (an area he says may not have been seen by man for hundreds of years – overgrown jungle) when he and one of his guys saw a gigantic ground dwelling spider with a web so huge and so sticky he said it may have been able to hold a man if he’d fallen into it. They were so shocked about it that they tried to get permission to go back and look for it. I’m not sure what they would’ve done with it had they captured it Their CO refused their request, since it was near the DMZ and also because he wouldn’t be able to explain how he lost a few of his men to a spider! He still talks about it to this day – in fact, he was just talking about it last night 🙂
Yipes! Well, that would be kind of a hard report for the CO to fill out.
Lots of funny stories come out of those jungles. There are reasons people don’t live in them.
The same voices of science whom promote specious theories are the same voices that will proclaim that science. Has it all figured out and that nothing exists without their knowledge. The fact is, we don’t really know much at all about some of the remote places on earth. Siberia is huge, but mostly unexplored and unknown.
The rainforests of Brazil are likewise vast areas with relatively few humans. I have no problem believing that there are creatures there which have escaped the attention of scientists. Natives of the area have legends of huge creatures quite similar to dinosaurs. Native drawings of sauropods and pterodactyls have been found and these drawings were made before the age of paleontology, so it’s not as if they could have been copied from a book seen by a native artist.
The Congo Basin has only recently been mapped for the first time and I’d dare to say that it has some secrets which are yet to be revealed.
I don’t claim to have the answers to the questions of the existence of dinosaurs. It was considered settled science not that long ago. However, the discovery of soft tissue on a T-Rex bone in 2005 is enough for me to question the timetable science has presented with regard to dinosaurs. With regard to my own thoughts, I opine that there is not enough information to make a definitive conclusion, but I find it very hard to believe that soft tissue could be preserved for 68 million years.
We live in an age where new discoveries seem to be abundant. The Dead Sea Scrolls have given us insights into the second temple period and shown that the modern translations of many books of the Hebrew Scriptures are based upon reliable texts. Bible research has advanced greatly in recent times and our understanding of prophecy has benefitted accordingly. The discovery of soft tissue on a dinosaur fossil strikes me as very significant and, perhaps, our Creator is revealing information to mankind in this manner. I’m keeping my eyes and ears open.
dimetrodons and gigantic ground dwelling spiders! I’m not so sure I’d like to visit Vietnam any time soon.
Me too, Marge, but if you do go, stay out of the jungles 🙂