Dinosaurs in the Bible

The idea that the world started about 6,000 years ago as God created the heavens and the earth can be a hard concept for folks to accept. Science can show clear evidence that the world appears to be millions of years old. But science can also support religion if you look at the results in the right way. The best explanation I have heard is that Adam was created by God in God's image. He did not start out as a baby and he did not start out as a child. He was created as a man who had the appearance of previous years of experience from adolescence to adulthood. Therefore, he skipped this process in time and started new as a man. So by that same token, why could not the Earth have taken on such a similar creation process? An appearance of having the experience of being millions of years old, but having only existed within a 6,000-year history. In this way, the world would be millions of years old, but only in the same way that Adam was in his 30s or 40s, or possibly older depending on what a grown man was considered to be.

Within this same idea of the age of the world, is the idea that Adam and his descendants lived to be over 900 years old. Theories that years were counted more as weeks or phases of the moon have been suggested, but even these do not add up correctly. What is more likely is that it is indeed accurate that Adam was 930 when he died. This is possible when you consider creation and the Garden. The perfection of where Adam and Eve were living and the idea that Death had not been created yet. When Adam and Eve sinned, their punishment was the knowledge of good and evil, pain in childbearing for woman, and the difficulties of tending to the soil accompanied by painful thrones and the hard times that would now creep into the world at that moment. However, what was not a punishment was death. Death was in fact the mercy of God allowing an escape from the darkness that sin now created on Earth. A possible path back to God since God cannot be in the presence of sin. A path fulfilled by Jesus Christ when his sacrifice washed away our sins so that we may enter Heaven. So when you consider the idea that Adam and Eve were once immortal as they walked with God in his garden, and were being allowed to die opposed to Death being created as a punishment, the slow decrease from the tremendous ages described in the beginning of the Bible to what we now see as an average lifespan today makes more sense. God's mercy and love is shortening the time we must wait to get to see him.

Now we come to the age of the dinosaurs. They were first created in the Garden of Eden and likely did not eat each other. Outside of the garden is where animals began to become hostile as a part of the darkness that covered the earth in sin. Dinosaurs also probably survived the Great Flood by getting on the arch with Noah as young smaller dinosaurs. This was also probably true of other large animals as well. Now there are specific mentions of dinosaurs in the Bible. In Job 40:15-19 God describes what can be related to what we call a long neck dinosaur, or brontosaurus, today. "Look at Behemoth, which I made along with you and which feeds on grass like an ox. What strength it has in its loins, what power in the muscles of its belly! Its tail sways like a cedar; the sinews of its thighs are close-knit. Its bones are tubes of bronze, its limbs like rods of iron. It ranks first among the works of God, yet its Maker can approach it with his sword."

Living at a time when all of God's creatures roamed the earth around us must have left Adam and Eve in awe of God's power. Some might be wondering what it was like to live with dinosaurs. Of course, the mind of a hunter wonders what they must have tasted like. One of the earliest references to hunting was of Noah's great-grandson Nimrod who was described as, "a mighty hunter before the Lord," Genesis 10:8–12. Later Isaac's son Esau would be asked to hunt deer and prepare a meal of venison in order to receive God's blessing from his father, ""Take your quiver and bow, and go hunt me some venison," Genesis 27:3. Some of the first followers of Jesus, Simon (nicknamed Peter by Jesus), Andrew, James, and John, were fishermen who left their nets and followed Christ to make fishers of men, Matthew 4:19. History is full of rich connections to God and the great outdoors he created for us. While dinosaurs have died out, there are still plenty of great wonders to be in awe of. When I am out fishing, hunting, or just camping is when I feel the most connected with God. His creation is home to my heart.