So, if the earth is only thousands of years old as the Bible plainly implies and observable science confirms, then what about the dinosaurs!? For many years now, dinosaurs have been a mystery to most Christians because of the influence of evolutionary thinking in our culture and churches. But when we start with the Bible and build our thinking on God’s Word, we have answers even about dinosaurs!
Answers in Genesis uses the “7 F’s” to summarize dinosaurs from a biblical perspective.
- Formed — The Bible states clearly that land animals were created on day six. Therefore, dinosaurs (land animals by definition) were formed on day six.
- Fearless — God’s initial creation was “very good.” There was no death, suffering, or disease. Originally, everything was vegetarian, and there was no fear between animals and man.
- Fallen — But then that all changed. Man sinned, bringing death and suffering into this world, and all of creation was affected (Romans 8:22). At this point, it is likely that the diets of many animals changed, and after the Flood, God put the fear of man into all the animals.
- Flood — The global, catastrophic Flood of Noah’s day killed all dinosaurs not on the Ark and buried many of their remains in rock layers all around the world. (Dinosaurs on the Ark!? Absolutely! This will be dealt with in a later chapter). This is confirmed by the numerous samples of soft tissue discovered in dinosaur bones. At most, these tissues, with phenomenal preservation, would only last thousands of years after the dinosaur’s death.
- Faded — After the Flood, dinosaurs repopulated and lived with man for quite a while. This is firmly attested to by the thousands of images and writings of cultures worldwide that clearly depict dinosaurs. Bear in mind, that the word dinosaur is a new word. It was invented in 1841 by Sir Richard Owen and wasn’t used much until the early 1900s. Before that time, dinosaurs would have been included in the groups of animals called “dragons.” But the post-Flood world provided challenges to survival that the dinosaurs could not handle: it was a wrecked world (Genesis 6:13), genetic bottleneck, post-Flood Ice Age, man hunting them, etc. As a result, the land dragons, later renamed dinosaurs, faded away until all that was left were the legends that grew more fanciful as they were passed from one generation to the next in different cultures.
- Found — Dinosaurs were rediscovered in the 1800s and were renamed by Sir Richard Owen. Actually, the first man to discover a dinosaur was . . . Adam.
- Fiction — Since their rediscovery, there has been quite a bit of fabrication as to where dinosaurs came from and where they went, and the secular story that they existed millions of years before man is simply fiction.