This frequent question, asked in just this way, implies many questions related to dinosaurs—a word meaning “terrible lizards.” When did they live? What killed the dinosaurs? What were they like? What does the Bible say about them? Could so many large animals have fit on the Ark? There were about 300 different types of dinosaurs. Most were large; some even gigantic. One adult dinosaur was as tall as a five-story building. However, some were small, about the size of a chicken.

Many other questions will be answered if we focus on one question, “When did they live?” There are two common, but quite different, answers. Evolutionists say dinosaurs lived, died, and became extinct at least 60 million years before man evolved. Others believe God created all living things during the creation week. So man and dinosaurs lived at the same time. If we look at the evidence, sorting out these two very different answers should be easy.

Did dinosaurs become extinct at least 60 million years before man evolved?
Almost all textbooks that address the subject say so. Movies and television vividly portray this. One even hears it at Disney World and other amusement parks. Some will say that every educated person believes this. We frequently hear stories that begin with impressive-sounding phrases such as, “Two hundred million years ago, as dinosaurs ruled the earth, ...” But none of this is evidence; some of it is an appeal to authority.  (Evidence must be observable and verifiable.)

Did man and dinosaurs live at the same time?
Scientists in the former Soviet Union have reported a layer of rock containing more than 2,000 dinosaur footprints alongside tracks “resembling human footprints.”  Obviously, both types of footprints were made in mud or sand that has since hardened into rock. If they are human footprints, then man and dinosaurs lived at the same time. Similar discoveries have been made in Arizona. If it were not for the theory of evolution, few would doubt that these were human footprints.

Dinosaurs in the Bible

[Behemoth]
The Book of Job is one of the oldest books ever written. In it, God tells Job of his greatness as Creator and describes an animal, called Behemoth, as follows:

"Behold now, Behemoth, which I made as well as you; He eats grass like an ox.  Behold now, his strength in his loins, And his power in the muscles of his belly. He bends his tail like a cedar; The sinews of his thighs are knit together. His bones are tubes of bronze; His limbs are like bars of iron."
(Job 40:15–18)

Marginal notes in most Bibles speculate that Behemoth was probably an elephant or a hippopotamus, but those animals have tails like ropes. Behemoth had a “tail like a cedar.” Any animal with a tail as huge and strong as a cedar tree is probably a dinosaur. Job 40:19–24 describes this giant, difficult-to-capture animal as not alarmed by a raging river. If the writer of Job knew of a dinosaur, then the evolution position is wrong, and man saw dinosaurs.

[Leviathan]
The next chapter of Job describes another huge, fierce animal, a sea monster named Leviathan.  It was not a whale or crocodile, because the Hebrew language had other words to describe such animals. Leviathan may be a plesiosaur (PLEE see uh sore), a large seagoing reptile that evolutionists say became extinct 60 million years before man evolved.

"Can you pull in the leviathan with a fishhook or tie down his tongue with a rope? Can you put a cord through his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook? Will he keep begging you for mercy?  Will he speak to you with gentle words? Will he make an agreement with you  for you to take him as your slave for life? Can you make a pet of him like a bird  or put him on a leash for your girls? Will traders barter for him?  Will they divide him up among the merchants? Can you fill his hide with harpoons  or his head with fishing spears? If you lay a hand on him,  you will remember the struggle and never do it again! Any hope of subduing him is false;  the mere sight of him is overpowering. No one is fierce enough to rouse him.  Who then is able to stand against me?
(Job 41:1-10)

There the ships go to and fro, and the leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.
(Psalms 104:26)

In that day, the Lord will punish with his sword, his fierce, great and powerful sword, Leviathan the gliding serpent, Leviathan the coiling serpent; he will slay the monster of the sea.
(Isaiah 27:1)

**Both Leviathan and Behemoth are described in the apocryphal book II Esdras. II Esdras 6:49–53 says these beasts were created on the fifth day and given separate territories because of their large size.

Dinosaurs today?

For the past three centuries, unconfirmed reports have come from the Congo in western Africa that dinosaurs exist in remote swamps. These stories are often from educated people, eyewitnesses, and others who can quickly describe dinosaurs. Although they did not personally see dinosaurs, two expeditions, led by biochemist Dr. Roy Mackal of the University of Chicago, verified many of these accounts, some from scientists. If any of these accounts are correct, man and dinosaurs are contemporaries.

Consider the many dragon legends. Most ancient cultures have stories or artwork of dragons that strongly resemble dinosaurs. The World Book Encyclopedia states that:
"The dragons of legend are strangely like actual creatures that have lived in the past. They are much like the great reptiles [dinosaurs] which inhabited the earth long before man is supposed to have appeared on earth. Dragons were generally evil and destructive. Every country had them in its mythology."

The simplest and most obvious explanation for so many common descriptions of dragons from around the world is that man once knew the dinosaurs.

What caused the extinction of dinosaurs?
The flood. Because dinosaur bones are found among other fossils, dinosaurs must have been living when the flood began. There are dozens of other dinosaur extinction theories, but they all have recognized problems.  Most of the food chain was buried in the flood. Therefore, many large dinosaurs that survived the flood probably had difficulty feeding themselves and became extinct.

Were dinosaurs on the Ark?
Yes. God told Noah to put representatives of every kind of land animal on the Ark. (Some dinosaurs were semiaquatic and could have survived outside the Ark.) But why put adult dinosaurs on the Ark? Young dinosaurs would take up less room, eat less, and be easier to manage. The purpose for having animals on board was so they could reproduce after the flood and repopulate the earth. Young dinosaurs would have more potential for reproduction than old dinosaurs.

Most, if not all, dinosaurs hatched from eggs. The largest dinosaur eggs ever found were a foot long. Hatchlings, even after a year of growth while on the Ark, would be quite easy to handle.

Possibly dinosaurs became very large, because they lived to great ages. Preflood humans could live for more than 900 years. If whatever caused man to live so long had the same effect on dinosaurs, they could have grown very large. Reptiles, unlike other animals, continue to grow throughout their lives. Perhaps large dinosaurs, which are similar to reptiles in many ways, were just old.

Copyright © 1995–2001
Center for Scientific Creation

To summarize briefly:
Dinosaurs were made the sixth day with the rest of the animals. Noah took them on the ark (probably young ones). They have always lived with man. After the flood many died from the climate changes and from man's hunting. They were called dragons for many centuries. (The word dinosaur was just invented in 1841.) A few small dinosaurs may still be alive today in remote parts of the world. There have been over 20,000 reported sightings of dinosaur like creatures in this century.
 
 

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