What Does The Bible Say About Dinosaurs?

What Does The Bible Say About Dinosaurs?

The topic of dinosaurs in Christian society is part of a long-running debate for centuries on earth, the proper explanation of the origin, and how to interpret the physical evidence found all around us. Those who consider the earth very old are inclined to agree that dinosaurs are not mentioned in the Bible because their example suggests that dinosaurs disappeared millions of years before humans first entered the earth. Had stepped. Even the people who wrote the Bible may not have seen a dinosaur alive.

Those who do not consider earth much older are inclined to agree that the Bible mentions dinosaurs, although it does not use the word “dinosaur”. Instead, it uses the Hebrew word Tānian, translated in many different ways in our English Bible. Sometimes it is in “Sea Demon”, sometimes in “Python”. More often, it is translated as “dragon” or monster. It appears that Tania must have been like a giant crawling animal. Such animals are described thirty times in the Old Testament and are found both on land and in water.

Along with the mention of these giant crawling animals, the Bible mentions some other animals, so that some scholars believe that its authors may have been describing dinosaurs. The water Gaz is the largest of all the creatures created by God, a giant with a tail like a pine tree (Job 40:15). Some scholars have attempted to identify the Watergull as either an elephant or a hippopotamus. Others have pointed out that elephants and hippopotamuses have slender tails, which cannot be compared in any way to a pine tree. On the other hand, dinosaur species such as Brachiosaurus and Diplodocus had huge tails that can easily be compared to the pine tree.

Almost all ancient civilizations have had giant crawling animals depicting art. Rock-cut, man-made, even small clay artefacts found in North America match modern depictions of dinosaurs. Rock carvings in South America depict humans riding diplodocus-like animals, and surprisingly, Triceratops-like, Pterodactyl-like, and Tyrannosaurus rex-like animals. The mosaic of the Roman floor, the Mayan pottery, and the walls of Babylon all testify to the fascination of these geographically free animals beyond man’s culture. Like Marco Polo’s 11 Million, Gentle accounts mix with fascinating tales of treasure hoarding animals. In addition to substantial anthropological and historical evidence for the coexistence of dinosaurs and humans, there is also other physical evidence, such as the ancient fossil footprints of humans and dinosaurs gathered in North America and west-central Asia. Went.

So, is there a mention of dinosaurs in the Bible? The settlement of this matter is far from reach, and it depends on how you interpret the available evidence and view the world around you. If the Bible is to be interpreted literally, the earth is not very old, an explanation would emerge, and the idea that dinosaurs and humans co-existed may be acceptable. If dinosaurs and humans co-existed, then what happened to the dinosaurs? While the Bible does not discuss this topic, dinosaurs died out sometime after floods caused by a mix of dramatic environmental changes. They were subjected to human ruthlessness to the point of extinction.

Does The Bible Talk About Dinosaurs?

Some may wonder why we can’t find the word dinosaur in the Bible, and they need to be mentioned. Consider the following points:

Bible Time Of Publication

1-The Bible was completed 1,900 years ago and was fully translated into English by 1535 (by Miles Coverdale). It is believed that the English phrase “dinosaur” was not coined until 1842, over 300 years later than the initial comprehensive English version of Old and the New Testaments.

Purpose Of The Bible

The Bible is not a classified book. The main purpose of the Bible is to teach about God and His plan for man, not to list each of God’s creations. Just because an animal is not mentioned in Scripture doesn’t mean it never existed alongside humans. Many animals are never mentioned in the Bible, including cats, kangaroos, elephants, penguins etc. It would be wrong to say that these animals did not live with humans on earth because the Bible does not mention them. The same is true with dinosaurs.

Names of creatures found in the Bible that could be dinosaurs. The Bible mentions creatures that resemble dinosaurs. Look at the Hebrew word “tannic” found in Job 7:12. It’s described in the form of “demon of the sea”, “demon of the depths”, also known as “sea serpent”. The Genesis 1:11 passage and Psalm 148:7, in which the plural version from Tannin (Tanim) appears to be mentioned to describe literal situations (such in Job 7:12) The word can be translated to mean “great sea creature/demon”. It could be the species we call today a plesiosaurus.

In addition, the Bible refers to the “flying serpent” (Isaiah 30:6). Although it is impossible to know the exact identity of the “flying snake”, we do know that flying reptiles with long tails and slender bodies (e.g., Rhamphoryncus, Dimorphodon) once lived (cf. – Herodotus, 1850, p. 75) -76).

What’s more, the Bible gives Job a description of two giant creatures in 40–41, the waterfowl (Kimohol) and the Leviathan, which look exactly like dinosaurs or dinosaur-like, water-dwelling reptiles. Also, the word “dragon” is mentioned 34 times in the Bible. Although modern authors refer to the phenotypic dragon as mythical creatures, there are many historical references. There is a historical reference to the dragon in almost every culture globally. Their drawings and descriptions are very similar to what we now call dinosaurs.

Finally, in the Bible, the animal is called a Watergull. It resembles a brachiosaurus. “Take a look at the watercourse I created with you. It is eating grass like an ox. Look, there is strength in his neck, and his strength is in the straps of his stomach. He wags his tail like a cedar; The veins of his thighs are connected. His bones are as tubes of brass, his ribs as bars of iron” (Job 40:15-18). Clearly, this animal is described as having not only a large belly and strong bones but a long tail.

Summary

There are many kinds of creatures God created at the start of the world. God has demonstrated to us the wonder and the imagination of His creativity. There is a good chance that many things have changed in the world after the flood. Later, several animals in danger were targeted and eventually became extinct. It is a beautiful promise that one day we will return to heaven. In heaven, we will rebuild creation and look at the amazing creatures God made to serve us.

“But according to the scriptures that what the eye hasn’t observed, and the ear is not hearing and has not been absorbed into the soul of man is the thing that God has planned for those who are in love with him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).

Also Know About: What Does The Bible Say About Death?

Can Christians Believe In Dinosaurs?

Snakes appear in much of the Old and New Testaments of Animals—snakes, sheep, and frogs, to name just three—but dinosaurs are mentioned. (Yes, some Christians maintain that the biblical “serpents” were dinosaurs, as fearfully named the demons “Behemoth” and “Leviathan”, but this is not a widely accepted explanation.) .) This lack of inclusion, combined with Scientists claim that dinosaurs lived 65 million years ago, left many Christians sceptical about the existence of dinosaurs and prehistoric life in general. The question is: is it possible for a fervent Christian to consider creatures such as Apatosaurus or Tyrannosaurus Rex without running into his religious beliefs?

However, for this to be answered, we need to start by defining what exactly we are referring to by “Christian.” There are more than two billion self-declared Christians around the globe. The majority of them adhere to an extremely moderate form of their faith (as most Muslims, Jews, and Hindus practice liberal forms of their religions). Huh). From this, approximately 300 million people identify themselves as fundamentalist Christians, an inflexible segment that believes in the heterogeneity of the Bible (from the ethics of God to the palaeontology) in all matters, which is why dinosaurs are a part of the deep geological time. It is the most difficult to accept this idea.

Still, some archetypes are more “primordial” than others, meaning that it is difficult to establish how many of these Christians are dinosaurs, evolution, and an Earth that is more than a few thousand years old. Even the most liberal estimate of the number of fanatics who died still leaves about 1.9 billion Christians, who have no trouble reconciling scientific discoveries with their belief system. No less official than Pope Pius XII said, in 1950, that there was nothing wrong with believing in evolution, including that the individual human “soul” was still created by God (an issue about which Science has nothing to say), and in 2014 Pope Francis actively supported evolutionary theory (as well as other scientific ideas, such as global warming).

Can Fundamentalist Christians Believe In Dinosaurs?

The primary thing that differentiates fundamentalists from other varieties of Christians is their conviction they can prove that the Old and the New Testaments hold and, therefore, the first and final word in any discussion on ethics, geology, and biology. While most Christian authorities have no trouble interpreting the “six days of creation” in the Bible as figurative rather than literal – because we know each “day” can be 500 million years long! Fundamentalists insist that a biblical “day” is the same as today. Combined with a close reading of the age of the patriarchs and a reconstruction of the timing of biblical events, this reduces the patriarchs to an age of approximately 6,000 years.

It is extremely difficult to fit composition and dinosaurs (not to mention most geology, astronomy and evolutionary biology) into that timeframe. Fundamentalists suggest solutions to this problem:

Dinosaurs were real, but they lived only a few thousand years ago. This is the most common solution to the dinosaur “problem”: Stegosaurus, Triceratops, and their ilk roamed the earth during biblical times, and even two, two by two, rode on Noah’s ark (or as an egg). Through). In this view, paleontologists are at best misinformed and outright fraud when they date fossils to hundreds of millions of years ago because it goes against biblical wording.

Dinosaurs are real and lived about a couple of thousand years ago. How can we tell that dinosaurs went extinct millions of years ago when there were still tyrannosaurs roaming the jungles of Africa and plesiosaurs touching the ocean floor? This line of reasoning is even more logical than others after discovering a living, breathing Allosaurus would prove nothing a) the existence of dinosaurs during the Mesozoic Era or b) the viability of the theory of evolution.

Satan planted the fossils of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. It’s a final conspiracy theory: The “evidence” for the existence of dinosaurs was put forth by no fancier genius than Lucifer, leading Christians to a true path to salvation. Granted, not many fundamentalists support the notion, and it’s unclear how seriously it’s taken by its adherents (who may be more interested in telling uninformed facts rather than intimidating the straight and narrow. can).

How Can You Argue With A Fanatic About Dinosaurs?

The short answer is: you can’t. Today, most eminent scientists have a policy of not engaging in debates with fanatics about the fossil record or the theory of evolution. Both sides are arguing with inconsistent premises. Scientists gather empirical data, fit theories with discovered patterns, change their views when circumstances demand and boldly go where the evidence leads them. Radical Christians are deeply distrustful of empirical Science and insist that the Old and New Testaments are the only true source of all knowledge. These two world-views do not overlap at all!

In an ideal world, radical assumptions about dinosaurs and evolution would fade into obscurity, blown out by sunlight by scientific evidence to the contrary. In the world, we live in. However, school boards in conservative areas of the US are still trying to remove references to development in science textbooks or add passages about “intelligent design” (radical ideas about evolution). For a famous smokescreen). Clearly, regarding the existence of dinosaurs, we still have a long way to go convince radical Christians of the value of Science.