Genesis and Geology

[rossum]

Are dinosaurs related to any sea-life?

Yes. Like all land tetrapods they relate back to amphibians like Tiktaalik and before that to Osteolepimorph fish. The modern Coelacanth is a cousin of the Osteolepimorphs, see Sarcopterygii.

Could some crawling thing from the sea have eventually become a dinosaur?

It would be better to say that a population of crawling things from the sea evolved into dinosaurs. No individual organism evolves, and none could live for that long.

Could birds only have derived from dinosaurs and dinosaurs themselves from a particular sea-life form?

The majority of biologists accept that birds evolved from Theropod dinosaurs. A small minority think that both dinosaurs and birds evolved separately from basal archosaurs. All accept that dinosaurs evolved from archosaurs, amphibians, and fish.

Mammals took a different route to dinosaurs,

The routes were the same from fish through to primitive reptiles, at that point they diverged. After tetrapods emerged onto land as amphibians they evolved eggs able to survive out of water and became reptiles. Within the reptiles there are two separate lines: the Synapsids and the Diapsids. The Synapsids evolved through the Therapsids into mammals and ourselves. The Diapsids evolved through the archosaurs and dinosaurs into birds. Diapsids also include crocodiles, but they are a separate line from dinosaurs having diverged from the other archosaurs a long time ago.

could birds have evolved from mammals? Would that have been physically possible?

No. By the time birds evolved the Synapsids and Diapsids had been separated for millions of years. The characteristics of the birds place them in the Diapsids.

Did mammals derive from dinosaurs, or did they diverge at some very early point when things started to crawl out of the sea?

The latter. They diverged soon after the evolution of the amniotic egg, which allowed early reptiles to lay their eggs away from water.

rossum

 

[inthecloud]

I do not know if you have been reading the footnotes of Catholic Bibles but most the modern ones follow St Augustine teaching that the 6 day scheme of Genesis was symbolical, and add the fact accepted by modern biblical scholarship that the six day scenario was added late to the Torah by the First Temple priests and is related to tie the Creation to the Jewish feasts, making them a recreation of the Creation. The days sequence follows a pattern of dualtities that support that case. Compare to Jewish dietary laws in the Torah.
Is not necessary to fall into scientific concordism. The six days scenario has been interpreted symbolicaly before. And the interpretation makes a lot of sense.

 

[Thing]

I do not know if you have been reading the footnotes of Catholic Bibles but most the modern ones follow St Augustine teaching that the 6 day scheme of Genesis was symbolical, and add the fact accepted by modern biblical scholarship that the six day scenario was added late to the Torah by the First Temple priests and is related to tie the Creation to the Jewish feasts, making them a recreation of the Creation. The days sequence follows a pattern of dualtities that support that case. Compare to Jewish dietary laws in the Torah.
Is not necessary to fall into scientific concordism. The six days scenario has been interpreted symbolicaly before. And the interpretation makes a lot of sense.

Well now, thats interesting. Its something I did’nt know before.
Presumably the creation story as it is was there since the year dot, and you say it was divided up later.
Why, that lets my idea off the hook entirely. Genesis recounts creation in stages, but now not necessarily in fixed equidistant stages. So my birds do not have to evolve on the Fifth Day of 1.5 billion years ago after all, it could be much later on. Great!..