Heres a stumper!

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tyson

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was talking with an atheist and we were talking about the bible, well she asks me where I can find the dinosaurs in the bible, :eek: yup i was stumped,

my question is this

how can we explain the existence of these creatures from a catholic view point, they are nowhere mentioned in scripture and we certainly have evidence of their being on the earth.

im stumped!🤷

thanks
 
Well, that is actually easy.

The bible is not a history book, it is a book on God’s relation to man up to the time of Jesus. It does have some history in it, but is not meant to be a history book.

It has nothing to do with the dinosaurs… It has no bearing on God’s relation to man.

My Physics book doesn’t have the dinosaurs in it either… is it then false. No, it deals with physics not dinosaurs, just as the Bible does not deal with dinosaurs.

As Catholic unlike some Protestant group, we never claim that the Bible contains all the insight into the history of the Universe.

But to put your friend in the right mind, ask him who created dinosaurs, who created the big bang, who created atoms, etc. He will have no answer because no one know for scientific fact. Christian know that it is God and that God is the cause of scientific principals and thus cannot be proved by them. On must have faith and reason to believe in God.
 
Flying_Bison said:
Well, that is actually easy.

The bible is not a history book, it is a book on God’s relation to man up to the time of Jesus. It does have some history in it, but is not meant to be a history book.

It has nothing to do with the dinosaurs… It has no bearing on God’s relation to man.

My Physics book doesn’t have the dinosaurs in it either… is it then false. No, it deals with physics not dinosaurs, just as the Bible does not deal with dinosaurs.

As Catholic unlike some Protestant group, we never claim that the Bible contains all the insight into the history of the Universe.

But to put your friend in the right mind, ask him who created dinosaurs, who created the big bang, who created atoms, etc. He will have no answer because no one know for scientific fact. Christian know that it is God and that God is the cause of scientific principals and thus cannot be proved by them. On must have faith and reason to believe in God.
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thats a great point in terms of the bible not being a history book,

but the point she was making was that the bible starts with “in the beginning” and mentions, animals, and flowers and how God began his work, but for there to not be mention of the dinosaurs, which were a HUGE part of the beginning is just odd

thanks for the response
 
The Bible doesn’t mention the kangaroo or the armadillo, either. The Genesis account of creation does not give a litany of every single type of animal that God created. Genesis says God created all the animals and all the birds and human beings. It does not name them all. Such a list is not necessary (and would be quite long if included).

The Bible is not a science book, nor does it pretend to be.
 
tyson said:
thats a great point in terms of the bible not being a history book,

but the point she was making was that the bible starts with “in the beginning” ** and mentions, animals, and flowers and how God began his work,** but for there to not be mention of the dinosaurs, which were a HUGE part of the beginning is just odd

thanks for the response
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Point out to her that the Bible doesn’t mention other specific types of species either — aardvarks, hummingbirds, cockroaches or amoeba – but does that mean the Bible (not being a biology book) should mention each of these? One species is not inherently “BIGGER” than the other (blue whales are larger in terms of sheer mass than any of the dinos were), so there is no biblical criteria for mentioning one or the other except as it suits God’s plan of revelation to us. As St. Augustine said, “The Scriptures were not meant to teach us how the heavens go, but how we can go to heaven.”🙂
 
tyson said:
thats a great point in terms of the bible not being a history book,

but the point she was making was that the bible starts with “in the beginning” and mentions, animals, and flowers and how God began his work, but for there to not be mention of the dinosaurs, which were a HUGE part of the beginning is just odd

thanks for the response
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In what sense were they a HUGE part of the beginning? They were huge animals, but other than that, what is their relevance as far as our salvation?
 
My kids have a book about the true story of Waterhouse Hawkins. He was the first to rebuild a dinosaur skeleton and this was in 1853 (England). Up to this point, most people had no idea of what a dinosaur looked like. Now, his models weren’t exactly accurate, but they were the first - the first time that anyone had seen a model of a dinosaur. First in England, and then in America a few years later.

My point is, if people didn’t even really understand what dinosaurs looked like until 150 years ago, how in the world would they have written about them all that long time ago?(or talked about them - as the account in Genesis would have been passed down orally for a long long time before being written) What are we talking, 3000 years ago? 4000 years ago? Did people even KNOW what a dinosaur was then? Or did they just think those big big bones were from giants or dragons? In which case, giants and beasts ARE talked about in Scripture.

Or maybe when they were talking about animals in the Genesis account, maybe that included dinosaurs. After all, they didn’t name every animal in existence or that ever existed. Maybe animals means just what it says - animals. And dinosaurs were animals.
 
the bible is not a history book, yet it contains history - and its ancient history is the most accurate book of history from that period

It is not a biology book either, yet it talks bout animals

it is not an astronomy text yet it talks about stars at times

Scratch an atheist and you’ll find a fundamentalist - they have to read the bible like a fundamentalist in order to make it ridiculous in their own eyes
 
Some exegetes believe the behemoth and leviathan mentioned in Job were early dinosaurs or at least ancient big alligators or hippos. But nevertheless, dinosaurs would indeed be covered under “animals” in Genesis. 🙂
 
tyson said:
was talking with an atheist and we were talking about the bible, well she asks me where I can find the dinosaurs in the bible, :eek: yup i was stumped,

my question is this

how can we explain the existence of these creatures from a catholic view point, they are nowhere mentioned in scripture and we certainly have evidence of their being on the earth.

im stumped!🤷

thanks
Click to expand...
Gee. Genesis doesn’t mention thermo-nuclear reactions (which is what makes stars produce energy), black holes, quasars, quarks, dark matter, or the Theory of Relativity. It doesn’t discuss electricity, thermodynamics, aviation, photosynthesis, and so on.

Maybe Genesis was written to tell us about God, not about physics, chemistry, paleontology and so on. And maybe it was written so it could be understood by people living in those days.

Look at it this way – if you re-wrote Genesis and included all the theoretical physics relating to the Creation of the universe as today’s theoretical physicists believe, not a hundred people alive today could understand it.

And if you wrote about the origin of the universe as it really happened – no one alive could understand it.

Now, what would be the point of writing a book or telling a story no one could understand?
 
The Bible was written by men inspired by the Holy Spirit. As explained above it does not included every detail or in other words, Everything in the Bible is true, but not all truth is in the Bible. Plus, the dinosaurs died out long before man came on the scene.
 
ricko said:
The Bible was written by men inspired by the Holy Spirit. As explained above it does not included every detail or in other words, Everything in the Bible is true, but not all truth is in the Bible. Plus, the dinosaurs died out long before man came on the scene.
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Can you imagine shepards sitting around the campfire and trying to understand dinosaurs? And then nuclear fission?😛
 
tyson said:
was talking with an atheist and we were talking about the bible, well she asks me where I can find the dinosaurs in the bible, :eek: yup i was stumped,

my question is this

how can we explain the existence of these creatures from a catholic view point, they are nowhere mentioned in scripture and we certainly have evidence of their being on the earth.

im stumped!🤷

thanks
Click to expand...
where does the bible list wombats, duckbilled platypus, guinea pigs, chihauhas, Siberian huskies, three toed sloths, and other animals? is that proof they do not exist or were not created by God? the bible is not a biology book. If he wants to learn about dinosaurs he should find a good book about them.
 
The Bible is not a monolithic book, but a library of 73 books written over the span of thousands of years and in multiple different styles and genres (literal histories, parables, poetry, songs, instructional letters, and other narrative forms). The Creation accounts are probably not intended to be literal history–likewise, there’s nothing in there that rules out God forming birds, for example, over millions of years with dinosaurs being part of that process–but, since the Bible was written for human beings, and dinosaurs were gone at its writing, including them was not really important at all.
 
quasimodo said:
Scratch an atheist and you’ll find a fundamentalist - they have to read the bible like a fundamentalist in order to make it ridiculous in their own eyes
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Wow, I’d never considered it from that angle, but I think you’re absolutely right, Quasimodo 👍
 
tyson said:
was talking with an atheist and we were talking about the bible, well she asks me where I can find the dinosaurs in the bible, :eek: yup i was stumped,

my question is this

how can we explain the existence of these creatures from a catholic view point, they are nowhere mentioned in scripture and we certainly have evidence of their being on the earth.

im stumped!🤷

thanks
Click to expand...

The Bible does not include all knowledge, which is what seems to be implied 🙂 Why must it do so ? If people want to go to Australia, or have an operation for cancer, the Bible has nothing to say on either subject. Other books do.​

What the Bible does give us is a trustworthy & adequate revelation of God’s Will for us, His claims on us, & His kindness to us despite our rebellion against Him; & most of all, it tells us of Jesus Christ. IOW, it is about what matters most. So the other stuff can be read about elsewhere.

Besides, dinosaurs died out millions of years before man appeared. They are not involved in what the Bible has to say - apart from being God’s creatures. Alleged references to them in Job & elsewhere have nothing to do with dinosaurs, & a great deal to do either with hippopotami & similar animals, or with mythical monsters which were familiar to the peoples of the Biblical cultures but are not familiar to us. Stories about chaos-monsters, many-headed dragons & lion-dragons are fiction - not records of fact. One might as well expect the Bible to mention hobbits 🙂
 
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