why aren't dinosaurs in the bible?

[Travesty]

very good points Ecce Homo!

 

[buffalo]

Adam named the Dinosaurs - listen

 

[MikeMaturenMDiv]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Let us not forgot what the Bible IS, and what it ISN’T. The Bible never claims to be a science textbook, or a geography textbook, or an anthropology textbook…or a textbook of any kind, for that matter.

The Bible is a collection of books–some literal, some not–that descibe and explain God’s relationship to His people, and His people’s relationship to Him.

If we make the error of taking things out of context, or in the wrong way (such as taking allegory as literal, etc), then we are in grave danger of entering into heresy.

There is NOTHING in Scripture that would demand a literal understanding of creation (in fact, there is much evidence to the contrary), and there is nothing in Scripture that says you will find EVERYTHING there is to know about life in its covers.

Besides, in the long run, what does it matter if dinosaurs are mentioned or not? What does it matter if they co-existed with man or not? The existence of dinosaurs has nothing whatsoever to do with our eternal salvation.

JADED, tell your friends to worry about bigger things than whether dinosaurs are mentioned in Scripture. To use their own logic (if it’s not mentioned, it must be false), they then MUSt reverse their atheism and become believers because sin, damnation, God, Jesus Christ, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection AND redemption ARE mentioned.

 

[buffalo]

MikeMaturenMDiv:

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Let us not forgot what the Bible IS, and what it ISN’T. The Bible never claims to be a science textbook, or a geography textbook, or an anthropology textbook…or a textbook of any kind, for that matter.

The Bible is a collection of books–some literal, some not–that descibe and explain God’s relationship to His people, and His people’s relationship to Him.

If we make the error of taking things out of context, or in the wrong way (such as taking allegory as literal, etc), then we are in grave danger of entering into heresy.

There is NOTHING in Scripture that would demand a literal understanding of creation (in fact, there is much evidence to the contrary), and there is nothing in Scripture that says you will find EVERYTHING there is to know about life in its covers.

Besides, in the long run, what does it matter if dinosaurs are mentioned or not? What does it matter if they co-existed with man or not? The existence of dinosaurs has nothing whatsoever to do with our eternal salvation.

JADED, tell your friends to worry about bigger things than whether dinosaurs are mentioned in Scripture. To use their own logic (if it’s not mentioned, it must be false), they then MUSt reverse their atheism and become believers because sin, damnation, God, Jesus Christ, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection AND redemption ARE mentioned.

Let’s take a very simple statement - ***the sun shines daily. ***

It is not meant to be a scientific textbook statement. It is a simple observation that everyone agees on.

Now look at it deeper. This simple observation contains many scientific truths. It is a very simple 4 word statement that contains so much more.

1. It identifies the sun - singular
2. It makes a scientific statment about its stability
3. It makes a statment about light
4. It identifies that we understand the period of daily
5. It says that the sun emits light

In 5,000 years if someone would try to understand this statement could they conclude there is no science contained therein?

 

[GodBlessJoanie]

Psalm 148: “All creatures big and small…”

says it all…

Blessings,
Joanie

 

[Anacharius]

Genesis Chapter #6, verse #4 I do believe, it mentions “from the land of the giants”.
Another interesting topic of discussion. :) :) :)

 

[Anacharius]

kim wilson:

There is a Chinese folktale about a dragon who eats the Sun or Moon during an eclipse. During a real eclipse, ancient Chinese would make as much noise as possible, banging on pots and pans to try and scare away the dragon which was eating the Sun or Moon.

OK Marsh, there’s a dragon that eats the sun.

I personally like the idea of dragons and dinos being around during people time. Ringo Starr’s “Caveman” is one of my favorite movies. And I have a very colorful refrigerator magnet of St. George slaying a dragon.

I do believe that in the end times that China and Russia ( St. Vladimir I of Kiev, type of Russia/Ukraine ) will fight it out for world domination, and somewhere, the Muslims ( converted ), will play a role in this some how.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Travesty:

Jaded,
I’m not too well versed on what exactly JW believe but I’ll throw some interesting bible verses out that deal with evolution.

Did God use Evolution to create us?

2 Maccabees 7: 28 (NAB)

“I beg you child, to look at the heavens and the earth and see all that is in them; then you will know that God did not make them out of existing things; and in the same way the human race came into existence.”(Emphasis added)

The words are a denial that the world was made out of pre-existing matter. It is not a denial of evolution, nor is it incompatible with it; theistic evolution is perfectly compatible with belief in Divine creation “out of nothing”, whether this involved a Big Bang, or some other process (see verse 28).​

So what you say next is no difficulty for belief in theistic evolution. (Nor, BTW, is belief in Providence - for the two are unrelated) . If belief in “random chance” were integral to belief in theistic evolution, then belief in Providence would be logically incompatible with theistic evolution - it’s not, so it isn’t.

So all the arguments built on opposing “random chance” to the Bible, do nothing to demonstrate the falsity or inadequacy of theistic evolution. ##

God did not make them out of existing things; that is, God made all things solely by his omnipotent will and his creative word.

Genesis 1:1 (NAB)

“In the Beginning, **God created **the heavens and the Earth” (Emphasis added)

Of course it doesn’t say in the beginning, God created a speck of mass no bigger than the period at the end of this sentence which he then left up to random chance to build the universe. But….

Is God Omnipotent?

Revelation 22:13 (NAB)

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, **the beginning and the end.” **(Emphasis added)

*To say that God used random chance to design the heavens and the earth is to take away from his Omnipotence. *

Ephesians 1:11 (NAB)

“**In him we were also chosen, destined **in accord with the purpose of the One who accomplishes all things according to the intention of his will” (Emphasis added)

How can a God who is all powerful and all knowing simply leave it up to random chance? To leave it up to Chance, would say that God is not in total control. If God is not in control, then why should we worship him, or do what he commands?

Acts 15:18 puts it this way:

“Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world."

Did God Create the World?

1 Samuel 2:6-9

"The LORD kills and makes alive; He brings down to the grave and brings up. {7} The LORD makes poor and makes rich; He brings low and lifts up. {8} He raises the poor from the dust And lifts the beggar from the ash heap, To set them among princes And make them inherit the throne of glory. "For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, And He has set the world upon them. {9} He will guard the feet of His saints, But the wicked shall be silent in darkness. "For by strength no man shall prevail.

Psalms 24:1

“The earth is the Lord’s, and all its fullness, The world and those who dwell therein.”

Proverbs 16:4

“The LORD has made all for Himself, Yes, even the wicked for the day of doom.”

Isaiah 45:4-9

“For Jacob My servant’s sake, And Israel My elect, I have even called you by your name; I have named you, though you have not known Me. {5} I am the LORD, and there is no other; There is no God besides Me. I will gird you, though you have not known Me, {6} That they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting That there is none besides Me. I am the LORD, and there is no other; {7} I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the LORD, do all these things.’ {8} "Rain down, you heavens, from above, And let the skies pour down righteousness; Let the earth open, let them bring forth salvation, And let righteousness spring up together. I, the LORD, have created it. {9} **"Woe to him who strives with his Maker! **Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth! Shall the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ Or shall your handiwork say, ‘He has no hands’?”

Isaiah 66:1-2

“Thus says the LORD: "Heaven is My throne, And earth is My footstool. Where is the house that you will build Me? And where is the place of My rest? {2} For all those things My hand has made, And all those things exist," Says the LORD. "But on this one will I look: On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, And who trembles at My word.”

[CONTINUED ON NEXT POST]*

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Ecce Homo:

Several have already posted that dinosaurs and humans never coexisted and that dinosaurs lived some 65 million years ago. I was just wondering, does this assertion and date take into account the period of time before the fall of man?

Consider Romans 5:12:

Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.

When the fall occurred, mankind died spiritually and mankind also became capable of dying physically. Before that point, physical death was not a possiblity.

Dinosaurs are extinct today, yet we see their fossils. To say that dinosaurs and humans never coexisted is to say that the dinosaurs died before any man existed. This implies that there was death before the fall of man–at least for dinosaurs. So, did dinosaurs die before or after the fall of man (at which time “death came into the world”)?

Romans 5 does seem to be about man alone - can you see reasons to extend it to the creation as a whole ? OTOH, there maybe some support for a notion of a universal Fall, affecting all nature, and not man alone, in Romans 8.​

St. Paul, of course, didn’t have to think about dinosaurs. I think is the key to the answer to your question.

I’m assuming for the sake of argument that the Fall happened as described - our problem is that we have the text in Genesis, some other references, and Romans 5 - and they don’t perfectly co-incide - they overlap instead. ##

Another question: Isn’t it possible, if not probable, that the physical manifestations of the fall of Adam, including death and suffering, were accompanied by a significant transformation of the rest of creation, including the earth itself–perhaps to the extent that what was before was hardly recognizeable thereafter? A simple example recorded in Genesis is that after the fall, the earth was changed in some way such that man was required to toil in the earth by the sweat of his brow to grow crops, whereas this was not the case before.

Although I admit that the following is pure speculation, I wonder if time itself might have been altered as a result of man’s sin. If so, “long-range” dating methods would be horribly inaccurate.

I think you’ve been reading Book 10 of “Paradise Lost” ​

dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/pl/book_10/text.shtml - 10.650 ff.

Milton was a great poet - but I don’t think he had “inside knowledge” about the results of the Fall ##

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Lizzie:

Are you trying to tell us that just because the Chinese had folk tales, they never, ever found fossils of dinsaurs/dragons? :tsktsk:

They may well have found them - whether they identifuied them correctly, is another matter.​

Before the 1800s, dinosaur remains were identified as gigantic human remains. ##

 

[Anacharius]

Church Teach’s that Lucifer and the other Angels were shown a vision of Christ Jesus, and about a third of them rejected the vision.
We are made into the Actual Image and Likeness of the True Living God. Therefore we were created in God’s Image and likeness or we are evolving as Satan would want us to evolve. The choice is folks is either we accept Christ
Jesus or keep on evolving as Satan wants us to evolve without The True Living God’s Help. The Choice is clear, Holy Mother Roman Catholic Church’s Way, or the highway.

 

[Eileen_T]

I always said, “If you can explain away dinosaurs I can believe in the 6 days of Creation as opposed to Evolution.”

Then I saw a documentary (can’t remember the name) that explained it logically. They died out (most of them) in the Flood. Hey, it made sense to me.

I know the Catholic Church does not make a definitive position but, let’s face it, the Almighty God of the Universe can do anything, so maybe He did make the world in just 6 days!

 

[Sirach14]

Jaded27:

So I’m in this debate online with a friend of mine who is not religious at all. I figure even though I’m a JW this is as good a place to ask this as any.

His whole thing is he says the Bible does not have divine influence and it was only written by men without god’s help because there is no mention of dinosaurs. He and another friend of mine said that was one of the main reasons they stopped believing in God. Because the Bible doesn’t have an explanation of dinosaurs!! (rolls eyes)

I replied that A. God did not have man write down EVERY SINGLE creature ever created. We are constantly discovering new species (and wiping out others). No where did I ever see a list in any book of the Bible that says “Here is everything I have created. Please take note.”
I also said B. that I’ve always figured the Bible is a book of guidelines that God has put down for HUMANS and their time on earth. Since dinosaurs were before us how would that affect us in the least?

Does anyone else have any theories on this? I don’t know if all of you are strictly creationists or if we have some evolution people here. I obviously do not believe in evolution at all. Any ideas?

Do your elders know you are posting on a Catholic website?

 

[buffalo]

Eileen T:

I always said, “If you can explain away dinosaurs I can believe in the 6 days of Creation as opposed to Evolution.”

Then I saw a documentary (can’t remember the name) that explained it logically. They died out (most of them) in the Flood. Hey, it made sense to me.

I know the Catholic Church does not make a definitive position but, let’s face it, the Almighty God of the Universe can do anything, so maybe He did make the world in just 6 days!

The dinosaurs live on through the birds. A recent documentary showed fossil evidence that dinosaurs had feathers.

 

[Lizzie]

buffalo:

The dinosaurs live on through the birds. A recent documentary showed fossil evidence that dinosaurs had feathers.

The dinosaur-feather story was a fraud. National Geographic was forced to issue a retraction for this error.

 

[buffalo]

Lizzie:

The dinosaur-feather story was a fraud. National Geographic was forced to issue a retraction for this error.

This is what I was referring to.

Ancestor of T. Rex Was a Feathered Dino

 

[Lizzie]

buffalo:

This is what I was referring to.

Ancestor of T. Rex Was a Feathered Dino

The site author admits this is speculation, not proof.

 

[SPOKENWORD]

Dinosaurs are in the bible. They are called giant lizards. God Bless

 

[Eileen_T]

The word 'dinosaur was first used in the 1800s. Behemoth was the word used to describe giant beasts.