Expert: Jonathan - 3/6/2005

Question
Since we have physical evidence that dinosaurs existed, can you tell me why the bible never mentions anything about them?

Thank You

Answer
The bible is the history of God and man and Gods dealing wit man and in the genesis chapter we see very little about the beginning of what we call the universe and the beginning of the earth.  The bible is not a biology book or a geology book or a book about science.  There was no point in God having recorded exactly how old the earth is or the universe or how stars are created.  God also did not have anything placed in the bible that would indicate that rational man might have come from a long line of creatures before a human was made who recognized he was not just an accident but owed his existence to a power which he could not comprehend.  If God choase to bring about modern man through a sereies of mutaions which may have occurred on their own or been made by the bombardment of human chromosomes by cosmic rays then it is Gods right to do anything he chose to do.  The early authors of the bible could not have understood the scientific terms and concepts that todays people can.  They had no idea of a cell, bacteria, viruses, dna etc. I would suppose i am in a minority of people who do not believe the earth is only 6,000 years old as many fundamentalist sects do.  I also do not reject the idea that God may have used what man has called evolution to bring about modern man. For most of the earths existence no life ever existed. If the estimate is true the earth may be 4.5 billion years old.  Life has existed for only a short period of that time. It took a loving God billions of years to creat a hospitable world for the creature whom he would make in his image and image does not mean we look like God.  We may have the same feelings and emotions like love and caring that God has.  God is spirit not a physical body.  The petroleum deposits and the coal deposits may have taken millions of years to form.  A loving God knew that one day man would need these items to live and prosper and multiply.  He therefore placed them around the world.  He made sure we had an atmosphere that probably took untold millions of years to creat with an amount of oxygen to allow creatures to live. The dinosaurs lived long before man ever existed .  God has an interest in everything that man has an interest in.  The creation of the moon is now thought to has come from a mars size object striking the earth billions of years ago and finally accreting into the form it is in today.  But in genesis you will see that he created a greater light to rule the day (the sun, a star) and a lesser light to rule the night (the moon).  He created the stars also.  The bible also says that a mist went up from the earth.  There is no mention of how long a time period this took place.  Are there other planets in the universe somewhere like earth?  There may be , but are they having the same phase we are currently in?  Peobably not.  Some may be in a stage of molten elements that will take billions of years to cool off.  Others may have only very primitive bacteria on them.  Some may have never had life forms such as had existed on earth.  Some may have long ago lost their atmosphere due to cosmic events.  There may be some that have liquid water but if the earth were slightly farther away from the sun or slightly closer to the sun then the earths water may have boiled away or been a frozen planet devoid of life.  In other words the earth just happens to be at just the right distance from the sun to support life. How can this be determined by chance?  We have a change of seasons which God has said, while the earth remaineth seedtime and harvest will not cease.  Hope this has answered your question.