Are Dinosaurs Real?

We all know that the animals, birds, and other creatures that exist on this planet today are not the only ones that ever existed. Many species have become extinct due to various reasons. There are many fossil records that prove the existence of strange small and large creatures that inhabited specific areas of our planet during the course of world history. There is no denying the fact that there were strange large creatures we call dinosaurs that once roamed over many areas of this planet. We find fossil records in many places around the world. But to claim they became extinct millions of years ago is a real stretch of the imagination. We can find the truth in scripture if we are not blind.

You have to keep in mind that the entire Bible is about the entire history of mankind from beginning to end. It does give us information about what happened before man, but that information is often times manipulated by false teachings and human pride. What happened before man was created is very important to how the world views scripture today. If we doggedly adhere ourselves to the false teachings and traditions of our fore-fathers we will turn many people away from the truth of why we even exist in the first place. There are many issues that people cannot fit into traditional teachings of scripture like: oil fields, dinosaurs, continental shift (plate tectonics), etc. We are going to discuss some of those issues and how they fit with the information we are given.

The Creation

We have to begin with the story of creation in Genesis 1:1 which says, “In the beginning Jehovah created the heavens and the earth”. To help you understand what that means we have to accept that there are only three heavens described in scripture: 1. the sky (birds, clouds) 2. the stars (suns, planets, etc) 3. the spiritual realm. The spiritual realm already existed so that can be excluded from this creation story. Then you go to the last supper where Jesus told his disciples that, “in my father’s house are many rooms”. Just the same as your own house has different rooms that are used for different things, so the realm of Jehovah is similar. This entire physical universe that we know today is only one place in the realm of Jehovah. There are other places in the spiritual realm like where the angels meet at the throne. There is a place called Sheol where the souls of the dead wait for judgment day. There is a place where an eternal Lake of Fire exists. And there is place being prepared for us by Jesus so we can live with him for eternity. That place is a New Earth that Jesus and Paul called Paradise. But what we are talking about in the very first verse of scripture is the creation of the stars and planets.

It is irrelevant to speculate how long the physical universe existed before the earth was chosen as the habitat for mankind. Scripture does not say that the universe was created in one day. There is no reason to believe from scripture that the universe is not millions of years old. Was Jehovah in such a hurry that he couldn’t enjoy his work and let things naturally adjust into the amazingly beautiful universe we see around us?  It is therefore sufficient to say that it all was created according to Jehovah’s design and when the time was right the Creator chose the earth to be the habitat for his children. 

There is a firm belief by many that what our Creator called a day was 24 human earth-hours. That is typical human behavior. We want to things put in our own human perspective. Jehovah said in Isaiah 55:8-11, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts”. Then again, the scriptures make it perfectly clear that our Creator considers his day to be 1000 earth years as we are told in 2 Peter 3:8, “ But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day”. The actual Hebrew text used in the creation story refers to a period of time that has an end and a beginning…a finish and a start. We use this context ourselves everyday as we refer to “happy days”, “those were the days”, “back in my day”, etc. It is rendered as ‘evening’ and ‘morning’ by most translator’s but that is an assumption and is based purely on human ignorance and pride.

There are too many things that just don’t work if we take these days to be a literal 24 human hours of time. Take the 6th day for example; all the animals were created and Adam was created. That same day he named all the animals, got a wife, got a new home, and got a job. All in just 24 human hours? Are you insane? Besides that, the natural course makes more sense for things to develop logically and naturally. I am not saying that our Creator couldn’t just say the word and it would instantly appear. I just believe he took pleasure in his work watching it all come together in the proper order of things that he controls. The planet earth is such a magnificent and beautiful thing. The things we know today only make sense if we accept the facts.

Let’s work our way through the creation process and let it flow naturally as things develop and interact. Let’s put the issue of human time to the side for now and just accept each separate time period as simply a period of time that began when it did and ended when it was done, according to the time schedule of Jehovah himself. What he started he finished and when it was done he called it a day. After six days he was done and on the seventh day he rested and took joy in what he had done. “It was very good”. Let’s see if a 1000 year day makes more sense.

We know the earth is mostly covered with water and the scene we see in verse 2 is a featureless swirling mixture of very muddy water in darkness. We are told in verses 3-5 that the first day started with the lighting of the Sun. There was no upper atmosphere to keep the Sun’s rays from scorching the surface of the earth. At the end of the first day the surface of the earth was at full boil.

On the 2nd day (time period) we see in verses 6-8 that heated water vapor rose up and formed a boundary layer around the earth that we call the atmosphere. That heated vapor also contained many elements that would later settle back onto the surface and provide nutrients for plant life. The Bible calls it a firmament, or boundary layer. In many parts of scripture it is called a heaven (sky). (Sadly, our modern translators call everything “heaven” that is not touching the ground…it’s so-o-o confusing). At the end of the 2nd day the earth was cooling enough for live to exist. It was covered by one big cloud. There was no rain before the flood so the earth was watered by the dew in the air. 

Verses 9-13 says the 3rd day (time period) was devoted to establishing the dry land and creating all the vegetation. It says the waters were gathered together in “one place” and there was dry ground. The waters below were separated from the waters above. This is where it gets interesting because it seems very probable that much of the water below was gathered in areas under the surface of the earth. That becomes more apparent when we get to details of the flood story. It is not unlikely that a thick crust of granite (a mixture of many elements) developed over the whole surface of the earth as the Sun cooked it during those many years of the first day. The lighter elements gathered at the surface as the mass cooled. There were no mountains or valleys. No deserts. Everything was basically flat with low hills and shallow depressions. By the end of the third day the earth was covered in vegetation of all types.

The waters below seeped up from the ground and watered the hills and filled the depressions. This not hard to understand. Water flows today in many underground rivers in the world that you can’t see from above the ground. The snow melts on the mountains and comes out miles away. There are vast tunnels and caves under the ground. The water could have been in porous rock and sand under the surface or, as we shall see, in large cavernous areas that we now call seas. This description makes it very likely that where the oceans are today there was once land that bridged over large seas of water beneath. 

It surely took a while for the plants and trees to grow but we all know how fast vegetation can take over everything. The air was very humid and the dew dripped from the leaves and water seeped up from under the surface to create springs, rivers, lakes, large swamp lands and shallow seas. The thick vapor in the sky kept the earth warm and humid. Plants grew and died and grew some more. They had no enemies. Nothing to stop the process. Can you imagine what 1000 years of uninhibited plant growth would look like in a warm humid climate? The jungles of Africa, South America, Asia, etc. are just a sample. In many places around the world today we find evidence of civilizations buried deep under forest and jungle growth. It doesn’t take a million years for nature to return back to normal. Could the 3rd day all happen in 24 hours? Did it happen in the blink of an eye? Either way plant life had to be firmly established before the introduction of marine creatures and birds. 

On the 4th day verses 14-19 describe when the air cleared enough for the Sun and the moon to shines through and the stars could be seen at night. If it happened instantly then there would have been some serious problems for the plant life of the earth. To accept that it happened slowly according to Jehovah’s plan for that day is to realize that is took quite a while. As the air cleared and the light of the sun and stars could be seen it was the end of the 4th day. A habitat for marine life and birds now existed and they could see. The marine creatures and birds were going to need to see where they were going so they could survive.

On the 5th day verses 20-23 describe the introduction of living earth creatures, and birds, and all the marine life. These living creatures included insects, reptiles, and all types of flying things. Insects eat dead stuff and are food for reptiles and birds, and marine life. The dinosaurs that we know existed once upon a time where types of reptiles and birds. There is no indication in scripture that anything happened that would have killed all the reptiles, birds, and marine life before the creation of mankind. Is it so hard to believe that dinosaurs existed a thousand years before animals and mankind were created? According to scripture it is very plausible that it really happened. And as we shall see later in this article they had a very important reason to exist long before mankind came on the scene.

It wasn’t until the early 1800’s that people really took notice that these living creatures once existed all over the world. As the recovery of skeletal remains ensued it was pretty evident that animal life was not cohabiting with them. But why should we assume they were extinct long before animals and mankind were created? Some of these beasts still live with us today. Crocodiles, lizards, turtles, salamanders, and birds with teeth are plenty of evidence that they are still here. The Dinosaurs all had one thing in common…they laid eggs. They were not animals that give birth.  It wasn’t until all these living creatures, marine life, and birds were firmly established that animal life could be introduced. 

On the 6th day animal life was created. That included mankind near the end of the 6th day.
Day 6 was a long day. If it were not for the price paid by our Messiah Jesus, all mankind would be subject to the same fate as all other animal life. We would just perish. All physical forms of life which includes single cell organisms and all plant, bird, fish, and animal life on this planet are only temporary and when that purpose is completed that life will end. All life forms will perish unless something, or someone, intervenes. That hope and faith in eternal life is what we long for.

Dinosaurs

Many very large vegetarian dinosaurs once roamed the swamps, jungles, plains, and forested lands of the world, and carnivorous dinosaurs existed at the same time. Its was not that much different than the way it is today with large herds of grazing animals like antelope and buffalo, and their carnivorous counter parts like large cats and wolves. They did not all become extinct though. We know that many of these species that are classified as Dinosaurs still exist today. A sea turtle is one form. Alligators, lizards, birds, fish, and snakes, are other life forms that fit into the category as well. There is a very good reason the larger dinosaurs do not exist today. The smaller ones that do exist today had to adapt. We can be confident that dinosaurs are real, and they did exist in much larger and more dangerous sizes and shapes in the past.

The fact that the surviving creatures we have today adapted in shape and size to become what they are now does not mean they evolved from different life forms. Evolution is a theory that has never been proven. There is a large community that discounts adaptation and only accepts the “theory” of evolution as being true. It is hard to promote evolution if people accept the facts that the world changes and life forms adapt to these changes. The biggest problem evolutionists face is that there is no physical evidence to support any life form ever changing into a different life form. If it was true then we would see that happening all over the world today. To discount creation they promote a Big Bang theory and Mankind is just an animal. The truth is that things adapt in different ways to their surroundings. The ones that adapt survive, and ones that don’t die off. Birds, bears, cats, rodents, and many other creatures are evidence of how life forms adapt to their surroundings to survive. 

Where did Dinosaurs live?

We know the earth has vast stores of oil under the surface of the land and seas. That oil came from large wet areas of vegetation that were thousands of years old and had much animal and marine (water) life associated with them. All it took was for the plant and animal life to die and be covered by sediment, and then add some pressure and some heat. Thermal heat and the natural processes of bacterial decay (more heat) can pretty much turn any old swampy forest into an oil field in about 5,000 years. Oil can be made from dead plants and animals in laboratory conditions in less than a year (in days under prime conditions). It is fair to say that the oil we pump out of the ground today is more than 5,000 years old. Like swampland that became oil, so drier regions of forest land became the coal we use today. These were important things that needed to happen in the plan of Jehovah so mankind could progress to the final days we are in now.

The dinosaurs and marine life of that period were confining themselves to the lower wet areas that provide the best sources for their own survival. The plant eaters lived near the swamps and marshes where the vegetation was lush. The meat eaters lived nearby as well for a ready food source. These places where they lived eventually became the oil fields we exploit today. We have large pools of oil under the land and the seas of this planet that could only have been created from areas of much animal and marine activity associated with massive amounts of vegetation that existed together in those locations for an extended periods of time. Later in this article we will discuss how the the oil fields ended up under the seas.

When we consider that the vegetation had a 1000 years to grow uninhibited (3rd day), and another 1000 years while the fog cleared (4th day), and then add numerous large creatures, birds, and marine life to the mix for another uninhibited 1000 years (5th day) we have a good start for some massive oil fields. Then consider that there were another 1000 years during the introduction of animals and mankind to the equation and you can see how this all can actually work with the information we get from scripture. As the human population increased over the next 1656 years before the flood occurred we can reasonably conclude that these swamp lands continued to thrive as mankind avoided them. So there you have 5000 years of accumulated fossil masses scattered all over the planet. 

The Humans

But where were the humans living? There are no human remains with the dinosaur bones so it is reasonably clear that mankind was not living together with these creatures. Hunting them for food is a possibility but a dangerous en devour. Most likely humans would kill the ones that got too close to civilizations, and the dinosaurs would eat any humans that ventured into their territories. The Americas have many remains of dinosaurs but we have no evidence to show that the Americas were inhabited by mankind before the flood. Much of earth was covered in thick vegetation and not inhabited by mankind in those days before the flood. The beasts of the earth roamed over large areas without too much to fear.  It’s not hard to accept that mankind was not living with these large beasts.

In other places of the world as well it is safe to say that the dinosaurs were not sharing land with humans. It is reasonable to conclude that mankind stayed together in groups for the mutual benefit and protection of all. They certainly did not have the resources available at that time to populate the entire globe. The amount of available land was tremendous because no oceans existed at that time. 

According to scripture, mankind was only around for 1656 years from the creation of Adam to when the great flood occurred. People were living to be more than 500 years old. We can only guess what the human population was at that time or how far they had spread out.  A lot of change can happen in just 1600 years but knowledge was still limited at this point in human history. We know that Adam’s second son Cain was a farmer. Able raised sheep. Many others lived in tents and herded cattle. Cain’s son built a city. They had musical instruments. They had brass and iron. According to scripture people did not have children until much later in their lives. Life was hard. 

A good estimate of the world population at the time of the flood can be obtained by comparing the first 1600 years after Adam to the first 1600 years after the flood. Keep in mind that this angel corrupted world was a very dangerous place before the flood and though some people lived to be very old they had children much later in life. There was less disease and the people were likely healthier but there were many dangers and wild beasts to contend with as well. 

There is good reason to believe it was less populated at the time of the flood than it was at the time of Judah’s captivity in Babylon 1600 years later. Noah and his sons brought past knowledge and technology with them on the Arc, so civilization had a big head start. There was much less wickedness and there were fewer deadly beasts to contend with. People were having children at younger ages too. The bad angels were in prison. The Israelites were more than a million people when they left Egypt at the Exodus. They represented only a small portion of the worlds population at that time. The National Geographic puts the world population at about 300 million when Jesus was born 2350 years after the flood (45 million lived in the Roman Empire). A good estimate is that about half that many humans existed at the time of the Babylonians. There were probably less than 150 million people that perished in the the Great Flood.  

What Happened to the Dinosaurs?

If you take the time to look at where the fossils and remains of these large creatures are located it is not hard to understand what happened to them. The theory that the earth was hit by an asteroid and a large cloud of dust buried them would seem to work, but the evidence doesn’t support it. All of life would have ceased to exist at that same time. Most excavations of dinosaur fossils reveal they were covered by mud and gravel, not just dust. Not only that, but they were not spread out over vast areas but washed and tumbled into mixed piles. These piles show that many different kinds existed together in certain areas and were all killed at the same time in a flood-like situation. 

There are lots of records of the time of the great flood in the histories of many cultures around the world. It is very easy to understand how these large creatures did not survive the great flood. The only creatures that did were the ones that could float on debris or swim. It rained for 40 days and nights and the water covered the entire earth for another one hundred and fifty days. Sea shells are found on the tops of every mountain on earth. Every living thing was destroyed…plant life, cattle, birds, all creeping things, and all of mankind, except for Noah and his family and the living things that they gathered into the arc. It is reasonable to assume that there were bugs on the arc and many smaller creatures that were able to float on debris and survived. But no humans, animals, birds, or large dinosaurs would have lasted that long without food and shelter.

The flood occurred about 5500 years ago and these swamps had to be a good 5000 years old to contain enough dead plant and animal matter to create that much oil. It could only work if those swamps were more than 5000 years old before the flood. We don’t know that 1000 years was the time period that is recorded as a day, The Creator’s time period could have been much more or less. If the plants existed a couple thousand years before the creatures, birds, and fish were introduced, and they in turn were given a thousand years before animals and man where introduced to the system then everything makes perfectly good sense. 

How Could There Be That Much Water?

As the story goes in Genesis 7 the waters rose up to cover every hill and mountain and everything that lived on land died. There is enough water in the air around the earth today to cover it with one inch of water. So that is not the answer to where all the water came from. If all the ice in the world melted it would raise the sea level around the globe about 230 feet (70 meters). That is significant but that does not seem like enough unless we take into consideration some interesting things.
1. It rained for 40 days and nights and that has to mean that extreme amounts of steam were rising into the air.
2. The ocean floors today are mostly covered with volcanic basalt rock.
3. The edges of land masses don’t slope gently to the bottoms of the oceans…the edges of continents and land masses are straight drops like cliffs.
4. Where did the sand and rock from the Grand Canyon go?
5. There is no sufficient evidence of human life before the flood. Where did they all go?

Here is my theory:
The air temperature was much higher worldwide (95 degrees or more) and the atmosphere held more moisture (more humid) on a constant basis to provide dew to water the earth (there was no rain).

Then it began to rain and it didn’t stop. Almost all life was destroyed in a few days. Then the land caved in.
The earth’s surface crust cracked, broke, and sank to the bottom of the underground seas. This allowed the pressure to decrease in the molten layers of rock below. The decrease in pressure caused the rock below to melt at  lower temperatures (same way water boils at lower temperatures at higher altitudes) and massive amounts of molten lava came up to cover the ocean floors. The heat of friction from the collapsing surface and the churning seas expanded the rock and water to raise ocean levels dramatically.
The pressure and friction of the thick granite crust impacting the surface below caused the lava to flow out to cover everything on the floor of the seas..
The water boiled and expanded causing the upper water levels to rise even more. The steam created by the contact of lava with the seas created massive amounts of moisture to rise up into the atmosphere and it rained down as fast it rose up.
The land where most of the people lived was above the seas that sank into the ocean and were covered by lava.
As the rock and water cooled the waters levels began to lower until only dry land appeared once again.