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Episode 42 - Where Do Dinosaurs Fit In A Biblical Timeline?
Audio
Where do dinosaurs fit into a biblical timeline?
Before we get started today, I wanted to let you know that the book, Unapologetic: A Guide for Defending Your Christian Convictions, [is on sale on Amazon], at least for the Kindle version, for $2.99 for the next week, so til about January 14. If you haven't picked up the book, this is a great opportunity to do so at a price that's cheaper than a Starbucks drink, but for a product that's a whole lot more valuable, if I do say so myself!
Now, onto today's topic: dinosaurs and where they fit in a biblical timeline. The first thing to point out is that they're not really in there, at least not by name. We don't see the word dinosaur. It's actually a relatively new word in language. That doesn't mean that just because we don't have a word for something that it's not talked about. For instance, the word Bible doesn't appear in the Bible. The word trinity doesn't appear in the Bible, but nonetheless, the Bible is an actual thing and so is the trinity. Just because the word dinosaur doesn't appear, that doesn't mean they're not talked about.
However, they don't seem to be talked about even by description very much. There are a couple places, maybe in Job where we see the leviathan, and in Psalms, where we also see a large beast talked about in that way, but there isn't necessarily the description of dinosaurs that we would expect based on what we know from archaeological evidence and fossils today.
Now, the main question, though, isn't are they talked about but where do they fit on a timeline of history. Science and archaeology (or at least scientists, I should say) seem to put them within 65 million years to 225 million years ago. That's a large timespan for when dinosaurs supposedly walked on the earth.
For some Christians, this seems to present a problem. Because if dinosaurs were walking on the earth 100 million years ago, then what does that mean for the Bible saying that the earth and all of creation is 6,000 years old about? There are a few things to mention here. One, this is only a problem if you hold to a young earth creation view where God created the heavens and the earth and all that exists in six literal days about 6,000 years ago. That age is arrived at by adding up all of the dates and genealogies in scripture.
If you hold to that reading of Genesis 1, then 200 million years is a large problem. If you don't hold to that reading, then it ceases to be as much of a problem but there still is a question: If God created everything, then that would mean God created dinosaurs, so where did they exist relative to man?
We've talked about creation and evolution some in the past. I haven't really laid out my view as fully as some of you would have liked, so I'm going to try and do that in a little more detail today. I believe the earth and everything that exists is old. I believe the universe is billions of years old. The earth is billions of years old. I also believe that are multiple ages to be considered. For instance, for the universe I'm fine accepting an age of 13.7ish billion years old for that. Earth would be maybe more like 4 billion. I get this information from the latest scientific data. Now I think sometimes we look very askance at science and we're very suspicious of it, but we're not suspicious of it when our doctor gives us a pill that will prevent us from having a heart attack, or that will lower our blood pressure, or will help with the bacterial infection we have. We're not suspicious of that form of science, but when science tells us something about the age of the earth or something, we do become suspicious.
Now, it is worth pointing out that scientists do have biases just like everyone else, so we need to analyze the evidence, not…
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By Brian Seagraves
4.2
2121 ratings
Audio
Where do dinosaurs fit into a biblical timeline?
Before we get started today, I wanted to let you know that the book, Unapologetic: A Guide for Defending Your Christian Convictions, [is on sale on Amazon], at least for the Kindle version, for $2.99 for the next week, so til about January 14. If you haven't picked up the book, this is a great opportunity to do so at a price that's cheaper than a Starbucks drink, but for a product that's a whole lot more valuable, if I do say so myself!
Now, onto today's topic: dinosaurs and where they fit in a biblical timeline. The first thing to point out is that they're not really in there, at least not by name. We don't see the word dinosaur. It's actually a relatively new word in language. That doesn't mean that just because we don't have a word for something that it's not talked about. For instance, the word Bible doesn't appear in the Bible. The word trinity doesn't appear in the Bible, but nonetheless, the Bible is an actual thing and so is the trinity. Just because the word dinosaur doesn't appear, that doesn't mean they're not talked about.
However, they don't seem to be talked about even by description very much. There are a couple places, maybe in Job where we see the leviathan, and in Psalms, where we also see a large beast talked about in that way, but there isn't necessarily the description of dinosaurs that we would expect based on what we know from archaeological evidence and fossils today.
Now, the main question, though, isn't are they talked about but where do they fit on a timeline of history. Science and archaeology (or at least scientists, I should say) seem to put them within 65 million years to 225 million years ago. That's a large timespan for when dinosaurs supposedly walked on the earth.
For some Christians, this seems to present a problem. Because if dinosaurs were walking on the earth 100 million years ago, then what does that mean for the Bible saying that the earth and all of creation is 6,000 years old about? There are a few things to mention here. One, this is only a problem if you hold to a young earth creation view where God created the heavens and the earth and all that exists in six literal days about 6,000 years ago. That age is arrived at by adding up all of the dates and genealogies in scripture.
If you hold to that reading of Genesis 1, then 200 million years is a large problem. If you don't hold to that reading, then it ceases to be as much of a problem but there still is a question: If God created everything, then that would mean God created dinosaurs, so where did they exist relative to man?
We've talked about creation and evolution some in the past. I haven't really laid out my view as fully as some of you would have liked, so I'm going to try and do that in a little more detail today. I believe the earth and everything that exists is old. I believe the universe is billions of years old. The earth is billions of years old. I also believe that are multiple ages to be considered. For instance, for the universe I'm fine accepting an age of 13.7ish billion years old for that. Earth would be maybe more like 4 billion. I get this information from the latest scientific data. Now I think sometimes we look very askance at science and we're very suspicious of it, but we're not suspicious of it when our doctor gives us a pill that will prevent us from having a heart attack, or that will lower our blood pressure, or will help with the bacterial infection we have. We're not suspicious of that form of science, but when science tells us something about the age of the earth or something, we do become suspicious.
Now, it is worth pointing out that scientists do have biases just like everyone else, so we need to analyze the evidence, not…