Many of us must have read Science books or watched the movie Jurassic Park, and seen pictures of these awfully gigantic creatures known as dinosaurs.
Scientific evidence indicate that these massive animals existed at one stage in time in history.
In an earlier post, I mentioned that science and the Bible should not contradict each other. If anything, science should support the Bible.
If that is the case, why is it that the Bible doesn't talk about dinosaurs? And given their enormous size, how did they get onto Noah's ark?
Let me answer the 2nd part of the question first, i.e. how did dinosaurs enter the Ark?
For that, we have to first correct some of our own wrong impressions that have formed over the years.
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| Please do not capsize! |
During that talk, the speaker told us that one of the reasons why people do not believe the Genesis account (such as creation, Noah's flood, etc) is because they have seen pictures of Noah's Ark drawn in cartoon form.
Usually, the Ark is no larger than a bathtub, with giraffes' heads sticking out from it, and appears so unstable that it can topple at any time, what less withstand a huge catastrophic flood.
Somehow, such wrong impressions can consciously or unconsciously discredit the Bible and relegate its accounts to mere fairytales or fables, and cause people not to believe the truth that can set them free.
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| Now, this is more like it. Huge and stable. |
Well, the truth of the matter is that the Ark that Noah built was very, very huge and very, very stable. It was the size of 81 five-room HDB flats (27 flats X 3 storeys high).
The giraffes' head did not need to protrude from the top, and there was sufficient room for the dinosaurs, hippos, elephants, as well as hundreds of other animals.
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| Panoramic photo of Ark replica located at Noah's Ark Resort, Hong Kong. |
Gen 6:19-20 says
19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you.
20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive.
From the above verses, we see that God had commanded Noah to take pairs of each kind of animal onboard. Note that He said "kind", which means just a pair of rodents, a pair of felines, a pair of canines, a pair of bovines, a pair of equines, and so on.
20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive.
From the above verses, we see that God had commanded Noah to take pairs of each kind of animal onboard. Note that He said "kind", which means just a pair of rodents, a pair of felines, a pair of canines, a pair of bovines, a pair of equines, and so on.
The next time we take the MRT, just take a look around and you will find not just Chinese, Malays and Indians but also Filipinos, Thais, Koreans and even Caucasians. We speak different languages, embrace different cultures, and look very different from one another. Yet, if we took a step back and ponder, we will realise that every single one of these people are all related to us through Noah and 3 his sons!
If we are able to comprehend and accept that all of us humans descended from the 8 humans on the Ark, then we should likewise also be able to concede that the pair of rodents Noah brought onto the ark would be the ancestors of my niece's pet hamster, my pet chinchilla, that rat you see scurrying in the nearby rubbish dump, and the squirrels that frequent McRitchie Reservoir.
The pair of felines onboard Noah's Ark would be the ancestors of the pet cats my sister keeps, that lion in the Singapore Zoo, and the cheetahs and tigers you see on Animal Planet.
The first pair of canines would be the ancestors of the pet dogs in my colleagues' house, as well as the wolves, foxes, and jackals that roam out in the wild.
So too, are buffaloes, zebras and yaks descendants of that pair of bovines, while zebras, hippos and donkeys are descendants of that pair of equines.
Let me digress here, but it is times like this that make me appreciate the Chinese language.
For example, rodents have the "鼠" character, hence
squirrel = 松鼠
chinchilla = 灰鼠
hamster = 仓鼠
guinea pig = 豚鼠
Bovines have the "牛" character, hence
rhino = 犀牛
buffalo = 水牛
bison = 野牛
yak = 牦牛
So too, are buffaloes, zebras and yaks descendants of that pair of bovines, while zebras, hippos and donkeys are descendants of that pair of equines.
Let me digress here, but it is times like this that make me appreciate the Chinese language.
For example, rodents have the "鼠" character, hence
squirrel = 松鼠
chinchilla = 灰鼠
hamster = 仓鼠
guinea pig = 豚鼠
Bovines have the "牛" character, hence
rhino = 犀牛
buffalo = 水牛
bison = 野牛
yak = 牦牛
With that in mind, it would thus be entirely possible to fit all the required animals and birds on the Ark.
Note also that nowhere is it mentioned in the Bible that it was a requirement for Noah to bring on board adult animals. Hence, a pair of juvenile dinosaurs would have sufficed, small enough to fit into the Ark. After the waters had subsided, the animals would have come of age, left the ark and procreated, including the pair of dinosaurs.
Afternote: A brother asked how come there was a dove and a raven on board the Ark. Thanks for your question, bro! For this, let's look at Gen 7:2-3:
2 Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, 3 and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth
The extra pairs of clean animals were meant for sacrificial purposes ("Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it." Gen 8: 20).
Furthermore, Noah was asked to become an omnivore after he got off the Ark ("Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything." Gen 9:3)
In Gen 1:6-8, we read that the atmosphere was surrounded by a firmament, and this probably kept the climate cool throughout the day (see Gen 3:8 where we read that "God was walking in the garden in the cool of the day"). This would have been ideal for animals such as the dinosaurs to live relatively free from harm. After all, before the fall, death was an alien concept to God's creation. It was because of man's original sin that death came about.
In Gen 7:11, we read that "the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened". Water covered the entire earth, so God had to tilt the earth in order for the excess water to gather at the poles. This tilting of the earth also resulted in the 4 seasons, and animals that could not adapt to the severe change in environment would gradually become extinct. That may explain why we do not see dinosaurs anymore.
Now let's get back to answering the 1st part of the question, which is why did the Bible not mention anything about dinosaurs.
For that we have to understand that the term "dinosauria" only came about in 1842. It was coined by scientist Richard Owen to describe what he considered to be "fearfully great reptiles".
The book of Job, which dates back to 2,000 B.C., mentions creatures such as "behemoth" and "leviathan" in chapters 40 and 41 respectively. Just because that scientist chose to come up with the word "dinosaur" does not necessary mean that he was not referring to the same creature. After all, many scientists are atheists who do not acknowledge that there is a creator God, and the lesser they make reference to the Bible, the better they think they will be.
So there you have it. Dinosaurs entered the Ark as young creatures, and just a pair of its kind (from which other dinosaurs could come forth) would have sufficed to re-populate the earth.
Next up: Q4. Are there aliens in outer space?
Note also that nowhere is it mentioned in the Bible that it was a requirement for Noah to bring on board adult animals. Hence, a pair of juvenile dinosaurs would have sufficed, small enough to fit into the Ark. After the waters had subsided, the animals would have come of age, left the ark and procreated, including the pair of dinosaurs.
Afternote: A brother asked how come there was a dove and a raven on board the Ark. Thanks for your question, bro! For this, let's look at Gen 7:2-3:
2 Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, 3 and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth
The extra pairs of clean animals were meant for sacrificial purposes ("Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it." Gen 8: 20).
Furthermore, Noah was asked to become an omnivore after he got off the Ark ("Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything." Gen 9:3)
In Gen 1:6-8, we read that the atmosphere was surrounded by a firmament, and this probably kept the climate cool throughout the day (see Gen 3:8 where we read that "God was walking in the garden in the cool of the day"). This would have been ideal for animals such as the dinosaurs to live relatively free from harm. After all, before the fall, death was an alien concept to God's creation. It was because of man's original sin that death came about.
In Gen 7:11, we read that "the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened". Water covered the entire earth, so God had to tilt the earth in order for the excess water to gather at the poles. This tilting of the earth also resulted in the 4 seasons, and animals that could not adapt to the severe change in environment would gradually become extinct. That may explain why we do not see dinosaurs anymore.
Now let's get back to answering the 1st part of the question, which is why did the Bible not mention anything about dinosaurs.
For that we have to understand that the term "dinosauria" only came about in 1842. It was coined by scientist Richard Owen to describe what he considered to be "fearfully great reptiles".
The book of Job, which dates back to 2,000 B.C., mentions creatures such as "behemoth" and "leviathan" in chapters 40 and 41 respectively. Just because that scientist chose to come up with the word "dinosaur" does not necessary mean that he was not referring to the same creature. After all, many scientists are atheists who do not acknowledge that there is a creator God, and the lesser they make reference to the Bible, the better they think they will be.
So there you have it. Dinosaurs entered the Ark as young creatures, and just a pair of its kind (from which other dinosaurs could come forth) would have sufficed to re-populate the earth.
Next up: Q4. Are there aliens in outer space?
It should be noted that it was not Noah who did all the collecting of the animals. It was God because He said in Gen 6:20 that the animals themselves will come to Noah...
ReplyDeleteAn alternative explanation might be that the dinosaurs died out in the flood because God decided not to bring them into the ark...