Bible Question:?

Question

This is the main question that turned me off of christianity: In the bible it makes no mention whatsoever of dinosaurs or any other prehistoric lifeforms. Since we have fossils to prove their existence and the bible is the word of god this has led me to believe that either 1: god doesn't know what he's talking about or 2: the bible was written by a mortal man. Both of these choices would debase the book that is the backbone of christian faith. Could anyone possibly explain this fatal flaw to a former christian?

Jewel Flower

You mean its not the least bit odd to you that only animals that exist today were mentioned, even if they were called by another name it would suffice, but thay never were.

Astroleolady:

Thats the conclusion I've come to. Its why I'm a buddhist not a christian.

Mr. M:

Finally a christian who admits that. What I'm saying is that this disproves fundamentalism. God said man was created 5 days after the world, so that means there either must have been dinosaurs frolicing in their back yards or that dinosaurs only existed for 4 days.

You read the Bible that has existed since before the written word and was witnessed to by many people... and yet you don't believe that it is true...

The enuma elish is much older than the bible

Answer 1

In Job chapter 40 it says "Behold now behemoth, Which I made with thee; He eatheth grass as an ox. Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapt together. His bones are like strong pieces of brass; His bones are like bars of iron." Job 40:15 through 18. In verse 23 it says "Behold, he drinketh up a river, and hasteth not: He trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth. Two things I want you to notice is that : 1. god says this massive creature was created at the same time as man, and 2. the verse that says he moves his tail like a cedar is a pretty good description of a brontosaurus or another large dinosaur. In Job 41, it mentions a massive sea creature called leviathan. There are several other instances in the Bible where other creatures symbolic of dinosaurs are mentioned. This question is answered everyday on this site, if my answer isn't good enough just wait till tomorrow.

Answer 2

I think they were around in Adams time, but when God decided to start over with Noah, the dinosaurs had no place on the ark...they were killed in the flood...they why so many are buried deep in the earth...besides i don't really worry about dinosaurs in order to know the Bible is true...I feel Gods love inside of me, I can feel Jesus looking out for me in my life, in good times and bad times...

please make sure you have read the facts about Enuma Elish...check the world probably...it is not certain...but you are certian the Bible isn't true because is doesn't talk about dinosaurs...but you are sure the the enuma elish is the oldest book written because of probably...

Comparisons with Genesis
Many scholars have noted striking similarities between the creation story in the Enûma Elish and the first creation story in the Biblical tale of Genesis. For example, Genesis describes six days of creation, followed by a day of rest; the Enûma Elish describes six generations of gods, whose creations parallel the days in Genesis, followed by a divine rest. In both Enuma Elish and Genesis 1, the creation proceeds in the same order, beginning with light, and ending with mankind. Also, the goddess Tiamat parallels the primordial ocean in Genesis; the Hebrew word used in Genesis for the primordial ocean is "tehôm" which has the same etymological root as "Tiamat". This has led many to conclude that the two accounts are related, perhaps sharing a common origin or that possibly one of the accounts is a modified form of the other. Though, in the Enûma Elish, Tiamat controlled saltwater seeping into the water table, so some scholars think there is just a mutual root in the concept of saltwater.


Enûma Elish has existed in various versions and copies, the oldest PROBABLY dating to at least 1700 B.C.E.

Answer 3

"Dinosaurs were destroyed in the flood"? ROFL!!!

That is one of the major things that turned me off as well... that and the general 'have faith' answer I got for most questions I posed in Sunday School and confirmation training. I realized I was constantly being told to just believe what I'm told and ask no questions. Even from an early age, that didn't sound right to me.

Nowadays, I can't BELIEVE what Christians are saying... dinosaurs on the ark? Fossils are only from when the flood hit? God helped Noah by rounding up all the animals on other continents for him (then why ask him to build the ark at all?!?)? The earth only 6000 years old? Ugh.

It boggles the mind... see the site below for a page aimed at kids with some really mind-boggling science facts... don't forget to follow the links to read all about their proof. LOL!

Answer 4

Hmmm... ok.. imagine if you will... YOU making a world...

What do you make it like? You plan to put intelligent creatures upon it and you want something for a challenge...

Ahhh!! Make fossils!!!...

You say that the existence of fossils proves that the dinosaurs lived upon the earth... hmmm... what if the world was created with the fossils already in place?

You read the Bible that has existed since before the written word and was witnessed to by many people... and yet you don't believe that it is true...

and yet you will believe anything that comesout of someones mouth about the age of the earth or that dinosaurs roamed millions of years ago...

Science is not really that old and exact... the people in it make mistakes... and some of the "findings" that were faked back in the late 70's or early 80's for evolution have shown to me that you really need to question whether what a scientist is saying is true or not.

Answer 5

Are you kidding? That's what turned you off about the Bible? Read the book of Genesis, Exodus, book of Joshua, Corinthians. It's terrible some of the stuff that's in there. I can't believe absence of dinosaurs upset you more than the slaughtering of thousands of innocent people. In God's name.

Here's another point: If God created all animals in the beginning, he created all parasites too. Parasites can't live without their hosts (neither can human borne diseases). Since Adam and Eve were the only two humans around at the beginning, they should have instantly died from all the nasty horrible diseases and critters they were infected with (every disease and parasite known to man).

Then there's noah's ark, how a 5 mile high ocean appeared out of nowhere and then vanished into nothingness aside, how did noah keep all of the animals alive for 40 days when he had only 2 of each, since some of them die after only a few hours (mayfly), and some of the animals have to eat the others to survive...

Explanation: The Bible is allegory, not literal fact.

Answer 6

OK, here's the real scoop...
There was a really advanced civilization before the flood, which actually was so long ago, your mind couldn't even conceive of it. You know the stories of Atlantis? They refer to that time.
Anyhow, when God announced the flood, Noah got busy collecting samples of freeze dried DNA from all the different animals in the world...including dinosaurs.
However, when the time came to load the test tubes onto the ark, he delegated the responsibilty among his wife and his sons...well, his wife dropped the crate with the dino DNA in it. Since everyone was in such a hurry, she decided that it would be better just to sweep up the mess and say nothing about it, since she couldn't see any real use for the things...too big and violent to control without modern methods, what if the damn things broke loose? And that's what REALLY happened to the dinos.
A very little known part of this story is that one of the boy's wives also dropped a crate of test-tubes...but, being young, and not wanting to get into trouble, she carefully swept the mess up, and divided the stuff into several other tubes, and said nothing about it.
After the flood was over, and everything had been destroyed, it was time to reconstitute the animals. Nobody was really too upset about the dinos, acutally...but when they came to the crate the girl had mixed up, a very strange critter emerged.
God saw it, and decided it would be a very good joke on future scientists, so He decided to let it alone.
And that is how we really got the duck billed playtypus...

Answer 7

This is not a fatal flaw.

The Bible is a record of some of humanity's dealings with Almighty God, not a zoological archive. While some parts of the natural world are mentioned, everything in the WORLD is not. For example, do you find any mention of glaciers, or tsunamis, or blue whales, or tigers, or llamas, or blowfish? NO. The fact that these things exist without the Bible mentioning them does not negate the facts of the existing record.

I have always thought that "well, the Bible doesn't mention dinosaurs" (or pepperoni pizza, or Audi's, or green snot) to be a very weak excuse for rejecting the things it DOES mention.

Does an astromer's inability to make pasta primavera negate his knowledge of space? You would probably say it does!

Answer 8

Actually, the Bible does mention dinosaurs. Try reading Job 41. It talks about a creatures called behemoth and leviathan. The description of these creatures sound like a brontosauraus and its aquatic counterpart. Check out the source listed from Answers in Genesis.

Answer 9

The Bible is not a science book as much as Newton's Principia Mathematica is not a religious book.

Yet if we believe in science(dinosaurs are archaeological discoveries) then we must also know they were gone long before humans were around. So how could the writer of Genesis have any idea about them? God wans't trying to make the author of Genesis a man of science. He was making him understand that everything you see around you were made by Him.

If God were teaching the ancients science then he could've taught them how to make digging methods and technology like the ones we have today or even better. If He were to teach science to those men then it must be imperative to teach them mathematics but He didn't. That's because Genesis is not a science book and must not be treated like one.

Answer 10

Many say the animals in Job chapters 40 and 41 are dinosaurs.

The word "dinosaur" did not exist until the 20th century. Anything in the Bible that refers to a dinosaur would be called by other words.

There are, in fact, several animals listed in the Bible that we are not exactly sure what they are.

I suggest the following web-sites for further study.