Dinosaurs and Religion?

Question

Why do none of the religions mention dinosaurs?

I'm not a religious person, I just find it funny that there's nothing mentioned about dinosaurs in Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, etc.

Answer 1

some would point to the behemoth and leviathan in Job.

Interesting discussion...the animal described are not alligators or hippotomaus, like some commentaries say....

could be there and just not being seen.

Answer 2

There is Biblical evidence the dinosaurs existed alongside mankind. A few are called the "behemoth" and "leviathan" and the descriptions of them are that they are of a huge nature in size, not the hippo or the croc, as some propose. However, given that there was a huge climatic change some 6000 years ago which include a great flood, and since the fossil record does show humans and dinosaurs in the same sediment, one must question the "evolutionary" position. Another point was the long ages of man prior to the flood event(Methusalah 969 years old etc.). Given that many reptiles and fish have what is called in-determinant growth, that is they grow throughout their whole lifetime, you would conclude that dinosaurs and fish would be gigantic if they lived in a relatively stress free environment and the fossil record shows that plants and animals seemed to flourish to immense sizes which is an indicator of a stress free environment. After the flood dinosaurs probably met extinction by man killing them off much like the dragon-slayer stories.

Answer 3

Oddly enough it might be woven into their mythology but in ways we do not notice at first. Kind of like how I think the flood story likely started as the *best Idea* they could come up with for finding marine fossils on mountains.

It they ever ran across exposed dinosaur bones while herding their goats around in the deserts, which would have been the more likely explanation to them?
Giant humanoids they called Nephilim in their great grandparent's time or giant lizards hundreds of millions of years old, wandering around the desert.
Native tribes from the great plains of North America called the dinosaur bones the Grandfathers of the Buffalo and often led the paleontologists right to exposures of them. They did not label them as giant lizards either but associated them with animals existing in the area in their own time.

I think that it would be a wonder if they ever did think of dinosaurs in our terms. Even we had a hard time figuring out what the bones meant. It took resources that the old Greeks and Jews never would have had.
If God was real he might have told somebody about plate tectonics, mountain building, climate change and many other mysteries. God is not real so he did not and we are just recently starting to figure all this stuff out.

Thank God for science.(but keep your tongue in your cheek when you say it)

Answer 4

Dinosaurs roamed the earth right along with Christians and they killed them all! That or they really were from an earth of an earlier time! How do Creationists view the extinction of the dinosaurs? Did they die out because they couldn't evolve?

You might find the answers at:

Answer 5

Perhaps it's because most religions were started a long time after dinosaurs disappeared? However it is a reasonable assumption that many myths were formed to explain visible fossils, i.e. stories of gryphons originated in the Gold Road area where some fossils resemble a gryphon; mammoth skulls have a central hole so that it would appear to be a giant skull with one eye...

Granted there is no way to confirm that some myths came from fossils, but is a very plausible theory.

Answer 6

Because no-one in any of these religions ever saw a dinosaur, and because dinosaurs have no significance in God's plan of salvation. They don't mention dodo birds either, and those are a lot more recent. People actually saw dodo birds, but what religious significance do they have??

Answer 7

They are mentioned, just not by the name you assume. Dinosaur is a new name, not even 100 yrs old. They use to be called dragons, behemoth, etc.

Job 40:15
Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox.

Job 40:17
He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together.

First passage clearly mentions a large animal that eats grass an an ox would. The 2nd passage mentions how big its tail is, cedar tree, showing reference to the animals size, HUGE. Sinews means "solid resilient strength". So this line is telling us this animal is solid, strong, like a stone.

Answer 8

Job is the oldest book in the Bible
It mentions a large land animal whose tail is like a cedar tree. It calls it a 'behemoth'

Job 40:15-19 Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox. (16) Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. (17) He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together. (18) His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron. (19) He is the chief of the ways of God: he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him.

It also mentions a huge sea serpent that matches the description of a pleiosaur called a Leviathan.
Since the word dinosaur was not invented until mid-1800s, you can't expect it to be used in the Bible. The word dragon however is frequently (42 times) used throughout the Bible and in other cultures such as the Chinese.

Answer 9

You should do more research. This question has been asked a million times. Read Job in the Bible. They just didn't use the word dinosaur. Some of you people are ridiculous.

Even more sad is that we give you a reasonable answer and many of you still can't except it.

Answer 10

usual defence

(a) behemot and yadayada meant dinosaur
(b) beast refers to dinosaur
(c) dinosaur is a word that isnt invented then

instead you should ask

why do none of the religion mention Cars / Hand phone / BLACK HOLES and fighter planes?

no mentions of quantum physics , man on moon and many more .

Televisions / computers / internet arent mentioned too.

surely aeroplane cant be simplified into flying chariot , television can be simplified into magical box / miracle box.

handphone surely can be known as talking stick ( lol )

i am pretty sure none of the religion on earth prophecies any of the above facts.

why is that so ? because they cant.

Answer 11

Well, dinosaurs did not exist when humans existed. And since humans wrote these books before archaelogy came about, they really had no reason to write about dinosaurs.

That's like saying, "Why doesn't the Constitution mention magic?" Because it's not relevant...