Dinosaurs, Noah, and the Loch Ness Monster
Posted by Richard on March 7, 2009
Houston asks:
Why doesn’t the Bible mention dinosaurs? Why weren’t they on Noah’s ark? Are they all underwater, which is why we can’t find them today, and could the Loch Ness Monster be one?
I’ll start by pointing back to the previous answer on Aliens, that the purpose of the Bible is not to answer every single mystery of life, as some mysteries will necessarily remain hidden, but to reveal the mystery of God’s plan of redemption for us (Ephesians 3:8-9).
The Bible does actually reference a terrible beast, called Leviathan, in Job 41.
It describes a monster “of mighty strength … around his teeth is terror … his back is made of rows of shields … they clasp each other and cannot be separated … His sneezings flash forth light … out of his mouth go flaming torches … out of his nostrils comes forth smoke … in his neck abides strength and terror dances before him … when he raises himself up the mighty are afraid…” – you get the picture. While the Bible may not describe the appearance of what we figure certain dinosaurs looked like, remember the Bible has a very specific purpose. In fact, this passage of Job serves to illustrate that creation is under God’s authority, not to give us a template picture with which we could apply fossil record. God’s creation is validated plenty by what we can still see, we don’t need to try and validate it against beasts which are not part of recorded history.
Noah only took animals on his ark that were still alive at the time. Ever since creation had been cursed by God at the fall of man (Genesis 3), things have been dying, even to extinction. It is most likely, that anything resembling a dinosaur, except of course the crocodile which still remains to this day, would have been extinct before the flood. Species go extinct constantly, and since that time, that has been the norm.
As for Nessie, an undocumented, as yet unproved (and I’ve watched many hours of science channel footage) creature under a lake could be just about anything, so it’s hard to say.
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Pastor Sean said,
The word Dinosaur actually means “terrible lizard” and interestingly enough reptiles are the only creature that never stops growing. In 1850 the average size reported on captured crocodiles was in excess of 25 feet. Today it is very rare to find one longer than 15 feet. In the times of Genesis animals and man lived much longer, therefore reptiles would have been much larger than today. In Job 40:15-17, he mentions the behemoth, “His bones are tubes of bronze; His limbs are like bars of iron and “He bends his tail like a cedar”. Most modern translations will tell you this is Elephant or a Hipo, but which one of these animals has a “tail like a cedar”? Something to think about.
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