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.

How old is the world?

Science’s Answer

By measuring the abundance of certain radioactive materials in matter and their relative amounts, through a radiometric dating process, scientists have extrapolated how old the rocks must be by assuming their natural abundance. Using this method, they have backdated the age of the rocks in the earth to approximately 4.55 billion years +/- 50 million years.
This assumption relies on a principle in physics known as Uniformity. Uniformitarianism states that every process, everywhere, is constant, except entropy (Newton’s second law of thermodynamics, which they cannot explain in any way shape or form) and always has been except for the event of matter’s initial creation. Obviously this is a very big assumption since evidence has been uncovered even in our earth’s own history that lends itself to Catastrophism. Catastrophism, is the view that the Earth has been affected by short, violent events in its past that have changed it. It really throws a wrench into the works of radiometric and radiocarbon dating.

The Bible’s Answer

The Bible points towards catastrophic events which have shaped our earth to what it is today. Creation, The Flood, and the destruction of the universe at the end of the age are all catastrophic supernatural events. They cannot be explained by modern scientific theories, and as such the scientific community must reject them for their other theories to hold any water. The Bible does not, however, provide a detailed chronology of the planet where we live. The Old Testament, in fact all gears itself towards the coming of Jesus Christ. Even the chronologies that are preserved are used to show the lineage of Jesus. Using the genealogies to back-date Earth has produced some varying answers. Since establishing an accurate timeline was not their original intention, there is a spread of +/- 2000 years when backdating to Adam & Eve. Most believe this to place the age of Earth (and the universe) at approximately 6000 years. If the Bible is not interpreted literally, interpretations become wild speculation, and other views lose their basis.

You can read more information about the processes described in this article at the following sites:
http://www.bible.ca/tracks/dating-radiometric.htm
http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_date.htm