Where Do The Dinosaur Fit In?

“I DON’T BELIEVE IN THE BIBLE because dinosaurs lived a long time before man
ever did.”
Have you ever heard a statement like that? I
certainly have—many times. In fact, this was one of
the principal reasons Charles Darwin, the father of
the theory of evolution, eventually rejected the Bible
(George Sim Johnston, Did Darwin Get It Right?,
1998, p. 21). Many have followed suit.
Most people believe you can’t reconcile dinosaurs
and the Bible—but they are wrong. This erroneous
idea is based on the supposition that either
you have to believe in the young-earth theory of
a 6,000-year-old earth and dinosaurs living with
Adam, or you can’t believe in the creation week
account of Genesis 1.
Yet many would be surprised to find that several
centuries ago scientists did believe in dinosaurs, an
ancient earth and in creation week.
In fact, many of the first geologists who established
the basic geologic column were believers in
both the Bible and an ancient earth.
British physicist Alan Hayward wrote about
these premier geologists: “Among them were
William Buckland and Adam Sedgwick. Buckland
held the chair of geology at Oxford in the early
nineteenth century, while Sedgwick was his counterpart
at Cambridge [University]. Both were leading
churchmen, and both preached the plenary inspiration
of Scripture and argued in favor of special
creation …
“Buckland maintained close links with Sedgwick
and the famous French geologist, Baron Cuvier …
They did much to persuade the early nineteenth
century church that the earth was extremely old and that such views could be
harmonized with the teaching
of Genesis” (Creation and
Evolution, 1985, pp. 72-73).
Proper
chronological sequence
Two Bible experts in
the 1970s combined their
skills to publish The Reese
Chronological Bible, which supports
an ancient earth and a creation week that is actually a re-creation of a devastated earth.
Edward Reese was a professor of Bible, history and missions
at Crown College in Powell, Tennessee, and spent 20 years
putting biblical events in chronological order. Frank Klassen
was an architect and engineer who spent 10 years writing The
Chronology of the Bible. They both agreed that the account of
Genesis had important biblical events occur between Genesis 1:1
and 1:2.
They felt the first verses of the Bible chronologically would
be John 1:1-2: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with
God.”
This is the same way 20th-century Church of God leader
Herbert W. Armstrong explained the real beginning of the biblical
account. Before space, matter and energy were created, there
existed the Word (who would later become Jesus Christ, see John
1:14) and God (who later would be identified as God the Father).
Next in The Reese Chronological Bible comes a scripture that
speaks of God existing before the creation of the earth, Psalm
90:2: “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had
formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting,
You are God.”
Then comes the traditional first scripture of Genesis 1:1:
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” This
marks the creation of the universe as we know it, including the
galaxies, stars and planets.
But the most fascinating part of this Bible is what follows—
not Genesis 1:2, but Isaiah 14:12-17, where Lucifer’s fall from
heaven is recorded. Next comes the parallel account of Lucifer’s
fall in Ezekiel 28:13-18 (see also our booklet Is There Really a
Devil?).
Devastation and renewal
Only then comes Genesis 1:2: “The earth was without form,
and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the
Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” In the welcome
New International
Version (NIV) of the
Bible, a footnote to
the word “was” in this
verse says, “Or possibly
became.”
Apparently, something
happened to
cause the earth to
become, as the Hebrew
denotes, “chaotic and
in confusion.” Since God is not the author of confusion or chaos (Isaiah 45:18;
1 Corinthians 14:33), it makes sense that the earth became
that way due to Lucifer’s rebellion and subsequent expulsion
to the earth.
As Jesus Christ remarked, “I saw Satan fall like lightning
from heaven” (Luke 10:18). Other scriptures reveal it
was not only Satan, but also the fallen angels that were cast
down with him. We read in 2 Peter 2:4, “For if God did not
spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell
[from the Greek tartaroo, a place of confinement, and in
this case, the earth] and delivered
them into chains of darkness, to be
reserved for judgment … ” (tartaroo
is a Greek term used in the Bible
for the place where the angels are
presently confined and are restricted
to this earth, where there is also an
abyss (Job 2:2; Luke 10:18; 8:31)).
Revelation 12:3-4 describes the
dragon (Satan, verse 9) as having
drawn a third of the stars of heaven
to be cast down to the earth—these “stars” being symbolic
of angels (compare 1:20).
What we don’t know is how long it took Lucifer to
rebel—and how long this was before the six-day renewal
of the earth culminating in the creation of Adam and
Eve, as described in the rest of Genesis 1. Satan’s rebellion
apparently happened after the earth had passed through
the dinosaur age. Then, geologists agree, something dramatic
occurred between the age of reptiles and the age
of mammals.
As the famous paleontologist G.G. Simpson once
remarked: “The most puzzling event in the history of
life on the earth is the change from the Mesozoic Age of
Reptiles, to the … Age of Mammals. It is as if the curtain
were rung down suddenly on a stage where all the leading roles were taken by reptiles, especially dinosaurs,
in great numbers and bewildering variety, and rose
again immediately to reveal the same setting but an
entirely new cast, a cast in which the dinosaurs do
not appear at all, other reptiles are supernumeraries
and the leading parts are all played by mammals
of sorts barely hinted at in the previous acts” (Life
Before Man, 1972, p. 42).
This seems to reflect the change from the
pre-Adamic world to the world of man. Certainly
there are smaller reptiles in our world, but they are
insignificant in comparison to what existed in the
previous age.
What has been presented here is not the only
“ancient earth” explanation available, but it seems to
make the most biblical sense. It is the only explanation
I know of that accepts the literal 24-hour days
of the creation (or to us, re-creation) week and, at
the same time, makes room for an indefinite period
before the creation of mankind that could include
the dinosaurs and previous eras.
Recent geological and astronomical discoveries,
such as cosmic expansion and signs of meteor
impacts at the Cretaceous-Paleocene border of the
geologic column, have only served to substantiate
this view (see Hugh Ross, Creation and Time, 1994, p.
92; Gerald Schroder, Genesis and the Big Bang, 1990,
p. 140).
So if anyone tells you he or she doesn’t believe
in the Bible because of a dilemma with the dinosaurs,
let that person know there is more than the
young-earth explanation available—one that fits
well, as best we know, with the biblical facts.
By Mario Seiglie