Beth-El Baptist Church

08/09/2009

Greg Tomlinson


What does Bible say about Cavemen and Dinosaurs?


There are many people who denounce the validity of the scriptures on account the existence of cavemen, dinosaurs and the fossil record. The claim is made that since dinosaurs are not in the Bible, its creation time line at a minimum is incorrect and since it cannot account of millions of years of history, the Bible is a fallacy.


  1. What are cavemen?


Simply put, cavemen are people who lived in caves


  1. Are cavemen mentioned in the Bible?

Genesis 19:29-30 Joshua 10:15-21

    Judges 6:1-2 Matthew 27:60 cmp Mark 5:2-5


There are several cavemen in the scriptures. Lot lived in a cave for a while. Some kings stayed in a cave for a short while. Israel lived in caves when the Midianites were oppressing them. It could be argued that the demoniac with the legion lived in a cave since he dwelt amongst the tombs and tombs were sometimes caves.

  1. What are dinosaurs?


According to the Miriam Webster dictionary, the word Dinosaur comes from the Latin and Greek languages meaning “terrifying lizard”. It is “any of a group (Dinosauria) of extinct often very large chiefly terrestrial carnivorous or herbivorous reptiles of the Mesozoic era”. This limits the discussion of dinosaurs to very large reptiles that are no longer known to be living amongst us.


  1. Are dinosaurs mentioned in the Bible?

Job 40:15-24 (Behemoth) Job 41:1-24 (Leviathan)

Psalm 74:12-15 Isaiah 27:1

Jeremiah 14:4-6; 51:34-37 (Tanniym) Isaiah 51:9-11

Exodus 7:9-12 Job 7:12

Genesis 1:21 Ezekiel 29:3-5

Psalm 91:10-13; 148:7


There are several references to what may be called dinosaurs in the scriptures. The clearest description of a dinosaur in the Bible is the “Behemoth” found in Job 40. Note that “He moves his tail like a cedar” indicates that this is clearly some very large creature with a very large tail. It is most likely some sort of Sauropod. Other dinosaur like creatures are the Leviathan (Job 41) and dragon (Hebrew Tanniym) creatures. The Leviathan is clearly something large, has scales, and is not easily controlled by men. One of the important things to understand about these creatures is that they are described to the listener in a way that indicates that they were very much aware of what God is talking about. It is not some unknown creature but one that the could go out into the field, point to, and be confident that it is the creature God is talking about.


  1. Where did the dinosaurs come from?

Genesis 1:20-23; 1:24-31 Genesis 2:19-20

Genesis 6:18-22; 8:15-17


There are basically 3 types of dinosaur creatures. There are flying dinosaurs, water-dwelling dinosaurs, and land-dwelling dinosaurs. The flying and water-dwelling dinosaurs were created by God on day 5 of creation. The land-dwelling dinosaurs were created by God on day 6 of creation, on the same day that man was created. According to Genesis 2, man was created first and after man was created, God created the land-dwelling animals, including dinosaurs, whom Adam named. After Noah's flood, 2 of every kind of dinosaur left the ark to repopulate the earth. Most likely the environment of the earth after the flood was not a good fit for most of the dinosaurs and many of them died out shortly after the flood.


  1. Why do we only find fossils of dinosaurs now?

Genesis 7:13-24 Job 40:15-24


The first thing to understand that a fossil is what is found after a living creature dies, his bones are replaced with minerals and they harden into stone. Fossils are found buried underneath the ground. The best explanation of the fossils is what we call Noah's flood. Every living creature on the face of the earth died in the flood. As the turbulent waters moved, much rock and sediment covered some of the living creatures who died in the flood and the covering placed them into an appropriate environment for becoming fossils. Also note that Job, David, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, seemed to have first hand knowledge of some of these creatures that we currently call dinosaurs. Men and dinosaurs lived together. Even today, some fish and other animals are found that some scientists claim died out millions of years ago. These animals are called living fossils. Therefore we know for certain that “dinosaurs” and men lived together since some of these “dinosaurs” are still alive.