(From a young member...) Did Dinosaurs Really Exist?

According to the Bible dinosaurs first existed around 6,000 years ago. God made the dinosaurs, along with the other land animals, on Day Six of the Creation Week (Gen. 1:20–25, 31). Adam and Eve were also made on Day Six—so dinosaurs lived at the same time as people, not separated by eons of time. Dinosaurs could not have died out before people appeared, because dinosaurs had not previously existed, and death, bloodshed, disease and suffering are a result of Adam’s sin (Rom. 5:12,14, 1 Cor. 15:21–22).

Representatives of all the kinds of air-breathing land animals, including the dinosaur kinds, went on board Noah’s Ark. All those left outside the Ark died in the cataclysmic circumstances of the Flood—many of their remains became fossils.

After the Flood (around 4,500 years ago), the remnant of the land animals, including dinosaurs, came off the Ark and lived in the present world, along with people. Because of sin, the judgments of the Curse and the Flood have greatly changed the Earth. Post-Flood climatic change, lack of food, disease, and man’s activities caused many types of animals to become extinct. The dinosaurs, like many other creatures, died out.

The Hebrew word commonly translated ‘dragon’ in the KJV (Hebrew: tan, tannin, tannim, tannoth) appears in the Old Testament some 30 times. There are passages in the Bible about ‘dragons’ that lived on the land: ‘he [Nebuchadnezzar] has swallowed me like a dragon’ (Jer. 51:34), ‘the dragons of the wilderness’ (Mal. 1:3). Many Biblical creationists believe that in many contexts these could refer to what we now call dinosaurs. Indeed, Strong’s Concordance lists ‘dinosaur’ as one of the meanings of tannin/m.

In Genesis 1:21, the Bible says: ‘And God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, after their kind.’ The Hebrew word here for ‘sea monsters’ (‘whales’ in KJV) is the word translated elsewhere as ‘dragon’ (Hebrew: tannin). So, in the first chapter of the first book of the Bible, God may be describing the great sea dragons (sea-dwelling dinosaur-type animals) He created.

There are other Bible passages about dragons that lived in the sea: ‘the dragons in the waters’ (Psalm 74:13), ‘and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea’ (Isa. 27:1). Though the word ‘dinosaur’ strictly refers to animals that lived on the land, the sea reptiles and flying reptiles are often grouped with the dinosaurs. The sea-dragons could have included dinosaur-type animals such as the Mosasaurus.

Job 41 describes a great animal that lived in the sea, Leviathan, that even breathed fire. This ‘dragon’ may have been something like the mighty 55-foot (17 m) long Kronosaurus, or the 82-foot (25 m) long Liopleurodon.

There is also mention of a flying serpent in the Bible: the ‘fiery flying serpent’ (Isa. 30:6). This could be a reference to one of the pterodactyls, which are popularly thought of as flying dinosaurs, such as the Pteranodon, Rhamphorhynchus or Ornithocheirus.