Where do the dinosaurs fit into the Bible?

-- jj

Hey Desmond, I never said that my 'version' or 'interpretation' was any better than yours. I would still certainly give what my 'version' or 'interpretation' is if someone truly wanted to know.

I don't believe my faith to be a moving target, nor do I think the Bible that I believe is. The text itself is there for anyone to peruse, and has been for quite some time. But, the Bible certainly is complex, and explaining to someone who has sincere questions may take a complex explanation. Much as quantum mechanics would explain an occurrence, but to truly understand what that explanation of that occurrence meant, a complex explanation is needed. It almost looks like circular logic, but it is not.

According to Currie & Koppelhus (101 Questions about Dinosaurs, 1996):

‘The amount of time that it takes for a bone to become completely permineralized is highly variable. If the groundwater is heavily laden with minerals in solution, the process can happen rapidly. Modern bones that fall into mineral springs can become permineralized within a matter of weeks.’

From Answers in Genesis

Hey Magnum

If it were provable that fossils were 'millions to billions of years old', you might be correct. However, that is under debate. The idea that red blood cells were found in a bone that is as old as this is remarkable to say the least.

How are you doing BTW? I have not been in game as of late, can't load this machine down with it since I lost my main box... PM me.

Are you meaning Jacob?

Genesis 32:24-29 (AMP)
24 And Jacob was left alone, and a Man wrestled with him until daybreak.
25 And when [the Man] saw that He did not prevail against [Jacob], He touched the hollow of his thigh; and Jacob's thigh was put out of joint as he wrestled with Him.
26 Then He said, Let Me go, for day is breaking. But [Jacob] said, I will not let You go unless You declare a blessing upon me.
27[The Man] asked him, What is your name? And [in shock of realization, whispering] he said, Jacob [supplanter, schemer, trickster, swindler]!
28 And He said, Your name shall be called no more Jacob [supplanter], but Israel [contender with God]; for you have contended and have power with God and with men and have prevailed. [Hosea 12:3-4.]
29 Then Jacob asked Him, Tell me, I pray You, what [in contrast] is Your name? But He said, Why is it that you ask My name? And[the Angel of God declared] a blessing on [Jacob] there.


Are dinosaurs not animals?

Many people do. As a Christian, I have some difficulties as well, but none that would derail my faith in God.

Why would this not be Platonic love?

1 Samuel 18:-4 (AMP)
1 WHEN DAVID had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own life.
2 Saul took David that day and would not let him return to his father's house.
3 Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own life.
4 And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David, and his armor, even his sword, his bow, and his girdle.

I know that some point to this as Jonathan stripped naked, but this obviously is not the case. The robe he took off was his royal robe, signifying that Jonathan was giving Samuel's annointing precidence over his lineage to the throne (he was king Saul's son). The page you reference states: "Since people in those days did not wear underwear, Jonathan stripped himself naked in front of David." That is quite a leap. Robes are outer garments.

Matthew 5:40 (AMP)
40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your undershirt (tunic), let him have your coat also.

1 Samuel 18:20-21 "That would refer to both his son Jonathan and his daughter Michal."

The word in question here 'shettayim' is a feminine word, not masculine. There can be no question as to its meaning, if the author of this page had looked at the original Hebrew, they would never have made this assumption.

1 Samuel 20:41-42 (AMP)
41 And as soon as the lad was gone, David arose from beside the heap of stones and fell on his face to the ground and bowed himself three times. And they kissed one another and wept with one another until David got control of himself.
42 And Jonathan told David, Go in peace, forasmuch as we have sworn to each other in the name of the Lord, saying, The Lord shall be between me and you, and between my descendants and yours forever. And Jonathan arose and departed into the city.

This section also has been used to point to a homosexual relationship. But, it was culturally (as is to this day in some parts of the world) for men to greet each other with kisses.

"David’s only relationships with women would have been sexual in nature"
I am guessing that the author does not have a clue. Befuddled...

I am not sure why this is to come into question. Do you not think that the platypus came with the same skepticism until it was widely known of the animal?

When dealing with time in the Old Testament, it's important to understand that the first five books were originally written in Hebrew. The languge's letters are also numbers, and there is nuances to how you interpret.

For instance, "40" can also mean roughly "a long time" - which, in the context of how often it is used, makes sense.

In addition to the Hebrew letter/number combination, numbers also have had meanings with them that are very ancient.

For instance, "7" is a number associated with completeness, or divinity. So by saying the world is created in 7 days, from a symbolic perspective, the passage is indicating that the world was made complete, and unflawed. (Perhaps "perfect" meaning ideal for life to evolve - which we see is a rare condition of planets.)

It's also important to understand, from a unification of religion/science perspective, that if you assume both are correct, then God would have to live outside of the bounds of space-time physics. Therefore God would not even really create anything in any amount of time - it could be done instantly - and so it seems much more likely that "day" is meant to signify one segment of time in the creation process.

...

I think it's also important to realize that the old Testament was written in a time before Western Science, and so concepts like evolution and galactic formation would have to be explained in simpler terms that people of the time could understand.

An animal bone can indeed become permineralized in a few weeks but it doesn't become petrified in so short a time. The same goes for wood, you can fill the spaces of the cells with minerals fairily rapidly with permineralization but to completely change the structure into a petrified state takes much much longer.

For those who don't know permineralization is basically what happens to fossilized bone. This process leaves great amounts of detail in the fossil because the water spaces are filled with minerals. Petrification on the other hand is different, it means much greater amounts of time are required to change the fine detailed structures into obliterated solid rock. In the instance of pemineralization, laboritory tests estimate under ideal circumstances, wood can be permineralized at a rate of no more that 4 milimeters per year in solid wood. Thats pretty quick but when you look at the largest petrified log , found in Argentina. It is 10 feet in diameter. Using figures presented in creationalists Answers in Genisis of between .01 mm and 4mm of permineralization per year in a very rare occuring type of hot spring in Wyoming. Using these figures it would take between 304,800 years and 762 years for this log to have permineralized if this 100 foot long, 10 ft wide log were to fall into a highly mineralized spring. Sounds reasonable, the tree could easily have been formed in less than a thousand years and young earth is safe.

Problems start creeping up with that neat little answer. Entire forests of huge trees, roots and all plus still standing trunks do not fall into rare, highly mineralized springs. They get covered by sudden mudflows, sediments and volcanic ash plus the distribution of petrified wood deposits is worldwide so these figures are basically meaningless. One must also remember petrified isn't the same thing as permineralized. The article that quote is from completely misses this distinction. Petrified means the minerials that replaced the living tissues have undergone change to the point where it has become solid rock with very little fine detail like you find in permineralized wood or bone. The conditions required for this to occur requires much longer periods of time. Most scientists agree this would take much longer than than 6000 years.

Consider this, a tree 10 foot in diameter is likely to be in the neighborhood of 2500- 3000 years old when it died. There is a redwood in the Senoma Petrified forest in California called the 'Queen' tree that is 8 foot in diameter and was 2000 years old when it died. You can count the rings yourself. There are living giant Sequoas that are 3000+ years old and near the same size. That means that the flood would have had to happened about the same time as the pyramids in Egypt. Funny thing is, the Egyptians kept maticulus records of a great many things, from the birth of Pharos to the amout of beer made in a week but not once did they mention the whole flood, Noah, animals two by two thing during that time. Imagine that. There are beams used in the construction of Sumarian and Egyptian buildings that were older than the universe when the buildings were constructed.

What is also sorta wierd is that the chinese have a history that goes back 8000 - 10,000 years and had a habbit of recording major events but, strangely they missed the creation of the world about 5000 years ago. Must have been too busy or something, may be why they missed the flood thing too a little while later. But then again a lot of things get missed I suppose, like impact craters from meteorites. There is one near Wabar in Saudi Arabia, that's pretty close to where the old Testiment was written. I'm sure they would have mentioned it somewhere but maybe it was edited in favor of Testiment Lite I suppose. The Chinese have quite a few impact craters yet they seem to have missed mentioning them too. Musta been those new "stelth" meteors from beyond Uranus. It would have to be because the effects of the Tunguska Event which occurred in 1908 over Siberia were felt nearly world wide and it didn't even leave a crater.

Is each and every one of you utterly retarded?
Dinosaurs are like HUGE.
The Bible is a tiny little book!
How can you ask me where dinosaurs fit into the Bible?
THEY DONT! Dont bother trying.

The interpretation of the flood as being "the entire world" is a big assumption. Let's assume there's no Evolution. That means no new animals have evolved since creation. That means all of the animals we have documented today were present on the Ark.
Now, I'll assume "animal" is a conventional sense - i.e. no microorganisms need be documented.
http://www.redlist.org/info/tables/table1.html
There are 1.25 million species of animals. Heck, even if you assume Noah didn't care about invertibrates (which is a huge assumption) it's still 57,739. For Noah to document, obtain, and wrangle all these animals would have taken many lifetimes going all over the globe. Let alone the fact that the size of the Ark would have had to have been hundreds of cubic miles to include animals and their food.

Let's instead make a far more safer interpretation that by "world", the scriptures were referring to the world the Hebrews knew of. Suddenly the task doesn't seem so insurmountable, and if Noah has any sort of small fortune, he could have purchased animals from other people.


That theory is an extrapolation based on ages of humans documented in Genesis. The assumption is that if humans lived that long, animals would too. It's a big assumption, and there's no specific biblical support of this.[/quote]


Really? Last time I checked, Komodo Dragons and other lizards lay eggs much, much, much smaller than the ones paleontologists have found fossilized. Species of animals simply don't keep growing. Animals mature and grow, then stay that size for the remainder of their life. You may grin, but your statement has absolutely no biological support.


Once again, even baby dinosaurs were the size of contemporary cows, and grew rapidly - going by literal translation of "40" - the forty days to survive the flood would have allowed said baby dinosaurs to grow at least to the size of elephants.

...

Why must fundamentalists cling to a literal translation of holy scriptures? What benefit is there? Where is it written "thou shalt translate thine holy texts literally"? And what about all of the prophesies in the Bible explained by prophets or angels where the meaning is specifically allegorical? How then does one decide what is allegorical and what is literal?

Add to that the fact that we've translated the Bible from a multitude of ancient languages to Latin to English, and it's quite clear some thinking needs to be put into the meaning rather than the literal words.

Just a reminder, it wasn't my statement. I passed along what I remembered of an argument over this subject, not an expression of personal belief.

-- jj

Is the discussion about dinosaurs in the Bible over? Are we now on to young/old Earth?

That is debated within religions.

Did you actually go to the page?

‘Bones do not have to be “turned into stone” to be fossils, and usually most of the original bone is still present in a dinosaur fossil.’

This is also on that page. Did you notice what that quote is from? Not creationists at all.

Philip J. Currie and Eva B. Koppelhus, 101 Questions about Dinosaurs, Dover Publications, 1996. Currie is a well-known dinosaur authority. He is Curator of Dinosaurs at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology, Drumheller, Alberta, Canada. Koppelhus is a visiting researcher at the same institution.

Again from here.



Again, the 'article quote' is not from Answers in Genesis. They are quoting non-creationist scientists.

'Most scientists agree'? You mean non-creationist scientist? Because there are more non-creationist scientist and the axiom they base their opinion on is different, you dismiss creationist findings all together? Seems since both have scientific evidence that it is still under debate.

Again, you are making a supposition that you should not.

From here:
'Recent research on seasonal effects on tree rings in other trees in the same genus, the plantation pine Pinus radiata, has revealed that up to five rings per year can be produced and extra rings are often indistinguishable, even under the microscope, from annual rings. As a tree physiologist I would say that evidence of false rings in any woody tree species would cast doubt on claims that any particular species has never in the past produced false rings.'

Are you seriously saying that you are basing age on size?

Really? What about Tem? And further about how all living creatures were killed except those who were on Tem's boat?

(Mercatante, Anthony S., THE FACTS ON FILE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WORLD MYTHOLOGY AND LEGEND, Child & Associates Publishing, NSW, Australia, p. 613, 1988.)

Quite a leap here considering the above.

Wow, again you must have missed something...

'This 4,320-volume collection told of the repercussions of mankind's rebellion against the gods: 'The Earth was shaken to its foundations. The sky sank lower towards the north. The sun, moon, and stars changed their motions. The Earth fell to pieces and the waters in its bosom rushed upwards with violence and overflowed the Earth.'

Berlitz, Charles, The Lost Ship of Noah, W.H. Allen, London, UK, p. 126, 1987

That is assuming that they felt impact craters important enough to report on. My guess is, they didn't. Does that take away from the historicity? I don't see how.

Some yes, some no. It is debatable at best but I believe that the majority of Christians would say that it was not a literal 3-days.

I am a Methodist which is certainly mainstream Christianity and was taught that it was not a literal 3-days. How could it be? The earth was not created yet so how could a day even be measured?

Again, some do, most don't. Methodist do not believe it literally becomes flesh and blood.

So in the Christian faith God created Adam in his own image. But 65 million years before that God created the dinosaurs using the image of his cousin Ted. And Ted was not the black sheep of the family, he was the huge fucking monster of the family. And there must have been God, I mean it's not in the Bible, is it? It should have been mentioned somewhere around Genesis. You'd think God would grab someone's arm - some scribe who was copying out and saying "…but before that there were dinosaurs who were a bit crap, so fuck 'em." Not in there, which could mean that, because dinosaurs were discovered in the 1700's, 1800's, somewhere around there, maybe it is a philosophy, and some bloke with a beard doesn't live upstairs… maybe.

So I think under the logic situation God - Captain God with the big beard - he must have created the dinosaurs. And Jesus must have asked a few questions, like "Dad, dad! What are these dinosaurs? What were they all about? Big hairy…" well, not hairy, were they. "Big slimy bastards. Teeth. Small hands - what's that, for playing piano?" Brain in the head, a brain in the bum! What's a bum brain for?" "Well I'll explain to you, Jesus. What I did was I created the world in seven days. Created the world in six days, and on the seventh day, rested. Eighth day I actually rested as well. Ninth day, rested, 'cause I fucking had just made a world, you know. Tenth day, rested - actually I rested from then on, really. Fourteenth day I decided to smoke all the marijuana I had created, just to test the first batch. On the fifteenth day I decided to smoke all the opium I had created, just to test the first batch. And on the 309th day I woke up again, and I decided to create 500 huge monsters that I'd seen just the night before." "Dad, did you have to make them so stupid?" "Well I didn't know what I was doing, I was off my tits."

But then Jesus had to go down onto the planet Earth and preach the word of the Lord to the dinosaurs, and he was not happy about that. "I'm not going down there!" "You must go down there, that's your job. That's what the son does." "Oh for fuck's sake! What does mum think of all this?" "Well, I think she agrees with me. It'll be good character building stuff." "Just 'cause she's an elvan queen." "What, Galadriel?" "Yeah." "My wife?" "Yeah." "No-one's going with it." "All right, they don't know who she is, dad." "No." "All right, I'll go down".

So he goes down, and he goes in the world and there's dinosaurs everywhere "Raargh! Wuurgh! Larrgh!" Said Jesus, trying to blend in. And he goes into a dinosaur bar. Soon as he walks in all the dinosaurs stop what they're doing. And Jesus says, "My name is Jesus, I'm the son of God - in one religion". And he says, "I've come to read you the stuff from my father's book, that we're hoping to get a publisher for. It's called the holy bibly. We may change the pronunciation on that. But we think a bibly is what people should have. Have a bibly, sometimes maybe in the future people have biblys in all the hotel rooms in the world. The could say, "Look, look at the bibly." And people will pay attention.

"Anyway, these are just some ideas, you know, they are all rough, that my dad had. 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.' "Raarrgh!." "All right, we'll cross that one out. 'Cause they won't mind." "No, no we're fine, really, that's fine. Not inherit the earth? Oh, right, we don't need any…" "Do you mind if you just don't inherit the earth? We'll do 'Blessed are the meek' and that's it." "All right. Do we inherit anything?" "No. Well, maybe on old picture of an aunt." "Well, we're all right with that, thank you."

'Cause the meek have had a hell of a time, as Python talks about. But you'd think: the meek, they were supposed to inherit the earth. You'd think, No! They should be having meetings all over the world saying. "Well I'd like to call this meeting to order. Has anyone inherited the earth? "Well I inherited a car from my aunt, a Ford Cortina." "Well that's not exactly the earth, is it, Simon? I think we should pool our assets and get guns. That's the only thing people pay attention to. 'Lock and Load! What do we want? We want the earth! When do we want it? Now motherfucker! Oh, you want some do you? Come on you bastards, it's our fucking earth!"

"Anyway" said Jesus. "What about, not 'Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth', 'Blessed are the huge scaly monsters, for they shall doubtlessly inherit the earth - unless something awful happens with the temperature."

And suddenly an archeopterix came screaming out of left field and took Jesus' head off 'Floomp foodoomp foodoomp!' And Jesus goes back up to heaven with his head under his shoulder, saying, "Dad! Dad! They're a bunch of bastards!" "Well what happened?" "Well, they took my head off!" "Well, what a to-do. I'll turn the world thermostat down to nought degrees Kelvin." "Minus 273 degrees Centigrade?" "You been at the physics books again? Oh yeah, well, your stepmother would be proud."

What?

So he killed all the dinosaurs, God killed 'em all. Then he went down there, and he took all the dinosaurs, and he put each one inside a stone. But then God seemed to wait 65 million years doing this: "Doo doo Dooo, doo doo dooooo, ba ba baaaa."...


Oh. I'm sorry. Wrong thread.

As far as dinasaurs, the bible is a history of the Jewish people, not the history of the world. Since dinasaurs lived before man, why mention them? It simply is not important to the history of the Jewish people.

I will go a step further... A Christian is someone who believes Jesus was the Christ. No religious docterine is required, only belief.

From here:


Because, if you can change even a single word of the Word, why not change them all?

Context. This site has some good information on the subject.

Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Are there others?

Sorry, maybe I am having a bad day, but I could not get through all the virulence, and had to stop even reading.

What if you believe that there was this guy Jesus, and that people followed him and thought he was the son of god and stuff but you don't believe a word of it? I can acknowledge he probably existed, but still get to be an atheist, right? Just checkin'

I would take it further (so those who do not know what the Christ (Messiah) is) that Jesus was the Son of God who died for our sins to redeem us in His Father's eyes.

You never had my Dinosaur soup with matzohballs, bubeleh.

http://www.dino-web.com/birds.html

The Old Testament was originally in Hebrew, the New Testament was in Greek. If memory serves me.

You get to be whatever you want to be. Jesus never forced anyone to follow Him, either through force or guilt. Unlike many men who have claimed to follow His teachings...