Questions

Question first appeared on August 3, 2003
If God made everything was there room for dinosaurs on the ark?

I=ve dealt with dinosaurs before, but allow me to expand my previous responses as prompted by your question.

There exists a group among the Protestants who are called Fundamentalists. Among these are those who are AScriptural Literalists,@ who insist on the literal inerrancy (free from errors) of the Bible, especially the Kings James translation. They believe and teach that God=s Creation took place in six Atwenty-four hour@ days.

Using, twenty-four hour days, seven days in a week and fifty-two weeks a year, they can calculate the exact time of the Creation, as recorded in the chronology of the Old Testament, which they say is around 4000 BC. If this is true, how do you account for science with it=s discoveries regarding e = mc², light-years, an expanding universe, carbon dating and the geological/fossil record, to name just a few glitches that line up against the above claim?

Literal Fundamentalists have devised all kinds of theories to defend their six-day (one hundred and forty-four hour) Creation. One such explanation would have us believe that the apparent geological and fossil records are a deception of Satan in an attempt to confuse the Atrue believer.@ Therefore, things appearing to be older than 4000 B.C. just never existed. It=s all a hoax according to them.

As I=ve stated before, Orthodox understand the Creation accounts in Genesis (1:1-2:3 and 2:4-25) differently. They are poetic and illustrative in nature. Fr. Thomas Hopko, in The Orthodox Faith, Volume 1, Doctrine, writes: AThe main doctrinal point about creation is that God alone is uncreated and ever-existing. Everything which exists besides God was created by Him. God, however, did not create everything individually and all at once, so to speak. He created the first foundations of existence, and then over periods of time (perhaps millions of yearsBsee II Peter 3:8) this first foundation of existenceBby the power which God had given to itBbrought forth the other creatures of God: Let the earth put forth vegetation...let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures...let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds... (Gen. 1:19, 20, 24) Thus, although God is certainly the creator of everything, He acts gradually in time and by means of things previously made by Him to which He has given life-producing potencies and powers.@According to astrophysicists, the universe is between 16 and 16.5 billion years (By) old. Our solar system reached its current size around 4.46 By ago. Around 4300 million years (My) ago water formed and the first primitive life appeared in the oceans 3900 My ago. Dinosaurs lived in the Mesozoic era, with the greatest of them being in the Jurassic period, between 180 to 135 My ago ( Remember Jurassic Park ?).

The first primates appeared around 55 My ago, Homo habilisB2.5 My ago and Homo erectusB1.6 My ago. Homo sapiens arrived about 0.35 My ago. Among them we find the Neanderthal and later Cro-Magnon. Our ancestors, Homo sapiens sapiens arrived about 125 thousand years (Ty) ago and by 30 Ty ago were making beautiful pictures on cave walls. After this time God, determining that his creation had reached the proper time, breathed His Spirit into His creation and Man (Adam and Eve) was made in His image and likeness (Gen. 1: 26,27; 2:7).

So, there are roughly 135 to 180 million years between the existence of dinosaurs and human beings. They did not live together at the same time. Sorry to say, Alley Oop did not exist. And, to finally answer your direct question, neither were dinosaurs on the ark with Noah and his family.

Finally, the Bible is meant to be only a record of Salvation History, the synergy between God and Man. It was never intended to be a proof text for all of history, science and everything else in between.

According to astrophysicists, the universe is between 16 and 16.5 billion years (By) old. Our solar system reached its current size around 4.46 By ago. Around 4300 million years (My) ago water formed and the first primitive life appeared in the oceans 3900 My ago. Dinosaurs lived in the Mesozoic era, with the greatest of them being in the Jurassic period, between 180 to 135 My ago ( Remember Jurassic Park ?).