Dinosaurs
The first book of the Bible, Genesis, opens with the creation over a 6-day period of everything in the Universe including the stars, the planets, the Earth, plants, animals and humans. But what about dinosaurs? Contrary to popular belief, creationists believe dinosaurs once roamed the Earth. The extensive fossil evidence is undeniable. For creationists, dinosaurs were among the animals God put on the Earth during Creation week.
In 1841, Sir Richard Owen coined the word “dinosaur” based on the Greek words Deinos (terrible, potent or fearfully great) and Sauros (lizard or reptile). Since the Bible was written centuries earlier, we don’t find any dinosaur references in it. However, there are over 30 references to dragons. This word, also of Greek origin, means “great serpent” and it’s conceivable that these “great serpents” were what we would call dinosaurs today.
The Bible also describes two creatures that could very well have been dinosaurs. In the book of Job, “Leviathan” is depicted as a formidable sea creature with an outer armor made of scales and that breathed fire. Also in Job, “Behemoth” is described as a colossal beast, which moved its tail like a cedar tree and whose bones were like beams of bronze. Could Leviathan have been a plesiosaur and Behemoth a brachiosaurus? We don’t know for sure, but it’s interesting that the authors of the Bible wrote about such creatures, thousands of years before paleontology was born.
To most people, the coexistence of humans and dinosaurs sounds impossible. How could we survive in the midst of such enormous and dangerous monsters? But aren't we living today with some rather big and ferocious creatures? Like lions, tigers, alligators and bears, to name a few. Granted, these are smaller than a T-Rex, but they are amazingly fast and can hide much better than huge dinosaurs, and one could argue they are even more dangerous.
But we have managed to survive these predators by outsmarting them. We designed weapons and traps to kill them. We built refuges to protect our families. And it's not that hard to imagine we did the same with the larger dinosaurs, many of which were vegetarian or interested in a bigger meal than a tiny human.
Paleontologists have recently found dinosaur bones with fresh live tissue in them, which would date them to thousands of years ago, not millions. This reinforces the case for dinosaurs roaming the earth not so long ago.