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People of all ages are fascinated by dinosaurs. And they have a lot of questions about them too:When and where did dinosaurs live?Are they mentioned in the Bible?What does the fossil evidence tell us about dinosaurs?There are some people who say dinosaurs lived millions of years ago, long before humans. But if the Bible is correct when it talks about God's creation of the world and universe, then dinosaurs and people both lived on the earth at the same time.Dinosaurs and the Bible explores the historical, scriptural, and fossil evidence about dinosaurs, and shares what we can know after many years of thoughtful, careful research.

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History of science

Philosophie et théologie

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Publié par	Harvest House Publishers, Inc.
Date de parution	01 août 2015
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780736965415
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0230€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE, OREGON
All Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version . Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Cover by Institute for Creation Research
Cover photo Catmando / Fotolia
DINOSAURS AND THE BIBLE
Copyright 2013 Institute for Creation Research
Published by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97402
www.harvesthousepublishers.com
ISBN 978-0-7369-6540-8 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-7369-6541-5 (eBook)
All rights reserved. No part of this electronic publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other-without the prior written permission of the publisher. The authorized purchaser has been granted a nontransferable, nonexclusive, and noncommercial right to access and view this electronic publication, and purchaser agrees to do so only in accordance with the terms of use under which it was purchased or transmitted. Participation in or encouragement of piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of author s and publisher s rights is strictly prohibited.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I owe a host of generous people lifelong debts of gratitude. Without them, this booklet would have either never been written or would have emerged a mediocre mess. Chief among the many are these: foremost, my mother, Jane Thomas, who taught me how to write a research paper in the sixth grade. I have not stopped writing since. The late Dr. Henry Morris s books on scientific evidences convinced me that molecules-to-man evolution was wrong and the Bible is right. Dr. Bill Cooper acknowledged me in a few of his books, all of which are indispensable and available in digital formats, and I am more than happy to return the gesture. Also, Beth Mull s endurance through editing something like 1,000 of my articles for the Institute for Creation Research has made me a much better writer over the last five years. Finally, I thank Dr. John Morris for general encouragement and for reviewing this manuscript.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. When and Where Dinosaurs Lived
The Creation of Dinosaurs
Other Extinct Reptiles
Dinosaurs in the Fall and the Flood
Dinosaurs Through the Ice Age
Dinosaur Extinction
2. Dinosaur Fossils
How to Examine Evidence
Fossil Graveyards
Going on a Dinosaur Dig
Dinosaur Tracks
Dinosaur Design
Variation in a Dinosaur Kind
Fossil Feathers
Original Tissue Fossils
3. Dinosaurs in the Bible
What Was Behemoth?
What Was Leviathan?
What Was Nachash Saraph ?
What Was Ketos ?
4. Two Questions About Dinosaurs and the Bible
Two Lines of Evidence
Question 1: Do Billions of Years Fit with Genesis?
Days in Genesis 1
Squeezing the Age of Dinosaurs Between Verses
Creation by Evolution?
Question 2: How Could Most Scientists Be Wrong?
How Secularism Works
Dating Dinosaur Fossils
What About Radioisotope Clocks ?
A Spiritual Cause and Cure
About the Author
About the Institute for Creation Research
INTRODUCTION
W hen I first saw a dinosaur fossil as a small child, I was shocked by the enormous, tooth-filled skull that greeted me at the museum entrance. But very soon I was hooked. As the terror subsided, basic questions filled my mind. Where did dinosaurs come from? Where did they go? How long ago did they live? How did the Earth preserve their skeletons?
Over the years, teachers, museum guides, books, magazines, movies, and TV news reports provided the same general answers. Where did dinosaurs come from? I was told that they evolved long ago and lived on Earth for millions of years. Where did they go? Something happened 65 million years ago that wiped them out-perhaps mammals ate all their eggs, or maybe it was a violent impact from outer space. Supposedly, their bodies were fossilized over eons as minerals replaced the original bone material. For a long time, I saw no reason to doubt these answers.
That all changed with one conversation.
When I was a science major in college, a nonscience friend asked me a question I had never heard before: Is it true that a dinosaur fossil is dated by the age assignment given to the rock layer it s found in, but that this same rock layer is dated according to the million-year age assignments of the unique fossils it contains? Had I encountered this use of circular reasoning in my science studies? Could I show that dinosaur age assignments rest more on field data and less on assumptions or fallacies?
For months, I had no desire to tackle the issue. In retrospect, I probably dreaded questioning one of my own fundamental beliefs. At the time, I did not understand that my answers to questions about dinosaurs reflected my beliefs about the history of the world in general.
I dodged my friend s repeated challenge until we finally brokered a deal. He would stop bothering me if I would read his book on creation. It presented information that first challenged and then eroded my faith in evolution and its long ages. In studying creation materials, I found real evidence that the Bible, not the words of fallible humans, conveys truthful world history. My hope is that this book may have a similar impact on its readers as they see the evidence that God s Word is accurate and true in all things.
Where did dinosaurs come from and how long ago did they live? My answers to these questions have totally changed. Maybe yours will, too.
1
WHEN AND WHERE DINOSAURS LIVED
D inosaurs once roamed the earth in an amazing variety of shapes and sizes. We know from their fossil remains that a few of them were huge, the largest land creatures that ever lived. Some of them were undoubtedly terrible and monstrous. We also know that many dinosaurs were only the size of a turkey when full-grown.
Almost no one these days can escape being told that dinosaurs lived in an Age of Reptiles that ended 65 million years ago. These teachings, repeated now for generations, have no real merit; they are bereft of science or history to substantiate them. One purpose of this booklet is to open a window on the evidence found in abundant scientific and historical sources of dinosaur data. We will see that the details fit well with a straightforward reading of Scripture.
The Creation of Dinosaurs
According to Genesis, God created man and animals, plants to sustain their bodies, the Earth for them to live upon, and the universe as their setting. He did this in the span of six days. For Him to have created all things in just the way Genesis 1 describes would have been no problem for an all-knowing, all-powerful, personal God.
Did God directly create dinosaurs? Adding information from the New Testament to what is recorded in Genesis, it is evident that each member of the Trinity was involved in the creation of the universe and its inhabitants. 1 We infer that the Father conceived of the creation, the Son spoke the Father s will in the form of let there be commands, and the Spirit powerfully effected those commands. If this is true, then it follows that God the Father invented each dinosaur kind, Jesus commanded each to materialize, and the Spirit energized those commands to make dinosaurs real in body and soul. 2
Through these means, God created the creatures that today we call dinosaurs on the final day of His creative activity. He made plants on Day Three, stars on Day Four, then air and sea creatures on Day Five. It was on Day Six that God made the creatures that live on land, whether creeping or walking, large or small.
What exactly was a dinosaur? First, they were reptiles. Unfortunately, unlike birds, which all have feathers, and mammals, which all have hair, 3 reptiles have no single trait that is totally unique by which we can easily identify them. We can say that they have scaly skin, but so do bird feet. We can say they lay eggs, but some do not, and birds as well as some mammals also lay eggs. So the best we can do is rule out other classes of vertebrates to discern whether a creature is reptilian.

George Sternberg discovered a duck-billed dinosaur mummy in 1908 in Montana s Hell Creek Formation. In 1912 Henry Osborn photographed and described its skin, which clearly shows scales, or thickened bumps of skin, just like that which appears on many living reptiles.
Dinosaurs did have scaly skin. Their scales were not like fish scales, which are like tiny plates that grow out of and can be scraped off the skin. Reptile scales are thickened folds or bumps of skin. Some fossils preserve the impression of dinosaur skin and show detailed rosette patterns that the scaly skin displayed.
Some dinosaurs laid eggs. Maybe they all did, but we don t know for sure, since it is difficult to link a fossil dinosaur egg to the species that laid it. Dinosaurs had other reptile-like features, such as certain holes in their skulls. Taken together, the fossil evidence clearly places dinosaurs among the many different forms that fall under the reptilian category. But dinosaurs had an important difference from modern reptiles.
The legs of modern reptiles-like turtles, lizards, and alligators-stick out from the body, then angle down to the ground. Their feet are seldom situated directly below their bodies, but instead are placed out to the side. In contrast, dinosaur reptiles had legs oriented nearly straight to the ground from the hips. The two-legged dinosaurs would have walked somewhat upright, more like humans. Our legs also extend straight down from hips to the ground. The two-legged dinosaurs called theropods are thought to have been meat-eaters and had hips that in some ways resemble those of modern lizards. Tyrannosaurus rex was a theropod. Other two-legged dinosaurs called ornithopods had bird-like hip structures and often ate plants. Duck-billed dinosaurs called hadrosaurs were ornithopods. Even the four-legged dinosaurs legs descended from t