Shayla: How do dinosaurs fit with the Bible?

Extended: How do you respond to children who ask how the dinosaurs fit into the timeline of the Bible? I have told my son (age 11) they were wiped out with the flood, but he asked why 2 of them weren't on the Ark.

Meforshim

Descriptions of dinosaurs can be found in the oldest book of the Bible, Job 40:15-24 and 41:1-34. In the passage the word “behemoth” means simply, “huge beast,” and many old school commentators commonly take it to be either an elephant or a hippopotamus. The subsequent description, however, fits neither of these, nor any other living animal. On the other hand, it does seem to match the probable description of a great land dinosaur, such as the tyrannosaurus. For instance, no elephant or hippo has a tail like a cedar.

In 40:19, the behemoth was the “chief” of all created land animals, which lends itself to the theory that this may have been one of the great land dinosaurs. Even we “moderns” refer to the tyrannosaurus as “Rex” (Latin for king).

These, like all other animals, were created on the fifth and sixth days of the creation “week”, which leads to a whole other set of questions.

“Leviathan” was evidently the greatest of the marine reptiles, or dinosaurs, something like a plesiosaur, perhaps, although modern commentators tend to call it a crocodile. Isaiah says that leviathan was “the dragon that is in the sea” (Isaiah 27:1), and the psalmist said that leviathan “played” in the “great and wide sea” (Psalm 104:25-26). Whatever the leviathan was, it was not a crocodile. Some descendants survived to and beyond Job’s day, perhaps giving rise to all the traditions of dragons in various parts of the world.

As to the timeline, I believe that a great deal of time passed between the creation of humankind and the flood. For example, a common question is “Where did Cain find a wife?” The Scriptures do not say that Cain and Abel were Adam and Eve’s first children; they simply tell the next important event in mankind’s sordid history. I believe the implication we may take from that simple fact is that there is a lot of unrecorded history that is unaccounted for in the Scriptures. We further see that in genealogical records which often skip multiple generations, simply listing those individuals who were important to the story.

Genesis 6 tells us that mankind was very wicked. Perhaps one of their many sins (as with us today) was the hunting of multiple species to extinction. They came to a horrible end for their hubris and I think that we moderns should also heed God’s warning found in Revelation 11:18 – that God will someday come to destroy those who destroy His Earth.

Not all dinosaurs were huge. Perhaps some could have fit into the ark but became extinct in the changed environment that followed that cataclysm. Perhaps they didn’t reproduce fast enough to keep up with the new challenges.

I don’t know how mature your son is and how detailed an answer he will need. Perhaps it is sufficient to tell him that the vast majority of land-based dinosaurs were extinct well before the flood. Those that were water-based, like whales and other sea-creatures, would not have found a place on the ark by their very nature. Who knows? Perhaps we may yet discover a strange creature long thought extinct somewhere in the depths of the ocean? Wouldn’t THAT be interesting?