Finally, it’s time to chomp the bit and actually study the Bible’s famous chapter on the creation — Psalm 104 …
Oh, you thought we’d be talking about that other famous creation passage. Well, we’ll get to Job 9 later.
Actually, the creation story (a true story, mind you) is told many times in the scriptures. And I happen to like the way David tells it in Psalm 104. So that’s where we start.
(Psa 104:1-2 ESV) Bless the LORD, O my soul! O LORD my God, you are very great! You are clothed with splendor and majesty, 2 covering yourself with light as with a garment, stretching out the heavens like a tent.
I just love the Old Testament’s poetry. The imagery gives me shivers. And it doesn’t bother me that the psalmist seems to be scientifically ignorant. Should it?
Why does David say that God covers himself with light as with a garment? Is it because God created light early in Genesis 1? Or is it because light and glory are associated in the Scriptures? Or does God really wear a literal garment of light?
And why say that God stretches out the heavens “like a tent”? Not very Copernican, you know. Is David writing about the cosmos as understood in the Late Bronze/Early Iron Age? Is this science as David understood science? Or is it purely metaphor?
If you were an uninspired scribe in David’s court listening to this psalm, what would “like a tent” mean to you?
(Psa 104:3-4 ESV) 3 He lays the beams of his chambers on the waters; he makes the clouds his chariot; he rides on the wings of the wind; 4 he makes his messengers winds, his ministers a flaming fire.
David is describing heaven — “his chambers” — as built on top of the clouds. Science? Poetry? Again, if you were an uninspired scribe in David’s court, would you think David is describing a literal dwelling of God above the clouds?
(Psa 104:5 ESV) 5 He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved.
Again not very Copernican. For that matter, even the Greeks figured out that the world is round — although centuries after David. So how do we take an inspired writing that says the world sits on “its foundations” when it’s just not so? Does this destroy our faith? Is David inerrant or errant? How can he be inerrant and yet be so scientifically ignorant?
(Psa 104:6-9 ESV) 6 You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. 7 At your rebuke they fled; at the sound of your thunder they took to flight. 8 The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place that you appointed for them. 9 You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth.
David describes water above the mountains, safely kept in the sky by God so that there will not be another flood such as Noah’s.
We could go on through the rest of the psalm. Obviously, the psalmist has the early chapters of Genesis in mind, but he interprets them poetically. It’s a psalm. Figurative language is expected.
But here’s the thing. If you were a scribe in David’s court, listening to this psalm, you’d take many of his terms quite literally. The waters above would be real to you. So would God’s chambers resting on the clouds. The Ancient Near East saw the world this way. No matter how well educated you were, this is how you’d have seen the world, and the psalmist writes in your language. To you, he is being literal.
To a modern American, familiar with Copernicus, Newton, and the Hubble space telescope, the “literal” language is figurative. The beams on which heaven sits are a poetic device. The foundations of the earth speak to the earth’s permanence and stability, but not to its literal nature.
Thus, we interpret language as either literal or figurative depending on our knowledge of the nature of the world. What would have been literal to the first readers of the psalm is taken as a figurative by modern readers.
Of course, other modern readers would dismiss the entire figurative/literal distinction and urge us to read the psalm for what it is — excellent, inspired poetry from the Late Bronze/Early Iron Age of Israel, speaking in terms of the cosmos as understood by the author and his immediate audience. Whether he is right or wrong about the nature of the cosmos is irrelevant because he is not writing a scientific treatise but writing a poem about God and his creation within the worldview of his audience. How else would we expect him, even with divine inspiration, to speak to his fellow Hebrews?
In short, just as we read passages in the Gospels as First Century literature, in which chronology is understood as sometimes subordinate to topicality, we read the literature of David for what it is — Ancient Near East literature speaking in terms of the culture in which God is alive and speaking.
Imagine if David had written about the earth spinning on its axis in the vast void of space, orbiting the sun. He’d have been considered a fool, as the world is obviously sitting still and the sun is obviously moving across the sky.
Hmm …
We would like to pretend otherwise, but we have to take Psalm 104 one of three ways. David was either —
* Hopelessly ignorant of science and therefore not inspired by God, who certainly knows science better than the psalmist.
* Fully aware of the true nature of the universe but using figurative language borrowed from the culture to express truths about the nature of God.
* A man of the Ancient Near East who understood the world in Ancient Near Eastern terms, writing poetry inspired by God and not caring about scientific accuracy.
Most Christians are going to reject the first choice, consider both the second and third, and ultimately pick the second. And that might be right, but if you sit and read the psalm for what it says, the third choice sure seems to fit better. I mean, God certainly knows his science very well, but there’s no evidence that the psalmist did.
We can only say that the psalmist was aware of Copernican astronomy by sheer assumption. It’s obvious that God knows what he made, but hardly obvious that God chose to share this with the psalmist. There is no evidence of it.
And why should God share with the psalmist an understanding of the universe that the psalmist couldn’t begin to grasp? And that wouldn’t help him communicate with his listeners? Other than to satisfy our modern assumption that God must share his understanding of universe with those he inspires, it really wasn’t necessary for the composition of the psalm.
Does inspiration require that the human writer have the same knowledge as the God who inspires him? Or might God choose to inspire poetry that speaks majestic truths about himself and consider the cosmological accuracy unimportant? Does the importance of scientific accuracy come from the nature of inspiration or just because we assume that God will share scientific truths with his inspired writers so that they’ll get such things right (even when they don’t)?
Now, for another majestic, clearly inspired bit of Ancient Near Eastern poetry —
(Job 9:1-6 ESV) Then Job answered and said: 2 “Truly I know that it is so: But how can a man be in the right before God? 3 If one wished to contend with him, one could not answer him once in a thousand times. 4 He is wise in heart and mighty in strength– who has hardened himself against him, and succeeded?– 5 he who removes mountains, and they know it not, when he overturns them in his anger, 6 who shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble;
God “removes mountains”? He overturns mountains in his anger? And when he shakes the earth (an earthquake?), “its pillars tremble”? “Pillars”? Job seems to have been composed by someone hopelessly unaware of modern cosmology, because the earth just does not sit on its pillars. There are no pillars.
Or I suppose “pillars” could be figures of speech — not understood as figurative until the Greeks proved the world to be round.
(Job 9:7 ESV) 7 who commands the sun, and it does not rise; who seals up the stars;
It’s hardly clear what is being said here. Did Job experience a time when the sun and stars were utterly blacked out by God? Or is he just saying that God could do this fearful thing should he choose to?
(Job 9:8 ESV) 8 who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the sea;
“Stretched out the heavens” sounds much like Psalm 104 — as though the stars were holes in a giant tent through which the glory of God leaks through.
Job finally concludes,
(Job 9:32-33 ESV) 32 For he is not a man, as I am, that I might answer him, that we should come to trial together. 33 There is no arbiter between us, who might lay his hand on us both.
Job’s point is that God is so utterly above and beyond him, a mere man, that he has no right to accuse God. And we can’t help but notice that it’s not necessary to be cosmologically exact to make this point. It’s true whether you have a modern view of the cosmos or an ancient one. And Job is not interested in whether the earth has pillars. He is interested in the other-ness of God.
So do we say that Job is uninspired because of his scientific naïveté? Or that he really understood the Copernican universe as we do but he chose to write in Ancient Near East terms? Or that he wrote, fully inspired, but in the language and images familiar to his immediate audience, not concerned with whether the earth really has pillars?
You see, I’m with Job. We could all stand a little humility — and none of us has any business telling God how to inspire his writers. It’s just not our place. And if God — the author of the universe — wants to let his Ancient Near Eastern writers compose brilliant poetry that speaks to the deepest parts of the nature of God himself in the language of their world, we have no business telling him that it’s wrong to do so.
We shouldn’t expect that David, or Job should know that much about creation in general much less have specific knowledge on the subject, But the writer of Genesis should at least ask a few questions before attempting to concern himself with explaining God’s work. Maybe have a proof reader that did know. Maybe we should also. Maybe we shouldn’t compare our (pea brain, as Skip said) to that of God. I know in this (pea brain) that there is a God who has done magnificent work until now, and he has my backing to continue, Thank you God.
Jay said, “Again not very Copernican. For that matter, even the Greeks figured out that the world is round — although centuries after David. So how do we take an inspired writing that says the world sits on “its foundations” when it’s just not so?”
Depends on what David had in mind. I what he wrote is absolutely true. The key is the use of the plural “foundations”. The surface of the earth has a foundation based upon many layers. There are 7 layers. There is the mantle and ultimately the foundation goes down to the solid core. The very center of the earth is a solid ball 1500 miles in diameter. Sounds like solid “foundations” to me. This IS inspired writing and is true even though David had no idea what the inner layers looked like.
If the center of a structure is actually the foundation of that structure, I am SO suing for a refund of my tuition in basic architecture…
“True” and “literally accurate” are two different things. We accept this, but only as it suits us. Why is it that we argue for the language in Ps 104 to be physically accurate, but we don’t teach the language in Ps 91:4 as being physically accurate? I don’t know whether or not God actually has feathers, but consistency in interpretation should have at least SOMEBODY arguing that He MUST have feathers, for this is what the Bible teaches, and the Bible is inerrant.
Then we can move on to “My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.”
We use the terms, “sunrise” and “sunset” today even though what we see is caused more by the spin of the earth than the movement of the sun. Yet, the literal terms imply the sun is literally moving.
This line caught my attention “Does inspiration require that the human writer have the same knowledge as the God who inspires him?” Does anyone else see the absurdity of answering “Yes” to this? I mean if the human writer has God’s knowledge then he is GOD and hardly needs inspiration – or so it seems to me.
BTW – the strength of debate (and the evident acrimony that denies Jesus plea for love) on this topic just serves to reinforce my belief that it is a “silly” debate. What I am interested in hearing is how what you believe strengthens your faith — and confidence that the God who created has allowed science to uncover the beauty and complexity of his creation — not to be arguing over the lie promoted by both atheists and some who claim to trust God that any accepting any verifiable scientific evidence that contradicts “their” ((mis)UNDERSTANDING either makes the science wrong or the Bible wrong which means there is no God. With all the love I can muster it is absurd for someone who believes that God created and has all knowledge some of which he has allowed humans to discover (scientists don’t create knowledge – they discover it and theologians don’t create knowledge they discover it and , by faith I believe the knowledge was created by the same God so true discovery cannot conflict)
Charles said, “If the center of a structure is actually the foundation of that structure, I am SO suing for a refund of my tuition in basic architecture…”
I am not convinced that David had any clue that the “world” was round. All he said was ” He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved.” David didn’t say globe. We commonly refer to the dirt under our feet as earth, or at least my family and friends have since I was a child. The novel, “The Good Earth” is not talking about the globe but the earth for crops. Mountains rest on a foundation…
Even in the Ancient Near East poetry was never to be taken literally. Besides, didn’t Job mention “the Earth hangs on nothing”? And didn’t Isaiah coin the phrase “the circle of the Earth”?
What to me is funny, is that most of us can’t even do the simple “math” of scripture.
yes this is where … 1+1=3 WHAT IS THAT THEREFORE,therefore…
col.3:12 THEREFORE, as the elect of God, holy and dearly loved,
clothe yourselves with a heart of mercy,9 kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, 3:13 bearing with one another and forgiving10 one another, if someone happens to have11 a complaint against anyone else. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also forgive others.12 3:14 And to all these13 virtues14 add15 love, which is the perfect bond.
16 3:15 Let the peace of Christ be in control in your heart (for you were in fact called as one body17 to this peace), and be thankful.
intrinsic characteristics of GOD 1+1=2
EX.34:5 The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the Lord by name.9 34:6 The Lord passed by before him and proclaimed:10 “The Lord, the Lord,11 the compassionate and gracious12 God, slow to anger,13 and abounding in loyal love and faithfulness,14 34:7 keeping loyal love for thousands,15 forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. But he by no means leaves the guilty unpunished, responding to the transgression16 of fathers by dealing with children and children’s children, to the third and fourth generation.”
WE ARE SO FORTUNATE THAT OUR GOD KNOWS HOW TO LAUGH AT OUR DIVERSITY…
🙂
Now we know that the pillars and foundations of the Earth(land?) is gravity and molten rock(what we term as the Crust).
R.J., Gravity may be a law but it is not a foundation. The molten rock (magma) is not the crust, it is lava. The crust by definition is a solid shell.
Jay said; “Actually, the creation story (a true story, mind you) is told many times in the scriptures. And I happen to like the way David tells it in Psalm 104. So that’s where we start.”
There are some here who say Jesus is from the line of David, and these same people say Jesus created everything, I suppose that would include the earth. If that is so then the earth is a lot younger than anybody has admitted.
Laymond,
How do you the topic away from creation in order to veer into your favorite topic – Jesus ain’t God? A hammer looking for a nail?
Don’t forget Jesus famous line in John 8:58 “I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” If he preexisted Abraham he preexisted David.
Laymond,
This is not the place to discuss your views on Christology once again.
Jay said:
“And if God — the author of the universe — wants to let his Ancient Near Eastern writers compose brilliant poetry that speaks to the deepest parts of the nature of God himself in the language of their world, we have no business telling him that it’s wrong to do so.”
I commented on Jay’s previous post, Apologetics: The Bible and Science, Part 3 (a Young Earth that Looks Old), and quoted more of Psalm 104. Without reposting the entire thing, I said:
“It’s poetry of course, but it paints a vivid picture of God’s heart towards his creation. Considering God’s goodness, it is hard to consider millions of years of savage, competitive, evolutionary existence, with death as an ugly reality, supposedly needed to weed out the unfit. God’s mode of creating tells us about his mind, his heart.”
The age of the earth matters because there is a huge graveyard out there that we call the fossil record, which is either the result of the Flood (God’s righteous judgement on sin) or is half a billion years worth of death and suffering before Adam sinned that was part of God’s “very good” creation. These two options paint very different pictures of God’s divine nature, but if we listen to Psalms 104, which “speaks to the deepest parts of the nature of God himself,” then it’s clear that the fossil record must be the result of the Flood and cannot represent millions of years of death and suffering.
Jim wrote,
Again, I’m not following. If the massive amount of death seen in the fossil record is the result of “God’s righteous judgement on sin,” then God killed nearly every animal on the planet to punish mankind for sin. How is this better than what the fossil record shows? Why would it be just terrible for God to allow carnivores to eat meat and floods, earthquakes, and fires happen in nature (all as happens today, too, and also was happening when Psa 104 was written) but righteous for God to kill nearly every animal on the planet by Flood?
It’s the same amount of animal death either way, and it was not the animals who sinned. I just don’t see your point.
Every Passover in Israel, hundreds of thousands of sheep were slaughtered as a Passover sacrifice to God. Every day, twice a day, a sheep was sacrificed to God in the temple. Animal death is not contrary to the will of God. In fact, going back to Abel, at least, it was a pleasing sacrifice to God because man was giving up something precious to him to honor God.
The evolutionary record reveals a world where carnivores ate meat and where animals sometimes died from a natural disaster. That happens today, too. I grew up watching Disney nature films and remember vividly films of lions running down zebras and wildebeests to eat. It’s the circle of life. And it’s how God made the world. (I assume you’re not a vegetarian and feel no pangs of guilt when you eat a hamburger.) It’s life — and beautiful unless you bring to the table attitudes foreign to scripture.
In short, if you insist on forcing a choice between death as part of the natural order things — with many deaths because animals have been on this planet for many years — or a Flood that killed innocent animals by the millions to punish man, I find far less moral concern with the first choice.
I’ll address my view on the Flood in a future post or two. But I would point out that there is the possibility that there was both a Flood and an ancient earth. It may be convenient for the sake of argument to insist on one or the other, but there are really other possibilities to consider.
Jay said:
“If the massive amount of death seen in the fossil record is the result of “God’s righteous judgement on sin,” then God killed nearly every animal on the planet to punish mankind for sin. How is this better than what the fossil record shows? Why would it be just terrible for God to allow carnivores to eat meat and floods, earthquakes, and fires happen in nature (all as happens today, too, and also was happening when Psa 104 was written) but righteous for God to kill nearly every animal on the planet by Flood?”
I would be “just terrible for God to allow carnivores to eat meat and floods, earthquakes, and fires happen in nature” if it goes against God’s character as revealed in the bible. In my comments on the previous post I made the case that scripture paints a picture of a God who delights in, cares for, and has compassion on his creation. So carnivores, floods, earthquakes, and fire would not be consistent with his nature.
Why would it be “righteous for God to kill nearly every animal on the planet by Flood?” Well why would it be righteous for God to strike down Uzzah for reaching out and touching the ark? By this I mean that I may not understand or agree with God’s actions, but I’m going to learn from Job and not try and stand in judgment of God. But the bible does seem to teach that when God judges the sin of a federal (or responsible) head of something, then that something suffers the consequences as well. For example:
1. Adam was given dominion over all creation, and when he sinned God judged the entire creation, not just man.
2. Adam was the head of the human race, so when sinned he brought death to all mankind.
3. Mankind became so wicked that the “intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth”, and God judged the entire earth with a global flood.
4. The first recorded animal death is implied by Genesis 3:21, when God made coats of skin as a covering for Adam and Eve. The whole later sacrificial system of Israel shows that God used the death of innocent animals (“without blemish”) as a covering for sin.
5. In Deuteronomy 28:15–68, God threatened to curse the land, the crops and the livestock of the Jews, as well as judging the people themselves, because of their disobedience. This threat was executed many times in Israel’s history as the people rebelled against God.
6. In Numbers 16, the entire households and possessions of Korah, Dathan and Abiram were swallowed by the ground as a result of the men’s sins.
7. In 2 Chronicles 7:12–14 we read that God’s blessing or judgment on the land is conditioned on Israel’s obedience.
8. Other verses that speak of God’s curse on the land, animals, and plants because of human sin include Jeremiah 7:20 and 12:4, Haggai 1:9–11, and Malachi 3:9–12 and 4:6.
9. In the New Testament, we see again this connection between the sin and redemption of man and the corruption and liberation of the non-human creation. Paul tells us in Romans 8:19–23, that presently the whole creation groans in slavery to corruption and futility, waiting for the final act in the redemption of Christians—giving them immortal resurrected bodies.
Jay said:
“Every Passover in Israel, hundreds of thousands of sheep were slaughtered as a Passover sacrifice to God. Every day, twice a day, a sheep was sacrificed to God in the temple. Animal death is not contrary to the will of God. In fact, going back to Abel, at least, it was a pleasing sacrifice to God because man was giving up something precious to him to honor God.”
All of those animals had to be sacrificed because “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” (Hebrews 9:22). Those animals had to be sacrificed because of man’s sin, just as Jesus ultimately had to be sacrificed to atone for all of mankind’s sin.
Jay said, “I assume you’re not a vegetarian and feel no pangs of guilt when you eat a hamburger.”
Jay, I love all God’s creatures…
(wait for it)
… on a plate with a side of mashed potatoes.
Yes, I’m a huge meat eater, so it’s a good thing that God gave all of the animals to mankind as food in Genesis 9: 1-3:
(Genesis 9: 1-3) Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. 2 The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands. 3 Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.
But in the original creation before Adam sinned, God gave mankind only plants to eat as food:
(Genesis 1:29) Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.
Genesis 9:3 makes it absolutely clear that originally mankind was only allowed to eat plants. They were not allowed to eat animals until after the flood when God said, “I now give you everything.” But wait a minute, Genesis 1: 30 says that in the original creation before Adam sinned, God gave the animals only plants to eat as food:
(Genesis 1:30) And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.
God’s intent in the original creation was for man and animals to be vegetarian, so millions of years of animals eating one another CANNOT be part of the original creation.
Also, Genesis 3:18 tells us that thorns and thistles are the result of the curse, but thorns and thistles have been found in the fossil record, so again the fossil record CANNOT represent millions of years. Now you might say that thorns and thistles already existed in the “wild” and the result of the curse was just that they would henceforth invade Adam’s garden, but the purpose of thorns is to deter animals from eating the plants. So that would contradict God’s stated purpose in Genesis 1:29-30 that all the plants would be food for both man and animals.
And note that it doesn’t matter how you interpret Genesis 1. Even if the Cosmic Temple view is correct, and Genesis 1 is referring to God’s assigning the cosmos its real intended functions prior to his taking up residence in it as his temple, Genesis 1:30 is clear that God assigned the plants as food for both man and animals. So plants having thorns or animals eating one another instead of plants would be contrary to God’s intended functions.
Jim wrote,
Hmm …
1. I will propose a different reading in a few days.
2. There is zero scientific evidence of a creation event 6,000 years ago. All the evidence points toward an ancient earth and universe. I’ve twice asked for scientific evidence of a Young Earth, and no one has offered any so far. (I have a post offering more detail on this criticism soon.)
3. If you want to believe in a 6,000-year old earth created to look ancient as a matter of faith, I have no complaint with your position — but then you have no reason to question the evidence because the evidence tells a history that never happened. However, it’s still a story told by God himself and therefore worthy of study.
4. Why didn’t the dinosaurs and numerous other species found in fossils not survive the Flood? The text says every creature with the breath of life was on the Ark. And isn’t it hard to imagine a Tyrannosaurus Rex eating only vegetables? Why would God create a creature plainly designed as a carnivore and then killed it off just before meat eating is allowed?
5. The geology of the rocks in which fossils are found are not flood deposits. I’ve cited one source for this already. Here’s another: http://www.noanswersingenesis.org.au/worldwideflood.htm
Again, belief in a young earth created to look old has none of these problems. “Scientific” Creationism has all these problems and more. But there are other approaches that work within the scriptural framework and science.
Jay said,
“There is zero scientific evidence of a creation event 6,000 years ago. All the evidence points toward an ancient earth and universe. I’ve twice asked for scientific evidence of a Young Earth, and no one has offered any so far. (I have a post offering more detail on this criticism soon.)”
I have no problem posting evidence, but I’m really not in the mood. We could spend years posting evidence back and forth to no avail. And besides, you cannot scientifically prove origins because you can’t observe it or experiment on it. You can only observe/experiment on the evidence in the present and devise a story to explain how the evidence we observe now came to be. But if you have a post coming soon then I’m sure I’ll end up commenting on it.
Jay said,
“If you want to believe in a 6,000-year old earth created to look ancient as a matter of faith, I have no complaint with your position — but then you have no reason to question the evidence because the evidence tells a history that never happened.”
Evidence doesn’t tell stories. People tell stories to explain the evidence. Just like in a trial where both the prosecution and defense call in numerous experts to explain how the same physical evidence proves two very different stories. Also, you keep throwing out this straw man argument about me believing in a 6,000-year old earth created to look ancient. No biblical creationists that I’m aware of believe that. You say the world looks old. I say it doesn’t look old; it looks horribly scarred by a global flood. We have the same evidence, but different stories to explain that evidence.
Jay said,
“Why didn’t the dinosaurs and numerous other species found in fossils not survive the Flood? The text says every creature with the breath of life was on the Ark. And isn’t it hard to imagine a Tyrannosaurus Rex eating only vegetables? Why would God create a creature plainly designed as a carnivore and then killed it off just before meat eating is allowed?”
The dinosaurs did survive the flood on the ark, but they’re probably all extinct now. Here’s an interesting article from John of Damascus who was an Arab monk, liturgical composer and renowned theologian of the Eastern (Greek) Christian church in the 8th century (c. 675–749). He argued that dragons (dinosaurs) were ordinary animals created by God and not the mythological creatures as popularly depicted in stories.
http://creation.com/dragons-animals-not-apparitions
I tried to post a comment under Apologetics: The Bible and Science, Part 3 (a Young Earth that Looks Old) with links to a number of articles about carnivores thriving on a vegetarian diet and refusing to eat meat, including lions, vultures, sharks, leopards, and spiders. So no it’s not hard to imagine a T-Rex eating only veggies. And just because an animal has big sharp teeth doesn’t make it a carnivore. The giant panda bear and the fruit bat have wicked looking teeth, but they don’t use them to tear flesh. Also, scientists have found “carnivorous” dinos that apparently had a vegetarian diet as discussed in the following article.
http://creation.com/vegetarian-theropod-dinosaurs
There are ancient accounts of people witnessing dinosaurs, either in writ or in carvings on cave walls,on stones, pottery, and in the designs of certain temples, of course all created by man, some since the time of Christ. These cannot be all explained away (though certainly dismissed by scientist with an evolutionary bent(and for good reason)). There is no other answer for these evidences but other than the people who drew or sculpted or designed these representations actually witnessed these creatures. Something evolutionary science says is impossible for they all died out many millions of years ago, at least, according to them.
Good summary Monty. Everyone, here’s some articles about human artifacts and historical records showing that humans did indeed interact with dinos. I love the pictures of the inca stones!
http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=9&article=446
http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=9&article=743
http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=9&article=1247
JIm, there is a difference in eating teeth and defensive teeth. Big and sharp is not the guide.
Common sense tells us the world has to be flat or people would fall off. As a young man, there were still men that fought in the confederacy alive in our area. It was very interesting to hear how they were taught in school and how many still believed their teachings and died believing.
All I knew had a very strong belief in a loving God that created every person with the plan on seeing them again in heaven where ever they were born or lived on this earth. Even those from “Up North.” Couldn’t imagine God Sending a spirit to be destined for hell.
All the things we have discovered for our use have been here all along from God.
Speculating on far out things is human nature, but we will never figure it out until its revealed to us by God.
Jim,
So to agree with you, I have to accept that dragons = dinosaurs? Seriously? What about unicorns? And Grendel?
Regarding the Ica stones, see http://www.skepdic.com/icastones.html and
http://pseudoarchaeology.org/b03-ross.html It’s no surprise that the cave where these were supposedly found has never been identified by the farmer, to allow for serious study of the stones.
So the farmer is a fraud, and I cannot ethically pass along his lies without participating in his fraud.
Jim wrote,
That’s okay. I am in the mood, so I’ll quote the ICR’s evidence for a 6,000-year old earth in tomorrow’s post.
Jim wrote,
Nice try, given that I’m a lawyer, but you’re actually taking a Postmodern approach to the evidence, declaring that the meaning comes from the reader/interpreter of the evidence, not the text/evidence. I disagree. I think the evidence tells stories — and I’ve been to plenty of trials in which the evidence told the story quite plainly.
Jim wrote “You cannot scientifically prove origins because you can’t observe it or experiment on it.”
Therefore, if you’re right , “scientific” creationism cannot prove its theories scientifically either. So why do you keep trying?
Jay said,
“So to agree with you, I have to accept that dragons = dinosaurs? Seriously? What about unicorns? And Grendel?”
If there was a worldwide flood and all humans are descended from Noah and family who were on the ark, then we would expect to find stories about a worldwide flood in cultures across the world, which is exactly what we find. For example, see this article.
https://answersingenesis.org/the-flood/flood-legends/flood-legends/
Similarly, if dinosaurs were in the ark and survived the flood, multiplied, and spread over the earth, then we would expect to find stories about encounters with them, and even depictions of them, from around the world, which is exactly what we find.
The word dinosaur, which meant “terrible lizard,” wasn’t coined until 1842 by Dr. Richard Owen, a famous British scientist. But throughout history prior to that, there have been stories and depictions of “terrible lizards” and a lot of smaller, no-so-terrible lizards that were called by the name dragon. And what you find is that the older references to dragons are very matter-of-fact historical accounts whereas later dragon stories have become more and more fanciful and mythical until we get the likes of Smaug in The Hobbit. Here are some historical accounts of dragons:
Chinese dragons, well-known throughout the world, even appear on China’s twelve-year calendar cycle. Eleven of these animals are common today (dog, rat, monkey, etc.), so why assume that the twelfth (a dragon) was mythological? The Travels of Marco Polo describes some of these long and lanky “serpents,” which included short legs and claws. He claimed the Chinese would use special methods to kill these dragons. Some of the dragons’ body parts were used for medicinal purposes, and others were eaten as a delicacy.
Herodotus, an ancient Greek writer, records in The Histories, “There is a place in Arabia [modern Egypt], situated very near the city of Buto, to which I went, on hearing of some winged serpents; and when I arrived there, I saw bones and spines of serpents, in such quantities as it would be impossible to describe. The form of the serpent is like that of the water snake; but he has wings without feathers, and as like as possible to the wings of a bat.”
The Roman historian Cassius Dio recounted how a Roman army once killed a dragon. The original fragment from Book 11 of his Roman History, now lost, was repeated by John of Damascus (AD ~676–749), in his book On Dragons and Ghosts: “One day, when Regulus, a Roman consul, was fighting against Carthage, a dragon suddenly crept up and settled behind the wall of the Roman army. The Romans killed it by order of Regulus, skinned it and sent the hide to the Roman senate. When the dragon’s hide, as Dio says, was measured by order of the senate, it happened to be, amazingly, one hundred and twenty feet long, and the thickness was fitting to the length.”
In the fi lm The Great Dinosaur Mystery, a number of dragon accounts are presented:
• A Sumerian story dating back to 2,000 BC or more tells of a hero named Gilgamesh, who, when he went to fell cedars in a remote forest, encountered a huge vicious dragon which he slew, cutting off its head as a trophy.
• When Alexander the Great (c. 330 BC) and his soldiers marched into India, they found that the Indians worshipped huge hissing reptiles that they kept in caves.
• England has its story of St George, who slew a dragon that lived in a cave.
• There is the story of a 10th-century Irishman who wrote of his encounter with what appears to have been a Stegosaurus.
• In the 1500s, a European scientific book, Historia Anim alium, listed several animals that we would call dinosaurs, as still alive. A well-known naturalist of the time, Ulysses Aldrovandus, recorded an encounter between a peasant named Baptista and a dragon whose description fits that of the small dinosaur Tanystropheus. The encounter was on May 13, 1572, near Bologna in Italy, and the peasant killed the dragon.
-P.S. Taylor, The Great Dinosaur Mystery, Films for Christ, Mesa, AZ, 1991. See also the book: P. Taylor, The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible, (Denver, CO: Accent Publications Inc., 1989).
And, of course, the bible mentions animals that easily fit the description of dinosaurs.
‘Behold now behemoth, which I made with you; he eats grass like an ox. See now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the muscles of his belly. He moves his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his thighs are knit together. His bones are like tubes of bronze; his limbs are like bars of iron. He is the chief of the ways of God: his maker brings near his sword’ (Job 40:15–19).
The phrase ‘chief of the ways of God’ suggests this was the largest land animal God had made. So what kind of animal was ‘behemoth’? Modern translators suggest the elephant or hippo. Besides the fact that the elephant and hippo were not the largest land animals God made (some of the dinosaurs far eclipsed these), this description does not make sense, since the tail of behemoth is compared to the large cedar tree (verse 17). But an elephant’s tiny tail (or a hippo’s tail that looks like a flap of skin!) is quite unlike a cedar tree! Clearly the elephant and the hippo could not possibly be ‘behemoth.’ No living creature comes close to this description. However, behemoth is very like Brachiosaurus, one of the large dinosaurs.
So why aren’t there dragons/dinosaurs anymore? Post-Flood climatic change, lack of food, disease, and man’s activities caused many types of animals to become extinct. The dinosaurs, like many other creatures, died out. I personally think that man had a lot to do with wiping them out, just as he has done with many other species.
Jay quoted:
“As the Ica Stones gained international popularity, the Peruvian government was forced to crack down on the law governing huaqueros (grave robbers) and those who sell antiquities on the black market. As a result the farmer was arrested, faced imprisonment but avoided jail by eventually admitting to being the one to create the numerous Ica Stones. ”
Really? Let’s reason this out here. The farmer was arrested, faced imprisonment but avoided jail by eventually admitting to being the one to create the numerous Ica Stones. Anyone think that confession was forced?
There are an estimated 15,000 Ica stones depicting dinosaurs and many other things. Do you really believe that a poor illiterate farmer (even his whole family) created all those stones? I guess his farm was doing so well that he had a lot of free time on his hands.
Jay said,
“Nice try, given that I’m a lawyer, but you’re actually taking a Postmodern approach to the evidence, declaring that the meaning comes from the reader/interpreter of the evidence, not the text/evidence. I disagree. I think the evidence tells stories — and I’ve been to plenty of trials in which the evidence told the story quite plainly.”
No, I’m not taking a Postmodern approach to the evidence, declaring that the meaning comes from the reader/interpreter of the evidence, not the text/evidence. I’m simply stating the limits of science.
If I gave a scientist a rock, he could determine the chemical composition, determine the isotope ratios, view the crystalline structure of its minerals, etc. But could the scientist measure the age of the rock? Well everyone knows you can use radiometric dating to measure the age, right? Actually not!
A radioactive isotope (parent) will decay into a daughter element. This can be modeled according to a very simple exponential equation. If you know the initial amounts of the parent and daughter elements, the final amounts of the parent and daughter elements, and the decay rate, then you can calculate the time for the decay to take place (age). However, we can only measure the final (current) amounts of the parent and daughter elements. We cannot know the initial amounts when the rock supposedly formed millions of years ago, so we have to make assumptions about those initial amounts. We also have to assume that the rock was a closed system during those millions of years such that parent or daughter elements weren’t added or removed. Finally, we have to assume that the decay rate has remained the same the entire time. Jay, were you there to verify these conditions? Does any scientist know for a fact that these assumptions are valid? If not, then you don’t know the age of the rock. You have an age based on a number of unprovable assumptions. Also, you’re implicitly denying any supernatural event that might have changed any of these conditions.
As I posted previously, creation scientists have done research based on helium diffusion rates and radiohalos that shows that there was a period of accelerated nuclear decay in the past, possibly during the creation week or during the flood, or both. Therefor the billions of years of apparent radioactive decay actually happened in a very short amount of time.
https://answersingenesis.org/geology/radiometric-dating/helium-diffusion-rates-support-accelerated-nuclear-decay/
Jay said,
“Therefore, if you’re right , “scientific” creationism cannot prove its theories scientifically either. So why do you keep trying?”
Actually Jay, what I keep trying to do is to get you to see that science hasn’t proven anything about origins. What we have is worldview-based interpretations of evidence in the present to try to determine what happened in the past. Creation scientists are the first to admit that; it’s the evolutionists and old-earth creationists who refuse to acknowledge their worldview-based assumptions.
I’m done commenting on this thread. I’m swamped with studying for a couple of exams I have to take in two weeks, and Jay’s about six posts ahead, so I’ll pick up on later posts when I get a chance.
Good luck on your exams Jim!
Jim G,
The efforts of the YE Creationists to argue from the Ica forgeries does not speak well of their reliability. Indeed, one of the flaws of the YE Creationist camp is to make any argument that might persuade, even if it creates a host of inconsistencies. For example, for every YEC article arguing that evolution is not falsifiable, there are 20 articles attempted to falsify evolution. You can’t have it both ways. The same is true of arguments the origins can’t be scientifically studied, since it all happened in the past, followed by articles claiming to scientifically prove the YEC view of origins.
And there are just so many claims that are easily shown to be bogus. I’m just not buying that dragons = living, breathing dinosaurs. It’s quite possible that the ancient Chinese etc. saw fossilized dinosaurs and concocted tales of dragons — even using fossilized bones in medicine. But if dinosaurs lived in the last 2000 years, where are the bones?
Regarding Marco Polo, who also saw a unicorn, see http://www.strangehistory.net/2011/05/30/marco-polo-meets-a-dragon/.
Jim G writes,
The farmer has not revealed the cave in which 15,000 stones were supposedly found. The stones are not easily dated. They are sold to tourists. And I’ve looked at pictures of several of them, and they look very much like forgeries — that is, too modern in style and too well preserved. The farmer is an admitted fraud.
Show me a dinosaur hide or bones that date more recent than about, say, 10,000,000 BC and I’ll be persuaded. But while there are many, many mammalian and avian fossils dated to the last 10,000,000 years, there are no dinosaurs. Why did nature stop making dinosaur fossils while making fossils of other species?
Philip Kitcher’s book on Abusing Science explains the validity of radiometric dating very persuasively.
There is zero scientific basis to believe in accelerated nuclear decay because of a global flood. The laws of physics don’t change just because they get wet. The process and laws that govern such things are very well understood, and the only basis for believing in accelerating nuclear decay is because it’s essential to make the evidence match the assumptions. Still all very circular.
What about Leviathan and Behemoth? By the way the book of Job is written and the argument is structured, there’s no way these two creatures can be anything else then God’s two mightiest creatures of that day in age. A hippo, whale, shark, nor even a modern day Crocodile can do justice when comparing to The Almighty! The metaphors just don’t fit the bill(at least not all of them).
The Behemoth tail is figuratively compared to a cedar which was the tallest tree in Palestine. Leviathan has fire leaping from it’s mouth. No creature is known today that can churn the waters like a tempest!
I once watched a special on The History Channel about a paleontological discovery of a giant prehistoric nest within a mountaintop cave. They found thoroughly-scorched human skulls and what appeared to be singe marks all around the site. The nest had a dinosaur bones within it(according to the documentary). Apparently these hunter/gatherers killed a baby dragon and were then subsequently killed by the mother afterwards.
RJ,
The History Channel is not noted for its objective journalism. And there is no evidence that dinosaurs could breathe fire — and it’s hard imagine how that might be true. What would be the mechanism that would allow an organic creature to exhale fire?
Per the New International Commentary on the OT —
John E. Hartley, The Book of Job, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1988), 524–525.
Ted Cabal et al., The Apologetics Study Bible: Real Questions, Straight Answers, Stronger Faith (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2007), 781.
And there still remains the problem of there being no dinosaur fossils dated to the last several million years.
The hippo and buffalo have been easily hunted-down and killed for millenia’s. So has the croc. There is no way that Yahweh would call a hippo chief of the ways of God. Especially when lions(even in those days) were more majestic. And why would God suddenly be talking about myths?
It is well known that fossilization is relatively rare and only happens on enclosed rocks as the oxygen that seeps through would otherwise quickly decompose the bones before any mineral exchanges occur to leave a imprint.
“What would be the mechanism that would allow an organic creature to exhale fire”?
The same that causes a bombardo beetle to shoot sparks from it’s tail or fireflies to blink light in the night air.
“There are an estimated 15,000 Ica stones depicting dinosaurs and many other things. Do you really believe that a poor illiterate farmer ”
The Inca Stones are dismissed by those with a “dinosaur died off billions of years ago” bent. However, I believe there are simply too many stones with all kinds of wild stuff on them, some pornographic in nature. Also the patina proves they are of an older time period. Also many art works and carvings of the past 2000 years with precise looking depictions of dinosaurs the way they are reconstructed today. A carving of a stegosaurus on a Buddhist temple in Thailand or somewhere in that area. Carving is hundreds of years old. Can’t explain them all away. A triceratops stone or clay model I remember seeing of ancient origin. A brontosaurus etching on a cliff wall in the Desert Southwest of Indian time period last 1500 years.
Monty,
When someone shows me a fossil dinosaur less than 65 million years old, then I’ll believe that dinosaurs have been around more recently than 65 million years ago. We have kazillions of fossils dated much more recently than 65 million years, and the YE Creationists have no scientific explanation for the gap.
On the other hand, I would be THRILLED to discover that dinosaurs are still around or were recently. I love dinosaurs. And if they could breathe fire like a dragon or Godzilla, all the better! But it’s hard to explain how dinosaurs suddenly stopped being fossilized so long ago while other types of animals continued to be fossilized.
RJ,
Firefly light is cool (temperature wise). It’s just light. I’ve caught many a firefly barehanded. But bombardier beetles are a much better example. (For a criticism of the YE Creationism use of these insects in their arguments, see http://ncse.com/cej/2/1/bombardier-beetle-myth-exploded.) But I suppose a dinosaur could spray very hot liquids at an enemy bombardier beetle style.
PS — I’m a huge Godzilla fan. I’ve seen every single one of the movies, and the one in theatres now is a lot of fun. Godzilla, of course, exhales nuclear radiation in lieu of dragon fire.
“We are pleased to announce the addition of a world-class dinosaur skeleton, an Allosaurus fragilis, to the array of exceptional exhibits at the Creation Museum. Recently donated to the museum, this specimen is believed to have one of the six or seven best-preserved Allosaurus skulls ever discovered.
An allosaur, sometimes confused with T. rex, was a large theropod dinosaur. The museum’s new dinosaur probably stood 10-feet high and was 30-feet long. It is one of a number of Allosaurus fossils uncovered in the Morrison Formation of North America. Amazingly, more than half its bones were recovered—the skull even has 53 teeth still in place.
Answers in Genesis geologist Dr. Andrew Snelling says the new allosaur “stands out for a few major reasons. It was found with its bones arranged in their correct anatomical positions relative to each other, rather than in a scattered assortment of bones as is often the case. Also, all its neck and tail vertebrae and 97% of the skull were found. Lastly, the skull is much larger than the famous ‘Big Al’ dinosaur at the Museum of the Rockies in Montana.”
Dr. Snelling added that the intact skeleton of this allosaur is a testimony to an extremely rapid burial, which is confirmation of the global catastrophe of a Flood a few thousand years ago.
Ken Ham, president and founder of the Creation Museum and Answers in Genesis, stated that this skeleton, dubbed Ebenezer, “fulfills a dream I’ve had for quite some time. For decades I’ve walked through many leading secular museums, like the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., and have seen their impressive dinosaur skeletons, but they were used for evolution. Now we have one of that class for our museum.”
One blessing in getting the allosaur was that the Creation Museum did not seek it out. Michael Peroutka, one of the board members of the Foundation, says that this fossil is a testimony to the creative power of God and also lends evidence to the truth of a worldwide catastrophic flooding of the earth about 4,500 years ago as described in the Bible. In order to ensure that the display of the fossil represented this teaching, the Peroutka Foundation donated the fossil to the Creation Museum.
The skull and the completely reconstructed skeleton is now on display; the exhibit opened Memorial Day weekend. The museum’s talented design team excitedly took on the enormous task of designing an exhibit to feature this phenomenal skull and the rest of its bones.
The Creation Museum already has excellent dinosaur-related exhibits, including dinosaur eggs and bones plus realistic animatronic models. As Ken Ham stated, “While evolutionists use dinosaurs more than anything to promote their worldview, especially to young students, our museum uses dinosaurs to help tell the account of history according to the Bible. This remarkable allosaur is a great addition to our dinosaur exhibits. It’s been a pleasure to work with the Peroutka Foundation, which wants to use this great fossil in a God-honoring way.”
Plan to visit us to meet Ebenezer, the amazing Allosaurus, a testimony to the truth of God’s Word.”
http://creationmuseum.org/whats-here/exhibits/allosaur/
So the bones are dated by assumption. If there was any real evidence of recent age, such as arrowheads or the presence of mammalian bones in the same strata, I’m sure we’d be told.
That site only debunked the claim that evolution couldn’t explain the bombardier beetle.
Plus there was a T. Rex found with blood still attached to the bone.
“SAUROPODS / APATOSAURUS ( Dinosaur ) depicted on ancient cylinder seal?
An ancient ( Egyptian ) Mesopotamian cylinder seal, dated at 3300 BC.”
“The head displays the biggest difference. The artists depiction of the Cartilage forming the shape of a frill or ears may be stylized or accurate ( as there is no way to know from the skeletons we have today). The skill with which the egyptian artist has captured the musculature of the animal is demonstrated with stunning realism.”
“It must be asked, where did the artist or how did the artist conjure up such an accurate image of what we today call dinosaurs?”
“COULD IT BE THAT DINO’S AND MAN ACTUALLY LIVED ALONGSIDE ONE ANOTHER, and very recently?”
“JUST WHAT DOES IT MEAN IF MAN AND DINOSAUR CO-EXISTED?
Louis Jacobs, former president of the society of Vertebrate Paleontology ……”Such an association (man and dinosaur) would dispel an Earth with vast antiquity. The entire history of creation, including the day of rest, could be accommodated in the seven biblical days of the ……Genesis myth. EVOLUTION WOULD BE VANQUISHED.”
Mr Jacobs does not hold to the biblical worldview, this is obvious by his calling the Genesis account myth, but he clearly understands that if man and dinosaurs co-existed then it is the final nail in the coffin for the Evolutionary Paradigm.
From the evidence that is available, which spans every tribe and nation globally, it is obvious that man and dinosaurs co-existed. The very book (Bible , Word of God ) he attempts to claim as myth contains eyewitness accounts of what are clearly known by us today as DINOSAURS.”
http://gen1rev22.blogspot.com/2011/09/sauropods-apatosaurus-dinosaur-depicted.html
Grace, this hoax is debunked at http://www.stupiddinosaurlies.org/2014/02/the-pseudo-dragons-of-genesis-park-part_1493.html
A close up picture shows that these “dinosaurs” have feline or lion-like heads. The article explains.
A close look at the picture on the website demonstrates that these are not remotely dinosaurs.
How many times do we have to run into such false claims by Creation “scientists” to realize that they cannot be taken seriously?
RJ,
The blood in the T Rex bone is interesting — fascinating even — but is hardly evidence that the bone is less than 6,000 years old. After all, under ordinary conditions, the soft tissues would have decayed to nothing in FAR less than 6,000 years. If the YE Creationists are real scientists, then to make their point, they have to show that the bone was preserved in conditions that would allow blood to survive 6,000 years but not 65 million years. That would be actual science. And it’s not an unreasonable question to ask.
I’ve looked and can find no report of YE Creationists doing such an experiment or analysis.
Here’s an article confirming that real dinosaur cells were found: http://www.nature.com/news/molecular-analysis-supports-controversial-claim-for-dinosaur-cells-1.11637
However, the test was done using enzymes that react only to BIRD cells — because current thinking is that birds evolved from dinosaurs. And amazingly enough, molecules that react only to bird cells also reacted to the dinosaur tissue. Hence, a prediction of orthodox evolution theory is confirmed.
Moreover, they found evidence of (get this) feathers! Again, evolutionary biologists had expected this, not that the opinion was unanimous, since feathers on a T Rex seems so weird, but this again confirms the theory based on the observation of the fossil record that birds evolved from dinosaurs.
I well remember reading YE Creationist articles as a teenager arguing that birds could not have evolved from dinosaurs because dinosaurs don’t have feathers. Well, some of them really did. Obviously they weren’t for flying — the T Rex arms are WAY too short. So they must have been for controlling body temperature — again contradicting YEC claims that feathers for animals that can’t fly would provide no survival value.
So this is hardly a slam dunk victory for YE Creationists.
The real question is whether we can get tickets for Jurassic Park! It won’t be long before someone finds some DNA from a dinosaur and we have a T Rex in a zoo. Then again, things did not turn out well at all for the lawyer in the movie.
So anything that is proof the Creation in Genesis is truth and not a myth, you are going to write it off as a hoax and make snide remarks saying Christians who have a diifferent finding than Evolution can’t be taken seriously.
You say it doesn’t look remotely like a dinosaur, I say it looks a lot like a dinosaur.
The links going through so much evidence and the biblical accounts about man and dinosaurs living at the same time, you say we shouldn’t take seriously. You can make snide remarks at me too if you want, but that is too much evidence to all be witten off a hoax. Call me a silly Christian that shouldn’t be taken seriously, but the evidence written in the Bible is too much truth to write it off a myth.
So T. Rex is no longer a reptile but a bird-interesting.
A giant flightless bird.
A lot of scientists are starting to abandon the asteroid theory. My opinion(for what it’s worth) is that God simply withdrew his spirit instantly after each epoch and all living things simply collapsed harmlessly(isn’t there a psalm that alludes to this?).
Maya paintings at Mexico’s Bonampak shows the Indians carrying a dinosaur head that they are getting ready to sacrifice to their gods.
http://s152.photobucket.com/user/Kquinn856/media/dinosaurhead.jpg.html
In Glenn rose Texas, there are giant man tracks alongside dinosaur tracks that were left behind in the prehistoric mud that have turned to solid stone all along the length of the Paluxy River. Excavation teams have used backhoes to dig further back from the river bank to uncover additional tracks that are buried under 7 to 8 foot of lime stone layers and dirt, to prove that these 16” to 18” man tracks were not a man made hoax. This is clear evidence all along the Paluxy River in the rocks, that man and dinosaurs lived at the same time. X-rays of the dinosaur and man foot prints show that they were made by compressed mud, resulting in a higher density of rock at the surface of the print, proving the authenticity of the tracks.
http://s152.photobucket.com/albums/s175/Kquinn856/?action=view¤t=Dinosaur-manfootprints.jpg
The longest dinosaur trails are found on the Turkmenian plateau in Turkey, where ther are over three thousand dinosaur tracks and human footprints found together. The evidence of these discoveries are staggering. The fact that human and dinosaur footprints have been found next to each other at 2 to 3 different sites is a huge blow to Evolution theories. Both Russian and Turkmenistan scientists have verified these human and dinosaur footprints as evidence that is hard to dismiss. There is nothing short of astonishing that in an atheist communist empire which holds strictly to evolutionary dogma, would admit to the possibility of humans and dinosaurs living at the same time.
http://s152.photobucket.com/user/Kquinn856/media/Dinosaurtracks4.jpg.html
There have been many cave drawings found in places such as the Grand Canyon, in ravines, various caves and other places. In national Bridges State Park, there are petroglyphs of dinosaurs by the Anazi Indians, 400-1500 A.D. An Indian pictograph found in the Havasupai Canyon in the Grand Canyon shows men hunting dinosaurs. Human and dinosaur Fossil bones and primitive tools have been found in the same fossil layers in Texas and the Dakotas. Footprints of humans and dinosaurs existing together in Texas and New Mexico. Cave and cliff drawings in Utah and Colorado of dinosaurs dating from 400 A.D. to 1300 A.D.
http://s152.photobucket.com/user/Kquinn856/media/Dinosaur.jpg.html
http://s152.photobucket.com/user/Kquinn856/media/Dinosaur4.jpg.html
Record of the Greek historian Herodotus and the Jewish historian Josephus described flying reptiles in ancient Egypt and Arabia.
Isaiah 30:6 “Through a land of trouble and anguish, From which came the lioness and lion, The viper and fiery flying serpent.”
This is a Nile Mosaic from Palestrina dated 100 A.D.
http://s152.photobucket.com/albums/s175/Kquinn856/?action=view¤t=Dinosaur7.jpg
In Israel there is an ancient Roman town in Golan Heights were there is a Jewish synagogue called Umm El-Kanatir that was inhabited between 400-749 A.D. when it was destroyed by a major earthquake. And as they were excavating in 2003 they found a stone caring into the base of one of the pillars, with two dinosaurs attacking a horse.
http://s152.photobucket.com/user/Kquinn856/media/dinosaur6.jpg.html
I tried to post and I think the several links attached to it kept it from showing. I will post them separately.
Maya paintings at Mexico’s Bonampak shows the Indians carrying a dinosaur head that they are getting ready to sacrifice to their gods.
http://s152.photobucket.com/user/Kquinn856/media/dinosaurhead.jpg.html
In Glenn rose Texas, there are giant man tracks alongside dinosaur tracks that were left behind in the prehistoric mud that have turned to solid stone all along the length of the Paluxy River. Excavation teams have used backhoes to dig further back from the river bank to uncover additional tracks that are burred under 7 to 8 foot of lime stone layers and dirt, to prove that these 16” to 18” man tracks were not a man made hoax. This is clear evidence all along the Paluxy River in the rocks, that man and dinosaurs lived at the same time. X-rays of the dinosaur and man foot prints show that they were made by compressed mud, resulting in a higher density of rock at the surface of the print, proving the authenticity of the tracks.
http://s152.photobucket.com/albums/s175/Kquinn856/?action=view¤t=Dinosaur-manfootprints.jpg
The longest dinosaur trails are found on the Turkmenian plateau in Turkey, where ther are over three thousand dinosaur tracks and human footprints found together. The evidence of these discoveries are staggering. The fact that human and dinosaur footprints have been found next to each other at 2 to 3 different sites is a huge blow to Evolution theories. Both Russian and Turkmenistan scientists have verified these human and dinosaur footprints as evidence that is hard to dismiss. There is nothing short of astonishing that in an atheist communist empire which holds strictly to evolutionary dogma, would admit to the possibility of humans and dinosaurs living at the same time.
http://s152.photobucket.com/user/Kquinn856/media/Dinosaurtracks4.jpg.html
There have been many cave drawings found in places such as the Grand canyon, in ravines, various caves and other places. In national Bridges State Park, there are petroglyphs of dinosaurs by the Anazi Indians, 400-1500 A.D. An Indian pictograph found in the Havasupai Canyon in the Grand Canyon shows men hunting dinosaurs. Human and dinosaur Fossil bones and primitive tools have been found in the same fossil layers in Texas and the Dakotas. Footprints of humans and dinosaurs existing together in Texas and New Mexico. Cave and cliff drawings in Utah and Colorado of dinosaurs dating from 400 A.D. to 1300 A.D.
http://s152.photobucket.com/user/Kquinn856/media/Dinosaur.jpg.html
Other link will be below this post.
http://s152.photobucket.com/user/Kquinn856/media/Dinosaur4.jpg.html
Record of the Greek historian Herodotus and the Jewish historian Josephus described flying reptiles in ancient Egypt and Arabia.
Isaiah 30:6 “Through a land of trouble and anguish, From which came the lioness and lion, The viper and fiery flying serpent.”
This is a Nile Mosaic from Palestrina dated 100 A.D.
http://s152.photobucket.com/albums/s175/Kquinn856/?action=view¤t=Dinosaur7.jpg
In Israel there is an ancient Roman town in Golan Heights were there is a Jewish synagogue called Umm El-Kanatir that was inhabited between 400-749 A.D. when it was destroyed by a major earthquake. And as they were excavating in 2003 they found a stone caring into the base of one of the pillars, with two dinosaurs attacking a horse.
http://s152.photobucket.com/user/Kquinn856/media/dinosaur6.jpg.html
Grace,
Yesterday I put up a post asking the readers not to post more YE creationist claims without first checking the Internet to find a link to an article contradicting the claim. It’s important that you read and study both sides — and since so many of their claims are bogus, none of us should participate in spreading error. Moreover, for your own sake, you owe it to yourself to hear the other side.
It’s very typical of these kinds of discussions that the YE Creationists makes some claims, that are then debunked, and rather that changing positions or expressing gratitude for being shown the error, the YE Creationist just dumps another load of YE Creationist claims, refusing to acknowledge that the previous claims are wrong — and sometimes even fraudulent.
I am not going to respond any more the YEC claims, because so far, they’ve all been shown to be either false or irrelevant. And frankly, even if you produced a live T Rex in my backyard, you wouldn’t have proved that the earth is young — only that dinosaurs have lived 65 million years on the earth. There are many other species that have been around even longer.
As is typical of YEC tactic, the argument is —
* The scientist made a mistake
* Therefore, everything they say is false
* therefore, YE Creationism is true.
It’s really bad logic.
Jay said: “As is typical of YEC tactic, the argument is –* The scientist made a mistake * Therefore, everything they say is false * therefore, YE Creationism is true. It’s really bad logic.”
Yet, this is the same exact logic that Jay uses with his view opposed to the Biblical Creationist view (or as Jay has deemed to label anyone opposed to his view, YEC).
Jay, you assume that anyone in disagreement with your view hasn’t read different findings and views contradicting to theirs. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn’t mean they haven’t read contradicting articles. As an example, I have read many articles by atheist that are contradicting to the Bible and an existing God, by people who have brilliant minds. Though their findings contradict the Bible and God, I still do not accept their findings to be true that the Bible is false and God is not real.
At Bluff Park in Birmingham, as a child many of us used to go look at the footprints in stone along with what was called dinosaur tracks. The most interesting explanation I heard was those little front feet was like human feet and occasionally while resting they put them down like a Kangaroo does today.
Once while digging a footing we found a cats skeleton and there were feathers mixed in the bones. We didn’t think it flew, just that it fell in a hole and died while chasing a bird of some kind.
Many years ago, a science teacher, dead now, brought a skeleton to school of a dog that died with a chipmunk head coming out its butt. He told the story that this creature lived long ago and ate meat with the mouth in front, and ate seeds with the one in back. Had a very varied diet. How that was debated.
God made us humans with great imaginations!!!
1Co 1:19 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
1Co 1:20 Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
1Co 1:21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
1Co 1:25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
If the discussion going on here don’t prove that God kept another promise that he made, I don’t know what would.
As Alabama John said about sitting on the tailgate listening to the hounds run, and discussing God’s creation is great fun, but that is where it belongs . sounds as if everyone here has a sip or two of that good old “white lightening”. because everyone here is claiming stuff they don’t know anything about. I am willing to let God do Godly things, while I do things meant for man to do.
Laymond, Sorry that these discussions are beyond your depth.
What about all the eyewitness accounts of seeing a live pterodactyl, Nessie, or Champ? Not all of these claims are bogus. Could it be that God has kept a dinosaur remnant alive today(what scientists call an evolutionary crack)?
Hey, I personally visited Loch Ness and never saw the monster. 🙂
Neanderthals are pretty common here in Alabama
Skip,
what is being discussed here is Ned in the first reader compared to what is discussed on a tailgate. Just get a bunch of old men around and bring out a simple compass and here we go!
Skip, thanks for your words of condolence, I am just afraid if I ever go that deep into thought I might not ever recover. Skip at least you believed enough to go look, for Nessie , there are certain things I just can’t bring myself to believe.