Dinosaurs

 

DINOSAURS

     I felt fortunate that the dinosaur I was petting didn't turn around and bite my arm off.  We saw this mural on the wall of a business in Norfolk, in a charming little area called Chelsea.  Of course, I couldn't pass up an opportunity to become part of the picture.  Fun!

     It's also cool that I'm shown standing beside a dinosaur, because there was a time - early in earth's history that people may have interacted with at least some species of dinosaur.  I doubt the T-Rex was ever warm and fuzzy, but some of the plant-eating variety might not have been so dangerous.

     I know the popular belief is that dinosaurs became extinct before man came on the scene, but not only are scientist and historians disproving that belief more frequently now, the Bible has a couple of important facts to add to the dialogue.

     One of my favorite sections regarding this is found in the ancient book of Job.  There, God not only describes what appears to be a brontosaurus (or maybe an apatosaurus), but talks about it being an animal Job is familiar with.  Here's a bit of the scripture:  "Look now at the behemoth, which I made along with you; he eats grass like an ox.  See now, his strength is in his hips, and his power is in his stomach muscles.  He moves his tail like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are tightly knit.  His bones are like beams of bronze, his ribs like bars of iron..." 40:15-18.  I'd say that's a pretty good description of a dinosaur.

     Of course, in Genesis 1, when God describes His creation of the earth and all that's in it, He tells us that He created all the land animals on the sixth day of creation - which would include all the dinosaurs.  

     Another of my favorite proofs is found on an 800 year old carving at an ancient Hindu temple Ta Prohm in Angkor Wat, Cambodia.  All of the stone carvings at this temple are of real animals the people would have interacted with.  This carving bears a striking resemblance to a stegosaurus.  How would these people have been able to carve such a beast if they had not seen one?

       Over the centuries of written history, there have been many sightings of dinosaurs.  The word "dinosaur" was not coined until 1842 by Richard Owen.  Prior to that, the beasts were often called "dragons."  In the third century, Flavius Philostratus wrote, "The whole of India is girt with dragons of enormous size; for not only the marshes are full of them, but the mountains as well, and there is not a single ridge without one.  Now the marsh kind are sluggish in their habits and are thirty cubits long (that’s 45 feet long), and they have no crest standing up on their heads.”

      An unexpected scientific discovery in 2000 of “elastic, like living tissue” from inside the femur of a recently excavated Tyrannosaurus fossil nicknamed “B. rex” was an incredible discovery.  A report read:  “It looked like the soft tissue you would have expected to find if it had been modern bone. This was impossible. This bone was 68 million years old!” The report stated that “being a fossil, there should have been nothing left. But there was.”

      In recent decades, soft, squishy tissues have been discovered inside fossilized dinosaur bones more frequently. Scientists admit, they seem so fresh that it appears as though the bodies were buried only a few thousand years ago.  

     I know that this post is controversial and yet I decided to write it anyway.  I think it's nice to look at things from a new perspective and think outside the box. I'd love to hear what you think about this subject.  I'll end with these words from Ecclesiastes 3:  "To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven...He has made everything beautiful in its time," 1 & 11.