Do the existence of dinosaurs contradict biblical creation?
The subject of dinosaurs captures the fancy of every school kid. They are told that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago, long before any human walked upon the earth. In this way, many children are introduced to the doctrine of evolution.
Is the existence of dinosaur fossils embedded deep in the earth clear proof that the earth is countless ages old and that life must have evolved? That depends upon what standard of knowledge you accept about the past. No one can travel back in time to make firsthand observations of what things were like, so we must make basic assumptions about what had to happen. Either you assume that natural forces were sufficient to have produced all life over vast ages or you assume that they were not sufficient and that God must have done it as the Bible says. Science cannot provide final answers to this question, since the same data could be "explained" by different theories or made to fit a favorite theory. So what you are left with is either faith in natural forces or faith in God.
The existence of dinosaur fossils does not by any means invalidate history as found in the Bible. Vast ages are not necessary for the formation of the earth's sedimentary rocks and the fossils within them. The Flood of Noah, along with other primeval catastrophes, could have formed the rock layers quite quickly, and a global change of weather following the Flood could have led to the extinction of all reptiles programmed for survival in warmer and wetter environments. The fact that fossil bones are found jumbled together in great heaps argues for their deposition during the Flood.
But if dinosaurs became extinct relatively recently, doesn't that mean that man and dinosaur lived at the same time?
Yes, it does, and there is evidence for that both from the Bible and from other books. Legends of men confronting dinosaur-like creatures abound in folktales from around the world. The many tales of a gallant warrior slaying a mighty dragon may not be all folk fiction after all.
Many people may not realize that the book of Job mentions two beasts whose descriptions sound very much like dinosaurs. In Job 40, we read of behemoth with its tail like that of a massive cedar. In chapter 41, we find leviathan – a dragon-like creature that may have been a stegosaurus, judging from verse 15: "His back has rows of shields tightly sealed together …"
Dinosaurs are no surprise to the Bible. We need not bow to the evolutionists' view that dinosaurs died out millions of years ago and that the Bible's account of the past is false.