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Since childhood, I’ve always been fascinated by dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures. The small library at the church I attended as a child had a children’s encyclopedia set with many pages of artists’ interpretations of prehistoric life. I loved looking at all the strange and wonderful creatures. Other books, TV programs, and museums also contributed to this interest.

The above photo shows my brother Eugene and I on an imaginary horned turtle from the Flintstones cartoon. Although such a creature probably never existed, there have been some remotely similar fossilized creatures. I have always thought the ankylosaurus was very cool.

The Puzzle

From a creationist standpoint, the disappearance of the dinosaurs (or their rediscovery as fossils) is somewhat of a mystery.

Today, most Christians who believe in a short age of life on earth (6,000–10,000 years) tend to adopt one of several views:

1. Dinosaurs were created by God, and probably were on Noah’s Ark; they died out later.
2. Dinosaurs were created by Satan, and thus were not preserved through the Flood.
3. The existence of dinosaurs is an unsolved mystery.

Options in the Adventist View

Seventh-day Adventists have an interesting perspective on dinosaurs, since our cofounder, Ellen White, is regarded as an inspired authority, and gives some scant but intriguing insights about dinosaurs and fossils. She never had much to say on the subject (there are only seven instances of the word “fossils” on the 1998 CD-ROM of her writings, and these are just repeated references to a single travelog; the word “dinosaur” does not occur), but her few comments are sufficiently interesting that they are well-known throughout the church where her writings are readily available.

Amalgamations: By far her most well-known comment on these extinct creatures is from Spiritual Gifts, Volume 3, 75, where she says, “Every species of animal which God had created were preserved in the ark. The confused species which God did not create, which were the result of amalgamation, were destroyed by the flood.” (Note that her use of “species” in this case, written in 1864, is not necessarily the same as our usage today.) This statement is so common that many take it as the be-all, end-all of an Adventist view of dinosaurs. Dinosaurs were somehow created by blending qualities of existing creatures to make new forms. Many who hold this view believe that those people living before the Flood were not primitive, but were a highly intelligent and advanced race; and somehow they were directly involved in the “amalgamation” of the creatures God had created. However, this is not a view that Ellen White herself directly endorses or elaborates on. (Ellen White says elsewhere that Satan is involved in the process of amalgamation, such as the creation of “noxious herb[s].”)

Left behind: Another statement from Ellen White says, “There were a class of very large animals which perished at the flood. God knew that the strength of man would decrease, and these mammoth animals could not be controlled by feeble man.” (Spiritual Gifts, Volume 4A, 121.) Apparently some creatures were not taken on the ark simply because they were too big and would have been a problem for humankind after the Flood. This statement is far less known, but is very significant. She does not say what kind of problem these animals would have caused, and so it is not clear if she meant competition from plant-eaters, or threats from predation, or a combination of the two. But it it certainly a significant concept, since many dinosaurs were very, very big.

A further aspect of this “left behind” category is that it seems no marine animals were taken aboard the ark. We are told in the Bible that land animals walked in by twos and sevens, and birds came by twos and sevens. However, marine life was apparently left to fend for itself. Thus, the marine creatures alive today are the ones that happened to survive the Flood and post-Flood conditions. Ellen White also says that God did not preserve all the original plant kinds, and the ones He did preserve happened to be some that Noah took on the ark and some that providentially survived the Flood (Spiritual Gifts, Volume 3, 76–77); this adds weight to the view that the ark may have contained only a representative collection of the basic, essential species, and that it was not God’s plan to preserve every variety.

I find this element of Ellen White’s view encouraging, because unlike some other Adventists and other Christians, I think many of the dinosaurs may have been beautiful and interesting animals, and I would be pleased to see them when the world is recreated. Personally I think it would be quite fun to fly around on the back of a pterosaur like Quetzalcoatlus.

Early extinction: We have no definitive statements from the Bible or Ellen White on this topic, but it is certainly possible that some dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures became extinct prior to the Flood. Most believers in a short history of life on earth think as many as 2,000 years or so passed between Creation and the Flood. The Bible tells us that in those years the earth was filled with violence (Genesis 6:11–12). Ellen White adds, concerning the exceedingly corrupt people of that time, “They loved to destroy the lives of animals” (Spiritual Gifts, Volume 3, 63–64). Considering how many animals have gone extinct in the last 2,000 years (A.D. 1 – A.D. 2000), it is certainly possible that many may have died off in those first 2,000 years. Perhaps the remains of some pre-Flood extinction creatures were preserved by the Flood.

Later extinction: Some Adventists, and other Christians as well, believe that some dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures may have been preserved on the ark, and later became extinct. This is the view held by the Christian group Answers in Genesis. Some of these believe this is the basis of tales of dragons and such that persisted well into the Middle Ages and beyond. This view is plausible at least to an extent, because we have very good evidence that many large prehistoric creatures (not necessarily dinosaurs per se) survived well into and past the so-called Ice Age.

However, it is also possible that early discoveries of fossils contributed to belief in dragons and monsters. After all, many of the most educated in Europe believed in unicorns until the 1600s or later, on the basis of “unicorn horns” that were circulated far and wide (now believed to have been narwhale horns, rhinoceros horns, etc.). In fact, I recently found a page from an old Bible that shows unicorns going into Noah’s ark. With that in mind, it is not hard to imagine how the discovery of something like a dinosaur skull could inspire all sorts of fanciful conclusions. Belief in dragons and various mythical creatures was widespread, and not merely by the uneducated.

Conclusions

Personally I look forward to seeing all the wonderful animals God made, in Heaven and in the new Earth. And I also suspect that throughout the universe there are many other amazing creatures, different from the ones we have here.

As for the dinosaurs, we don’t have everything spelled out for us as to their origins and cause of demise. But with an open mind we can keep learning and appreciating what we do know.

Tags: dinosaurs

This entry was posted on Friday, November 6th, 2009 at 3:45 pm and is filed under Seventh-day Adventist. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.