Bible Question: Is it not laughable to think of dinosaurs in the ark?

Bible Question:In your response to the existence of dinosaurs, you mentioned that God created them on the fifth and sixth days and that they were alive during the time of Noah. How do you respond to the fact that carbon dating has displayed that dinosaurs have been extinct for tens of millions of years ago whereas human existence cannot be traced back more than a couple hundred thousand years? Anthropologists have never found civilizations with any record of the dinosaurs. Don't you find it laughable to think of Noah herding a brontosaurus onto the Ark? Such is the case that the days of the creation of the heavens and earth could not have occurred in the true 24-hour time span of our language, but rather in periods of time.

Bible Answer: The fundamental issue here is not carbon dating and gigantic dinosaurs, but the acceptance of the fact that God can accomplish anything that He desires. The second issue is that a careful reading of the biblical account will help one understand that God's sequence of events supports immediate life. Now lets look closely at the two questions.

Carbon Dating Indicates An Old Earth? - First, evolutionists ignore creationists' fundamental belief and premise that the universe was created in an aged condition in seven days (Gen. 1). If a creationist would choose to agree with the evolutionists’ insistence that the carbon dating technique is absolutely accurate, a creationist would in essence agree that carbon dating only confirms the belief that the universe and this earth were created in an aged condition. The universe only appears to be old. Many creationists would not disagree with evolutionists that carbon dating indicates the earth is old. Creationists just disagree that the earth is actually millions or billions of years old. Creationists believe that the earth was created in a mature or aged condition and the worldwide flood described in Genesis 6-9 only further contributed to the aged appearance, mixing the layers of earth, scarring the surface of the planet, and burying animal and human skeletal remains under tons of soil and rock.

Plants and trees had to be created on the third day (Gen. 1:9-13) otherwise, how could the birds and water life (Gen. 1:20-23), and the animals and Adam and Eve (Gen. 1:24-26) have something to eat and drink on the fifth and sixth days of creation? An aged planet is what Genesis describes and this answers all of the key questions, unless one does not believe in God. God can do anything He likes, and He did. So carbon dating is not even a factor in the discussion of evolution versus creation. Carbon dating or any other dating technique only states that the earth looks old, and Genesis agrees that it does look old. God made it appear to be old. Minerals were needed to grow plants. Tall trees, fruit trees, bushes, blackberry vines, water falls, rivers, flowering plants, and vines would have been necessary to feed both animals and humans. With the addition of a cataclysmic worldwide flood, the earth appears to be old in every way.

How Could Dinosaurs Be On The Ark? - Most of the dinosaurs would have remained on the earth and died in the worldwide flood that is reported in the book of Genesis and referred to by many civilizations around the world. The well known author Graham Hancock wrote these words about a worldwide flood in Fingerprints of the Gods,

How far and how widely across the myth memories of mankind do the ripples of the great flood spread? Very widely indeed. More than 500 deluge legends are known around the world and, in a survey of 86 of these (20 Asiatic, 3 European, 7 African, 46 American, and 10 from Australia and the Pacific), the specialist researcher Dr. Richard Andree concluded that 62 were entirely independent of the Mesopotamian and Hebrew accounts.[1]

From page 187 through 199, the author cites select legend after legend. The view that a worldwide flood occurred is more than a Christian or Jewish concept. If we are willing to admit that maybe these ancients experienced something that we do not completely understand, then we have another factor to consider. Those who were not in the ark would have died and been buried beneath the sediment and rock. With tons of sediment compressing the animals and humans, fossilization would have occurred rapidly. Dinosaurs would have been frozen in ice in the north and south poles. The earth looks old! If we can make things look old today, how much more capable is God?

Regarding the issue of the brontosaurus being in Noah’s ark (Gen. 6-9), one must remember that it was not necessary to take adult animals into the ark. In fact, it would have been a mistake to put adult animals on the ark. Young dinosaurs or young animals would have been best for future breeding. It is common knowledge that the young are better suited for survival and raising children. So Noah could have taken very young dinosaurs on board the ark. Their bodies would have been small. Since only one couple of each species was required, they would have easily fit into the ark. You have identified one of the larger dinosaurs, but not every dinosaur was that large. Here is a very important quote,

According to Genesis 6: 15, Noah was commanded to make "the length of the ark three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and! the height of it thirty cubits." The first question to be considered, of course, is the length of the cubit as used in this passage. The Babylonians had a "royal" cubit of about 19.8 inches, the Egyptians had a longer and a shorter cubit of about 20.65 inches and 17.6 inches respectively, while the Hebrews apparently had a long cubit of 20.4 inches (Ezek. 40: 5) and a common cubit of about 17.5 inches.

While it is certainly possible that the cubit referred to in Genesis 6 was longer than 17.5 inches, we shall take this shorter cubit as the basis for our calculations. According to this standard, the Ark was 437.5 feet long, 72.92 feet wide, and 43.75 feet high. Since it had three decks (Gen. 6: 16), it had a total deck area of approximately 95,700 square feet (equivalent to slightly more than the area of twenty standard college basketball courts), and its total volume was 1,396,000 cubic feet. The gross tonnage of the Ark (which is a measurement of cubic space rather than weight, one ton in this case being equivalent to 100 cubic feet of usable storage space) was about 13,960 tons, which would place it well within the category of large metal ocean-going vessels today.

. . . With all the means later at their disposal, subsequent builders for 4000 years constructed seaworthy vessels that seldom seem to have exceeded 150 to 200 feet at the most. The Queen Mary has a total length of 1018 feet which is not very much more than twice the length of the Ark. It was not until 1884 apparently that a vessel, the Eturia, a Cunard liner, was built with a length exceeding that of the Ark!

The Scriptures, however, do not suggest that Noah and his three sons had to construct the Ark without the help of hired men. Nevertheless, we agree that the sheer massiveness of the Ark staggers the imagination. In fact, this is the very point of our argument: for Noah to have built a vessel of such magnitude simply for the purpose of escaping a local flood is inconceivable. The very size of the Ark should effectively eliminate the local-Flood view from serious consideration among those who take the Book of Genesis at face value.

. . . . Not only would an ark of such gigantic proportions have been unnecessary for a local flood, but there would have been no need for an ark at all! The whole procedure of constructing such a vessel, involving over a century of planning and toiling, simply to escape a local flood, can hardly be described as anything but utterly foolish and unnecessary. How much more sensible it would have been for God merely to have warned Noah of the coming destruction, so that he could move to an area that would not have been affected by the Flood, even as Lot was taken out of Sodom before the fire fell from heaven. Not only so, but also the great numbers of animals of all kinds, and certainly the birds, could easily have moved out also, without having to be stored and tended for a year in the Ark! The entire story borders on the ridiculous if the Flood was confined to some section of the Near East.[2]

Now comes the question, how many land dwelling air breathing animals would have had to be taken aboard the ark to survive the flood? . . . . there are really only a few very large animals, such as the dinosaur or the elephant, and these could be represented by young ones. Assuming the average animal to be about the size of a sheep and using a railroad car for comparison, we note that the average double-deck stock car can accommodate 240 sheep. Thus, three trains hauling 69 cars each would have ample space to carry the 50,000 animals, filling only 37% of the ark. This would leave an additional 361 cars or enough to make 5 trains of 72 cars each to carry all of the food and baggage plus Noah's family of eight people. The Ark had plenty of space.[3]

It is also an error to assume that men and dinosaurs never lived together. Just because our experience appears to suggest otherwise, and just because the popular theories preclude such a possibility, we should not make the same mistake of the dark ages. Consider these reports,

Scientists in the former Soviet Union have reported a layer of rock containing more than 2,000 dinosaur footprints alongside tracks “resembling human footprints.” (Alexander Romashko, "Tracking Dinosaurs," Moscow News, Nop. 24, 1983, p. 10.) Obviously, both types of footprints were made in mud or sand that has since hardened into the rock.[4]

For the past three centuries, unconfirmed reports have come from the Congo in western Africa that dinosaurs exist in the remote swamps. These stories are often from educated people, eyewitnesses, and others who can quickly describe dinosaurs. Although they did not personally see dinosaurs, two expeditions, led by biochemist Dr. Roy Mackal of the University of Chicago, verified many of these accounts, some from scientists (Roy P. Mackal. A Living Dinosaur? (New York: E. J. Brill, 1987) . . . Consider the many so-called legends of dragons. Most ancient cultures have stories or artwork that are similar which strongly resemble dinosaurs.[5]

Conclusion:To positively state that we know dinosaurs and men never lived together is a bold statement. Men used to believe and emotionally defend their belief that the world was flat. So, maybe, just maybe, evolution is wrong also, and dinosaurs and men really did live together after all. To conclude otherwise is very subjective. A previous question and answer titled, "When were dinosaurs created?" discusses the seven, twenty-four hour days of creation.

1. John Hancock. Fingerprints of the Gods. Crown Trade Paperbacks. New York. 1995. p. 193.

2. Whitcomb and Morris. The Genesis Flood. Baker Book House. Grand Rapids. 1961. p. 2-3.