This article is from
Creation 41(1):32–35, January 2019

Browse our latest digital issue Subscribe

Creation for Kids

Dinosaurs: God’s fantastic creations!

by Erin Hughes and Lita Sanders (nee Cosner)

Published in Creation 41(1):32–35, 2019

Can you imagine living alongside dinosaurs, huge long-necked sauropods, terrifying T. rexes, and armoured stegosaurs? Some people say that this could never have happened. They believe dinosaurs died out long before humans started living on Earth, but in fact the Bible tells us something very different.

The Bible is the history book of the universe, and Genesis tells us how God took a whole week to create the universe and Earth, and make the earth a perfect home for humanity, with plants and animals.

On the first day, God created the world and light.
On the second day, God created the sky and sea.
On the third day, God created dry land and plants.
On the fourth day, God created the sun, moon, and stars—as well as planets and other things that exist in space like moons, gas clouds, and even black holes.
On the fifth day, God created all sorts of living things that swim and fly.
On the sixth day, God created land animals. Last of all, He created the first people, Adam and Eve. They were our first parents!
On the seventh day, God rested because everything He had made was perfect.

Let’s connect the dots. We know dinosaurs are land animals and the Bible tells us that land animals and humans were created on Day 6 of Creation Week, therefore dinosaurs and humans lived together! This view might be different from what you have heard on television documentaries or at even most museums. This is because of a belief in the theory of evolution, which is not what the Bible teaches us about how things began.

What are dinosaurs?

The word ‘dinosaur’ was invented by a man named Richard Owen in the year 1841, so it is a relatively modern word. Owen derived it from the Greek words meaning ‘terrible lizard’ after seeing fossil bones of Iguanadon and Megalosaurus. This means the word dinosaur is too new to be in the Bible. Keep in mind we don’t find other modern words in the Bible, like cellphone or computer, but these objects do exist. Dinosaurs were reptiles that lived on land. Some were very big, and others were very small. All of them hatched from eggs.

The book of Genesis tells us that all animals used to eat plants when they were created (Genesis 1:29–31). But after Adam sinned, bad things started happening in creation, and some dinosaurs started eating other animals. But lots of dinosaurs that look like they have big, scary teeth for eating meat still ate plants like God created them to. For example, we have animals today that have very sharp teeth that eat fruits and plants—like Megabats, also known as fruit bats [see the skull of one, above].

How many types of dinosaurs were there?

When scientists started finding dinosaurs, they would give every new fossil a new name. But some of these dinosaurs were the same type as ones that already had been named or found in a different area. That meant that one type of dinosaur could have several names!

Also, sometimes scientists thought that a baby dinosaur and a grown-up dinosaur were different types of dinosaurs and gave them different names. For instance, Triceratops and Torosaurus have been claimed to be the same dinosaur—just at different points in its life. There are lots of examples of this sort of thing.

Really, there are probably only about 50 different types of dinosaurs that God created. Each type of dinosaur could have individuals within it that looked different, with small or large types, or different colours. We can see lots of types of animals living today that have done this. All dogs are the same species because they are able to interbreed and produce viable offspring, but a little Chihuahua and a big Great Dane look very different! God was very creative to make animals descended from parents of the same kind to be able to look so different!

Fast facts!
TRICERATOPS

The ceratopsian family has lots of different-looking dinosaurs. But like we saw before, Triceratops and Torosaurus are likely the same dinosaur as a baby and grown-up. How many other ceratopsians might be the same species as Triceratops and Torosaurus? Can you see things that these dinosaurs have in common? What are the differences?