Basics of Faith (Part 2)

Is the earth millions of years old? What happened to the dinosaurs? Where did the names of animals come from? These questions can all be answered by looking deeper into the Word of God.

Lets start with the earth being millions of years old. You may have heard in science class: “This dinosaur lived 200 million years ago.” Well, that seems a little irrelevant that the earth has been around that long. The bible says in Genesis 1:1-31, the earth being created. Biblical scholars have a general idea that the earth is 10,000 yrs old. But, that number varies greatly. Still, that’s far from a million. We also could say that the earth could have been made mature to make it look thousands of years old. Just after creating the animals, God told the water dwelling creatures and birds to “be fruitful and multiply” in Gen 1:21-22. The command implies the creatures had the ability to reproduce and must have been old enough to do so. Adam and Eve were also made mature (Genesis 1:7-25).

The next question, What happened to the dinosaurs? There have been many theories about what happened to them. But, in my opinion the larger ones like the Tyrannosauruses Rex died in the flood and the smaller ones went on the ark. But how you might ask? God had every animal with him on the ark, (and that should include the larger dinosaurs.) That statement is incorrect. In Genesis 7:21-23 says that the creatures died when the waters rose meaning that every animal was not with him on the ark. He also had every kind of animal with him on the ark. (Genesis 7:14) So, after the flood they just eventually died out.

The last question, Where did the names of animals come from? Well the bible has an answer to that question too. In Genesis 2:19-20 it says Adam named all the animals. This doesn’t mean that they are the exact names as what Adam called them, because over time names and meanings can change. But, it does tell us where the names originated from.