Question: What’s the OPC’s take on dinosaurs? Are behemoths, dragons and dinosaurs the same animal? Did Adam and Eve walk among them? What are some good reformed theology resources on these topics? I skimmed over the creation report and that didn’t help me much.
Answer: Thank you for your enquiry. Regarding dinosaurs and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church’s “take” on them I offer the following.
We know that dinosaurs and man co-existed before and after the flood because:
1. The Bible says that both were created on the sixth day (Gen. 1:24-31).
2. The Bible describes dinosaurs very graphically in Job 40:1:15: “Behold now, Behemoth, which I made as well as you; He eats grass like an ox.” Behemoth is simply a transliteration of the Hebrew. Its description implies it was very large and powerful. According to Job 40:17, it had a tail like a cedar tree. And the only animal that matches that description is a sauropod dinosaur, such as a brachiosaur. This could therefore indicate that brachiosaur dinosaurs were alive in Job’s day, less than 4,000 years ago.
3. More evidence comes from the rock carvings (petroglyphs) in the Natural Bridges National Monument in the southeast corner of Utah. These carvings, made by the Anasazi Indians 500 to 1,500 years ago, depict various animals, humans, and human hand prints. Some of these carvings indisputably depict brachiosaur dinosaurs.
4. There is a stone carving in the temple at Angkor Wat, Cambodia, dated about 900 years ago, which depicts a stegosaurus dinosaur.
5. Another piece of evidence that dinosaurs were living recently comes from a tomb in Carlisle Cathedral in northwest England. In the floor of the cathedral lies the tombstone of Bishop Richard Bell, who lived from 1410-1496. Around the edge of the tomb are brass carvings of different animals. Among these animals is a creature that looks like a brachiosaurus dinosaur.
We of the OPC do not subordinate Scripture to science. We do not study what science says about these matters and evolution and interpret Scripture according to science. Yet, it is amazing how science, when not interpreted wholly naturalistically, again and again supports the teaching of Scripture.
I hope that this is of some help to you.
Answered by an OPC Minister