Have you ever said to yourself, “I want to read the whole Bible cover to cover.”
I remember the first time I had this thought. I was in 10th grade and I had just been confirmed at my church with a couple dozen of my classmates. When the church service was done, I went back to my house with my extended family to eat cake and celebrate. That’s when the gift came: a brand-new NLT Life Application Bible for Teens!
As I looked at my new, shiny, black and green Bible, I decided right then and there that I was going to read it. The. Whole. Thing!
Now, if you’ve ever started that quest, you already know that I failed miserably. This is unsurprising. Even if you had an unlimited attention span and no need for food, water, or sleep, it would still take you 3-4 days to read the Bible from cover to cover! That’s a long time!!
But there’s another barrier to reading the whole Bible.
Have you ever wondered, “Why should I even read the Bible in the first place?” I remember the first time I had this thought too. And it relates to the question of the day. I remember visiting the Natural History Museum as a kid. They had an extensive exhibit on dinosaurs which was so fun to tour! But I remember standing in front on the Tyrannosaurus Rex exhibit and reading the placard: Late Cretaceous Period, 90-66 million years ago.
We had just been talking about the creation story in Sunday School. There seemed to be a huge difference between how the Bible described the start of the world and how science did!
That’s when the questions came. Why doesn’t the Bible talk about dinosaurs? Is the Bible even true? Why should I even read the Bible in the first place?
This question about dinosaurs remains the most consistent question from our confirmation students. And I’m not surprised!
How can scientists give us so much evidence for creatures like dinosaurs when the Bible (which we consider the source of all truth) barely mentions them? What’s at stake is a matter of trust.
People wonder if they need to choose between science and the Bible or if they can make space for both. Or if the Bible is wrong about something like dinosaurs, what else might it be wrong about?
Here are five things to keep in mind when asking questions like this.
1. It is normal to have questions about the God and the Bible. And it’s ok to ask them!
Sometimes our questions about life and the Bible are big. They might even be scary. But no questions are off limits! Unfortunately, the Bible isn’t a magic 8 ball. We can’t bring our questions to it, give it a shake, and expect it to give us a straight answer. Like it or not, sometimes the Bible is remarkably unclear.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t ask our questions!
James 1:5 says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” Jeremiah 33:3 says, “Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.” 1 Corinthian 14:33 For God is not a God of confusion but of peace.
God is not a stranger to questions. In fact, the book of Psalms is FULL of heartfelt questions offered up to God. Matthew 7:7 says, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” Remember: God is always open to our questions. We just might not get the answer we expect.
Also, not all questions have an answer this side of heaven. But that doesn’t mean we should stop asking!
2. There are a few dinosaurs in the Bible!
Now, when I say a few, I really mean two. There are at least two dinosaurs that appear in the Bible!.
In Job 40 and 41 we read about two creatures that sound a lot like dinosaurs. The first is called “the Behemoth” and we’re told it eats grass like an ox, but has a strong tail like a cedar, limbs like bars of iron, and is of tremendous size. Sounds like a brachiosaurus to me.
The second is called “the Leviathan” and it’s a kind of sea dragon with a double coat of mail for skin, a terrifying mouth full of teeth and is so big, even the mightiest are overwhelmed at the sight of it. My knowledge of sea dwelling dinosaurs isn’t great, but this doesn’t sound like any modern animal I know!
Look at the Behemoth… ~Job 40:15
Now, you might think that even these are a stretch. And, even with the Biblical dinosaur count at 2, dinosaurs are still nowhere near as prevalent in the Bible as we think they should be. The Bible simply doesn’t talk about some things that we think should be obvious!
What do we make of that?? This brings me to my next point.
3. The Bible was written by humans.
Sometimes when we think of “the Word of God.” We think that God somehow divinely reached into the life of the author of the Bible, took hold of their pen, and wrote down only the things that God wanted to say. Unfortunately, this isn’t true.
Unfortunately, God didn’t type up the Bible. He left that job to humans.
From beginning to end the Bible came together as a kind of dance between God’s divine influence and intentional human effort. God’s fingerprints are certainly on scripture, but there are human fingerprints are all over it too.
As Dr.s Eric Barreto and Michael Chan wrote in their book “Exploring the Bible, “God makes no attempt to ‘rescue’ the Bible from cultural influence. The Bible is, from beginning to end, a product of particular times and places.”
Now, this doesn’t mean the Bible isn’t holy.
What makes the Bible holy isn’t that it accurately communicates history or without-fail captures the entirety of God’s personality and purpose. What makes it holy is that people and churches have read, taught, and prayed about these words for centuries and still find that it helps them make sense of the world around them.
All that to say, the authors of the Bible were humans! And they didn’t know about dinosaurs yet! Dinosaurs weren’t discovered until 1677. The Bible was written by humans at least 1500 years before that! The people who wrote the Bible were inspired by God to write about their relationship with God, but they simply couldn’t write about things they had never seen.
God might have known about dinosaurs, but God’s writers didn’t.
Which brings me to another helpful point.
4. The Bible is not an encyclopedia.
We say the Bible is true in that it communicates truth about God. We might even say that the Bible cannot fail to describe who God is and help us understand how we relate to God. But, the Bible is not an exhaustive encyclopedia containing every bit of knowledge known by humans.
Perhaps there’s another question we need to ask ourselves: why do we need the Bible to talk about dinosaurs?
The Bible is not any one kind of literature. Instead, it is more like a library containing poems, letters, songs, stories, fables, biographies, histories, and more, all of which help us to understand God and the world around us.
The Bible remains sacred, not because it is a literal history or exhaustive encyclopedia of everything ever written, but because people have used it for centuries and it still helps them make sense of God.
Which brings me to my last point.
5. The Bible wasn’t meant to talk about dinosaurs. It is meant to talk about Jesus.
We need to remember what the Bible is for. The Bible is always, first and foremost, meant to point us towards Jesus Christ. That is its primary purpose.
The Bible isn’t a Magic 8 ball. And it’s not an encyclopedia. The Bible was written by many people over thousands years who were trying to capture their thoughts about God. And, even now several millennia after it was written, the Bible still speaks with authority on topics like religion, Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit, the church, evil, hardship, new life, and second chances.
We say the Bible is true because it talks meaningfully about God. We don’t say it is true because it contains every fact known by humans.
For example, there are many things it doesn’t talk about: cars, trucks, the internet, TikTok, football, airplanes, and dinosaurs for example. And that’s ok! Because the Bible was never meant to talk about those things!
The Bible doesn’t talk about dinosaurs because it’s not meant to.
We say the Bible is true because it points us to Jesus.
Therefore, it’s ok if it doesn’t address every single topic and contain every single piece of information. The Bible will always reveal God to those who read it. But the Bible won’t always reveal everything.
Conclusion
So, why doesn’t the Bible talk about dinosaurs?
Because it wasn’t meant to. The Bible is meant to talk about Jesus.
Do we need to choose between science and the Bible?
No! We can trust the Bible is true about God AND make space for other information that teaches us about the world! In fact, we’re probably going to need some external resources to better understand science, geography, economics, mathematics, and English!
What do I do when what I see in the world contradicts what I read in the Bible?
Keep leaning in. God can handle your questions! So keep searching. And keep asking. At our church, we love your questions! So please, bring them to us and we’ll help you search for answers with you!