Earth's Creation (Years)
"And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: [he made] the stars also.
And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that [it was] good.
And the evening and the morning were the fourth day." Genesis 1:14-19
There is of course an ongoing debate between mainstream science and Bible Fundamentalists as to the age of the earth. The majority of the latter accept the date of creation as being in the vicinity of that proposed by Archbishop James Ussher (1581-1656, a Irish archbishop from Armagh, Ireland) in his book "Annales Veteris et Novi Testamenti" as around 4,004 BC.
The question centers of course around the nature and length of a "day" before the "Fourth Day" of creation. If there were no lights in the firmament to divide day from night before this time and God placed them there as a sign for seasons, days, and years, on day four, then WHY would one take for granted that the length of a "day" was the same before day four as after it?
According to the master Kabbalists, Rabbi Isaac of Acco, (Yitzchak De-Min Acco 1250-1340) when counting the years of these cycles, one must not use an ordinary physical year, but rather a divine year. The Midrash says that each divine day is a thousand years basing this on these verses 'A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.' (Psalm 90:4) and 'But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day' (2 Peter 3:8). Since each year contains 365 1/4 days, a divine year would be 365,250 years long.
According to this, each cycle of seven thousand divine years would consist of 2,556,750,000 earthly years. This figure of two-and-a-half billion years is very close to the scientific estimate as to the length of time life has existed on earth.
If we assume that the seventh cycle began with the Biblical account of creation, then this would have occurred when the universe was 15,340,500,000 year old. This is very close to the scientific estimate that the expansion of the universe began some fifteen billion years ago."
So, are there dinosaurs in the Bible? It depends on how you interpret the available evidences and how you view the world around you. If the Bible is interpreted literally, a young earth interpretation will result, and the idea that dinosaurs and man coexisted (at least for a while) can be accepted. If dinosaurs and human beings coexisted, what happened to the dinosaurs? While the Bible does not discuss the issue, remnants of the dinosaurs probably died out sometime after the flood due to a combination of dramatic environmental shifts and the fact that they were relentlessly hunted to extinction by man.
The Bible refers to many the common animals we know today. The list includes lions, wolves, bears, sheep, cattle and dogs along with various kinds of birds, rodents, reptiles, and insects. What is interesting is that this extensive list includes two animals that we no longer recognize. These are the behemoth and leviathan.
Behemoth has the following attributes according to Job 40:15-24
- It “eats grass like an ox.”
- It “moves his tail like a cedar.” (In Hebrew, this literally reads, “he lets hang his tail like a cedar.”)
- Its “bones are like beams of bronze,
His ribs like bars of iron.” - “He is the first of the ways of God.”
- “He lies under the lotus trees,
In a covert of reeds and marsh.”
Whatever a behemoth is, it is large. A key phrase is “He is the first of the ways of God.” This phrase in the original Hebrew implied that behemoth was the biggest animal ever created. Although an elephant or a hippopotamus are big, they are less than one-tenth the size of a Brachiosaurus, the largest (complete) dinosaur ever discovered.
Leviathan has the following attributes according to Job chapter 41, Psalm 104:25,26 and Isaiah 27:1. This is only a partial listing—just enough to make the point.
- “No one is so fierce that he would dare stir him up.”
- “Who can open the doors of his face, with his terrible teeth all around?”
- “His rows of scales are his pride, shut up tightly as with a seal; one is so near another that no air can come between them; they are joined one to another, they stick together and cannot be parted.”
- “His sneezings flash forth light, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. Out of his mouth go burning lights; sparks of fire shoot out. Smoke goes out of his nostrils, as from a boiling pot and burning rushes. His breath kindles coals, and a flame goes out of his mouth.”
- “Though the sword reaches him, it cannot avail; nor does spear, dart, or javelin. He regards iron as straw, and bronze as rotten wood. The arrow cannot make him flee; slingstones become like stubble to him. Darts are regarded as straw; he laughs at the threat of javelins.”
- “On earth there is nothing like him, which is made without fear.”
- Leviathan “played” in the “great and wide sea” (a paraphrase of Psalm 104 verses 25 and 26—get the exact sense by reading them yourself).
- Leviathan is a “reptile [a] that is in the sea.” (Isaiah 27:1) [a] Note: The word translated “reptile” here is the Hebrew word tanniyn. This shows that “Leviathan” was also a “tanniyn” (dragon).
And it's hard to read Job 41:18-21 without realizing the Bible is telling us that Leviathan breathes fire. That alone will eliminate almost every animal known to man. Yet, there is one animal like that in today’s world. It is called a bombardier beetle. Notable for the defense mechanism that gives them their name: when disturbed, they eject a hot noxious chemical spray from the tip of their abdomen. The spray is produced by a reaction between two chemical compounds, hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide, stored in separate reservoirs in the beetle's abdomen and mixed when needed in a third chamber with water and catalytic enzymes. Heat from the reaction brings the mixture to near the boiling point of water and produces gas that drives the ejection. Now, if a Central American beetle can do it, then it's also logical that the Leviathan could do something similar too.
Nearly every ancient civilization has some sort of art depicting giant reptilian creatures. Petroglyphs, artifacts, and even little clay figurines found in North America resemble modern depictions of dinosaurs. Rock carvings in South America depict men riding diplodocus-like creatures and, amazingly, bear the familiar images of triceratops-like, pterodactyl-like, and tyrannosaurus rex-like creatures. Roman mosaics, Mayan pottery, and Babylonian city walls all testify to man’s trans-cultural, geographically unbounded fascination with these creatures. In addition to the substantial amount of anthropic and historical evidences for the coexistence of dinosaurs and man, there are physical evidences, like the fossilized footprints of humans and dinosaurs found together at places in North America and West-Central Asia.
By the evolution concept, proven by modern science, the appearance of human race on earth was not spontaneous but rather the result of an evolutionary process beginning on earth 370 millions years ago with the appearance on earth of the first vertebrates originated from the Sea, leading about 170 millions years later to the appearance of the first mammalians.
100 millions years later appeared the first primates then 50 millions later appeared the first simians (Hominoids, basic lineage of the hominids)
45 to 48 millions years later appeared the first Hominids, now existing mammalians belonging to a species that can possibly be an ancestor of the human race.
Finally, between 2.6 to 1.7 millions years ago appeared the first species recognized as characteristic of the actual human race, marking a decisive mutation known as “Homo Sapiens” man. Probably not the first, but in any case the most famous discovery is the fossil given the name “Lucy” discovered in 1924 in Ethiopia.
So, are today's scientists wrong when they tell us that dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago while Homo Sapiens only appeared on earth about 2 million years ago, therefore they couldn't have coexisted? Well, new discoveries are being found all the time and each time one is found scientists change their opinions of what was reality. We'll have to wait to see what future discoveries tell us about the ancient past, but yes, it's quite possible the scientists are mistaken. History shows us they've been wrong many, many times in the past ... the earth is not flat; it is possible to build a machine that fly's; blood letting and leaches are not a cure for most illnesses; etc.; etc.; etc.
Could this possibly be one of their mistakes? In July, 1877, four prospectors were looking for gold and silver outcroppings in a desolate, hilly area near the head of Spring Valley, not far from Eureka, Nevada in July 1877. Scanning the rocks, one of the men spotted something peculiar projecting from a high ledge. Climbing up to get a better look, the prospector was surprised to find a human leg-bone and knee cap sticking out of solid rock. He called to his companions, and together they dislodged the oddity with picks. Realizing they had a most unusual find, the men brought it into Eureka, where it was placed on display. The stone in which the bones were embedded was a hard, dark red quartzite, and the bones themselves were almost black with carbonization - indicative of great age. When the surrounding stone was carefully chipped away, the specimen was found to be composed of a leg bone broken off four inches above the knee, the knee cap and joint, the lower leg bones, and the complete bones of the foot. Several medical doctors examined the remains, and were convinced that anatomically they had indeed once belonged to a human being, and a very modern-looking one. But an intriguing aspect of the bones was their size: from knee to heel they measured 39 inches. Their owner in life had thus stood over 12 feet tall. Compounding the mystery further was the fact that the rock in which the bones were found was dated geologically to he era of the dinosaurs, the Jurassic - over 185 million years old.
And what about Lucy? Lucy is the common name of AL 288-1, several hundred pieces of bone representing about 40% of the skeleton of a female Australopithecus afarensis. It was discovered in 1974 at Hadar in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia's Afar Depression. In paleoanthropology, usually only fossil fragments are found, and only rarely are skulls or ribs uncovered intact; thus this discovery was an astounding feat that provided an overwhelming amount of scientific evidence. Lucy is estimated to have lived 3.2 million years ago, and is classified as a hominin.
In 2001, Meave Leakey announced the discovery of a 3.5-3.2 million year old hominin skull from the west side of Lake Turkana. She suggested that this fossil may displace Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis) as the progenitor of humans. Meave named it Kenyanthropus platyops ("flat-faced man of Kenya"). This hominin lived during the same time period as Lucy. However, it had a comparatively large, flat face and smaller teeth. The latter characteristic suggests that Kenyanthropus regularly ate softer foods than did Lucy.
In 2006, Tim White, now a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, announced the discovery of bones from at least 8 Australopithecus anamensis humans dating to 4.1 million years ago in what had been a woodland environment in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia.
In October 2009 scientists announced the discovery of a fossil skeleton of a human. The find reveals that our forebears underwent a previously unknown stage of evolution more than a million years before Lucy. The centerpiece of a treasure trove of new fossils, the skeleton—assigned to a species called Ardipithecus ramidus—belonged to a small-brained, 110-pound (50-kilogram) female nicknamed "Ardi." The Ardipithecus ramidus fossils were discovered in Ethiopia's harsh Afar desert at a site called Aramis in the Middle Awash region, just 46 miles (74 kilometers) from where Lucy's species, Australopithecus afarensis, was found in 1974. Radiometric dating of two layers of volcanic ash that tightly sandwiched the fossil deposits revealed that Ardi lived 4.4 million years ago.
In July 2002, a team of researchers excavating in northern Chad has unearthed the well-preserved skull and other fossilized remains of what they believe was a previously unknown hominid, or early human, that lived 6-7 million years ago. In a statement issued by Nature, which reported the discovery in its July 11 issue, anthropology professor Daniel Lieberman of Harvard University said "One of the most important things this skull tells us is how much we don't know. It suggests how diverse hominids might have been, and shows that lots of things were going on that we can't imagine." "What's most astonishing is that the facial features are like those that we don't see until 1.8 million years ago in the genus Homo. It is more Homo than australopithecine," he said, referring to the best-known group of hominids, which appeared in East Africa three to four million years ago and whose fossils have provided most of what we know about the earliest human ancestors.
What about the tribes of giant humans mentioned in the Bible and who's bone have been discovered around the World?
The earliest appearance of giants occurs just before Noah's flood. Considering the detail added by Enoch in his accounting of the pre-flood giants, we learn that the flood was caused to rid the Earth of these giant hybrids spawned by devious angels, who were driven by sexual lust for human women. But, for some unknown reason some of the giants apparently survived that flood or a genetic mutation was present in some of the normal-sized survivors.
The recognition of Bible related giants is high, even outside of mainstream Christian influence, with the famous and oft-repeated encounter of David and the giant, Goliath. Some are aware of other accounts of giants such as the king with a 16-foot bed. Deeply buried in the biblical record, several "tribes" or groups of giants are named. In fact, there are 36 of Tribes of Giants mentioned in the Bible:
Amalekites
Amorites
Anakims
Ashdothites
Aviums
Avites
Canaanites
Caphtorims
Ekronites
Emins
Emins
Eshkalonites
Gazathites
Geshurites
Gibeonites
Giblites
Girgashites
Gittites
Hittites
Hivites
Horims
Horites
Jebusites
Kadmonites
Kenites
Kenizzites
Maachathites
Manassites
Nephiyl
Perizzites
Philistines
Rephaims
Sidonians
Zamzummins
Zebusites
Zuzims
There are also 21 individual Giants mentioned, by name, in the Bible:
Adonizedec - King of Jerusalem
Agag - King of the Amalakites
Ahiman
Amalek
Arba
Beelesath
Gog and Magog
Gogmagog
Goliath
Hoham - King of Hebron
Horam - King of Gezer
Jabin - King of Hazor
Jobab - King of Madon
Lahmi
Nimrod
Og of Bashan
Ogias - Og's father
Perizzites
Sheshai
Sihon - King of the Amorites
Sippai
Talmai
Here is an intriguing verse showing this biblical reality:
"And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight." (Numbers 13:33) To put this in perspective we will show how the men making that statement came to this revelation.
♦ God decides that the tribes of Israel should settle in the land called Canaan and orders Moses to send men to explore it:
► "And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Send thou men, that they may search the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel:" and "And Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan..." (Numbers 13:1&17)
♦ The men return and a report that it is a beautiful and abundant land, but with great walled cities and a "strong" people that were the sons of Anak living there:
► "And they returned from searching of the land after forty days....And they told him, and said, We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it. Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great: and moreover we saw the children of Anak there. "(Numbers 13:25-28)
♦ There is a call to conquer the land but the men give a warning about the strength of the inhabitants:
► "And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it. But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we."(Numbers 13:30-32)
♦ The cause for this great strength of these people is revealed when we find out how big the "children of Anak" really are:
► "And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature. And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight."(Numbers 13:32-33)
With so many giants being mentioned in the Bible, is not logical to assume that there may have been other giant clans in other parts of the world gathered together to protect themselves from other humans or from other giant tribes?
Historical North American Giants (bear in mind that people from the1800's were generally much shorter than those of us living today)
1792 New York, Buffalo: Turner’s History of the Holland Purchase reports that 8 and 9 foot skeletons were found at an earthen fort in Orleans county with broad flat topped skulls.
1800 Ohio, Conneaut: Among the normal size skeletons found in the remains of mounds were found gigantic bones. Some of the skulls and jaws were large enough to easily fit over the head and face of any normal man
1829 Ohio, Chesterville: In digging away a mound where a hotel was to be built, a large human skeleton was found, but no measurements were made. It is related that the jawbone was found to fit easily over that of a citizen of the village. The local physicians examined the cranium and found it proportionately large, with more teeth than the white race of today. The skeleton was taken to Mansfield, and has been lost sight of entirely.
1833 California, Lompock Rancho: Soldiers digging at Giant Lompock Rancho, California, discovered a male skeleton 12 feet tall. Carved shells, stone axes, and other artifacts surrounded the skeleton. The skeleton had double rows of upper and lower teeth. Unfortunately, this body was secretly buried when local Indians became upset about the remains.
1849 New York: From "Illustrations of the Ancient Monuments of Western New York" comes the report that an elliptical mound above near the Conewango Valley held eight really big skeletons. A thigh bone was found to be 28” long. Exquisite stone points, enamel-work, and jewelry were found. Also discovered in the area were a number of other large skeletons one almost 10 feet in height.
1856 West Virginia, Wheeling: A human skeleton was discovered by laborers while ploughing a vineyard measuring almost 11 feet tall.
1858 Ohio, Vermillion Township: Skeletons of a race of beings much-much larger than the local inhabitants were discovered.
1870 Ohio: In Brush Creek Township a large mound contained skeletal remains of several humans up to 10 feet tall.
1872 Ohio, Seneca Township: When the "Bates" mound was opened the remains of three skeletons, whose size would indicate they measured in life, at least, 8 feet in height, were found. A remarkable feature of these remains was they had double teeth in front as well as in back of mouth and in both upper and lower jaws.
1873 Washington DC: "The objects here collected which have not been given, or acquired by exchange, have been purchased for the use of the museum by order of the surgeon-general... There is a skeleton of a giant, who, in life, measured almost 8 feet, prepared by Auzoux and mounted by Blanchêne's method, which, if I may use that term, is really a beauty. It is as white and clean as new fallen snow, and the brass joints and screws which keep it together are bright, and of the latest style and finish." From the article "The Army Medical Museum in Washington" by Louis Bagger, Appletons' Journal: A Magazine Of General LiteratureVolume 9, Issue 206
1875 West Virginia, Rivesville: Workmen constructing a bridge near the mouth of Paw Paw Creek uncovered three giant skeletons with strands of reddish hair clinging to the skulls. The skeletons had supported people approximately 8 to 9 feet tall.
1877 Missouri, Kansas City: A giant skull was unearthed when mounds were opened and giant man tracks belonging to humans 25 to 30 feet tall were discovered.
1877 Nevada, Eureka: Prospectors found a human leg bone and kneecap sticking out of solid rock. Doctors examined the remains and determined they were from a human being, and one that stood over 12 feet tall. The rock in which the bones were found was dated geologically to the Jurassic Period, over 185 million years old.
1878 Ohio, Ashtabula County: While excavating the ground for graves, bones were exhumed, which seemed to have belonged to a race of giants. A skull and jaw were found, which were of such size that the skull would fit easily over a large man’s head like a loose fitting helmet, even with the jaw in place. The number of these graves has been estimated to be between two and three thousand.
1879 Indiana, Brewersville: A skeleton almost ten feet tall was excavated from a mound.
1880 Minnesota, Clearwater: Several giant skeletons were found with double rows of teeth.
1881 Ohio, Medina County: A jawbone of great size belonging to a human being was discovered, which contained eight jaw-teeth in each side, of enormous size; and the teeth stood transversely in the jawbone. It would pass over any man’s face with entire ease.
1973 Utah, Moab: Two human skeletons were found southwest of Moab, Utah, in strata over 100 million years in age.
Giants in other place around the world:
In 1958 in Tuscany, Italy a human jawbone was found at a depth of 600 feet in a coal mine. The jawbone was encased in a Miocene stratum, geologically dated as being 20 million years old.
Human bones dug up on an old Roman camp site near St. Albans, in Hertfordshire, just outside of London, were examined by W. Cheselden, a well-known anatomist. After measuring the skull, the femur, and the tibia, he concluded that the man stood about nine feet tall. Writing in the Philosophical Transactions for 1712, Cheselden noted that near the bones was found an urn inscribed with the name "Marcus Antoninus."
At Gympie, Queensland, Australia, a large fragment of the back portion of a jaw which still possessed the hollow for a missing lower back molar tooth was discovered. The owner of the tooth would have stood at 10 feet tall. Aborigine themselves admit in their ancient folklore that this land was inhabited by several groups of men, as well as giants, before they settled here.
Aymon, a member of the Archduke Ferdinand's (Austria) bodyguard, reportedly stood eleven feet tall. For many years a carved wooden likeness of this giant was preserved in the Castle of Ambras in the Tyrol Alpines.
From account of Captain George Shelvock's 1719 voyage: "M. Frezier gives us an account that the Indians inhabiting the continent to the south of this island (the island of Chiloe, which lies off the coast of Chile, about lat. 42 S. and long. about 72 W of London) are called Chronos, that they go quite naked, and that in the inland part there is a race of men of an extraordinary size, called Cacabues, who, being in amity with the Chronos, have sometimes come with them to the dwellings of the Spaniards at Chiloe. He adds, that he was credibly informed by several who had been eye witnesses, that some were about nine ten feet high.
The Chinese, in whose land archaeologists have found some of the earliest skeletal remains of giants, insist they once had among them some men as much as fifteen feet tall. Melchior Nunnez, in his letters from India, vouches for the fact that China grew some giants to that tremendous size. He "speaks of porters who guarded the gates of Peking who were of that immense height; and in a letter dated in 1555, he avers that the emperor of that country entertained and fed five hundred of such men for archers of his guard." George Hakewill, in his Apologie, 1627, issues a similar report.
The Giant of Francis de Laporte de Castelnau was a fossil bone found in a Bronze Age burial tumulus, date back to the Neolithic period (about 10,000 to 2,000 BC) and consisted of a humerus, and femoral mid-shaft. The scientist who made the discovery in 1890 estimated from the bone size that the human was about 11 feet 6 inches tall. It is of some interest that in 1894, press accounts mentioned a further discovery of bones of human giants unearthed at a prehistoric cemetery at Montpelier, France while workers were excavating a water works reservoir. Skulls "28, 31, and 32 inches in circumference" were reported alongside other bones of gigantic proportions which indicated they belonged to a race of men "between 10 and 15 feet in height."