Because of word "dinosaur", a term coined in 1841 by Sir Richard Owen, a British anatomist, is not found in the Bible many people assume that means dinosaurs aren't mentioned in the Bible. Not only are they mentioned, they are spoken of in a matter-of-fact fashion. The Hebrew word tannin -- meaning dragon -- is used many times, while two creatures mentioned in Job 40 and 41 ("behemoth" and "leviathan") are clearly some type of huge, extinct creature closely resembling dinosaurs. Ironically, evolutionary scientists sometimes use the word behemoth in describing large dinosaurs.

The bones of these mysterious creatures are fossilized all over the world -- from fierce, gigantic crocodile-like beasts, to the famous T-Rex. Evolutionists tell us that dinosaurs ruled the world for some 160 million years and then died-out 65 million years ago, probably the result of an asteroid slamming into the Earth.

The Bible, though, tells us that God made the land animals on Day Six, the same day He made man. This account couldn't be more opposite from the evolutionary view.

So who's right?

Well, it's important to remember that creationists look at the same evidence evolutionists study. They just come to different conclusions. If evolution is true, then Genesis really is a collection of myths. This seriously undermines the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for if man is a direct, biological descendant of the fearsome dinosaurs, then Paul's inspired message in I Corinthians 15:39 is wrong:

"All flesh is not the same flesh; but one kind of flesh is of men, and another flesh of beasts, andanother of fish, and another of birds".

You see, the Bible tells us plainly that God created a perfect world, but it was marred by Adam's sin. While evolution says that man came from death, the Bible says that death came from man (I Corinthians 15:21). Evolution tells us that life came about by chance, over millions of years, and that we are simply a phase in the process.

Dinosaurs are a key piece of the puzzle because at the same time public school students are taught a view of life that is contrary to the Bible, the tons of rock layers housing an awesome record of death are ever before us. They speak of a catastrophe in the Earth's past that fits with the Genesis account of Noah's flood. If that account is true, then we would expect to find the remains of countless creatures buried in rock.

That is exactly what we find.

And while evolutionists speculate that dinosaurs became extinct because of asteroid impacts or gastro-intestinal problems, the Bible implies that they boarded the ark with Noah and his family and survived to repopulate. Further, we are told in Genesis 41:56 that in the days of Joseph, a terrible famine was over all the earth. It is at least plausible that many of the dinosaurs that proliferated in the years after the flood, requiring huge amounts of food to survive, would have perished for lack of food.

These scenarios are at least as credible as those of evolutionary science (such as the theory that ancient Martians sent "seedpods" to Earth, which brought evolving lifeforms to this planet). The history of the world given in the Bible including the accounts of the tannin fits with what we observe in nature. Beyond that, it points us to the One who haspromised to redeem not only man, but the earth as well. How much better this history of the dinosaurs is, than the one that claims life ends with death.