Page 44 - Foundations

reasonably established from Biblical evidence that man has been present on this globe for the past
6,000 years.

What the Bible does not record are any ice ages that occurred simultaneously with the existence of
mankind. Neither does the Bible provide any evidence that dinosaurs roamed the earth since the time
of Adam’s creation. Some in attempting to find some explanation for the presence of dinosaurs on
an earth that they have been taught is no more than 6,000 years old have looked for some extinction
event that could explain why dinosaurs are absent from the historical account of the Bible. The only
Biblical extinction event that presents itself to the minds of most readers is the flood of Noah.
Consequently, some have theorized that the dinosaurs were not taken aboard the ark, but perished
in the great flood that inundated the world at that time.

This explanation does not stand up to scrutiny. The Biblical account of Noah’s flood declares that
Noah took some of EVERY kind of animal upon the earth with him on the ark. The only distinction
that Yahweh made between animals at the time was that the clean animals were taken aboard in
groups of seven, while the unclean animals went onboard in twos.

Genesis 7:2-3, 8-9
You shall take with you of every clean animal by sevens, a male and his female; and of the animals
that are not clean two, a male and his female; also of the birds of the sky, by sevens, male and
female, to keep offspring alive on the face of all the earth... Of clean animals and animals that are
not clean and birds and everything that creeps on the ground, there went into the ark to Noah by
twos, male and female, as God had commanded Noah.

If dinosaurs existed at the time of the flood of Noah, and Yahweh had intended to wipe them out,
He would certainly have stated something about the matter. Yet, the Bible speaks nothing of any
animals in existence at the time being singled out for judgment. When God formed the present
creation in six days He declared all of it to be good. If the dinosaurs were part of the six days of
creation, we are left without explanation as to why God changed His mind about them.

It was a blessing that the Father led me to an explanation of these difficulties when I was still in my
youth. In the late 1970s and early 1980s I was introduced to the writings of Watchman Nee, a
Chinese minister who was very active in teaching in the 1930s to 1950s. He was subsequently
arrested by the Communists and sent away to prison where he eventually died. This Chinese martyr
had a very keen mind that sought out understanding of the things of God. I found his teachings to
be of great help to me in my early Christian experience. Watchman Nee’s teachings disclosed to me
a number of doctrines that I had never encountered in the Baptist churches of my childhood. In one
little book titled The Mystery of Creation, I was introduced to what is commonly known today as
“the gap theory.” Following is an excerpt from that writing.

The general concept among Christians regarding the first chapter of Genesis is that the very first
verse is a kind of general introduction or premise, and that the works which are done in the six days
to follow explain it. In other words, they take the words “In the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth” as the subject of Chapter 1. The writer of Genesis, so they speculate, outlines what
he intends to say in the first sentence and then proceeds to explain it in detail. Having mentioned