Nathaniel Currier (American, 1813-1888). Noah's Ark, n.d. Hand-colored lithograph on wove paper, Sheet: 10 15/16 x 14 5/16 in. (27.8 x 36.4 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mrs. Harry Elbaum in honor of Daniel Brown, art critic, 1991.285.21
For those of you who know me personally, you already have reasons to feel sorry for my mother. For those of you who don’t know me, let’s just say I was an inquisitive child who would never let a question go until satisfying explanations where provided, by any means necessary. Sometimes this persistence got me into trouble, sometimes a lot of trouble. It is fair to say I never learned my lesson, as I am still asking hard questions and bearing the consequences. One particular unsettled question brings us all here now.
I could not have been more than seven when I began to dog my Sunday School teacher with all the persistence of the Spanish Inquisition. The subject, Noah’s Ark, should be safe for a 1st grade Sunday morning lesson, but up my hand went, and life was never the same. “Noah really put all the animals on the ark? Even the Dinosaurs?” I followed her reply:, “no, there were no dinosaurs on the ark, “ with a whole new barrage of questions. Why not? What happened to them? Did they not fit? Would Noah let them drown? Is that why they all went extinct? I was relentless. Eventually, she tried to steer me in another direction. “Well they must have gone extinct before Noah built his ark.”
Great, progress. Good thing we had covered God creating the world the week before. Up my hand goes again, “So then Adam named the dinosaurs along with the other animals? Where they the first in line? They aren’t mentioned in the list from the story you read us last week. It mentioned the great sea monsters, but not the land-osaurs. Why not? They were just as big, some bigger and scarier, how could God mention the Elasmosaurus and not the T-Rex? At this point, I was shamed into silence for disturbing the class AND she told my mother.
My mother, of course, needed to know why I was rude to the teacher. “I just wanted to know why God killed the Dinosaurs. They must have been there when God made the other animals, but they didn’t get to go on the Ark, and not all of them can swim. It doesn’t seem fair to leave them behind. It’s not their fault they’re big.” Then I went quiet. My mom, being reprieved of having to answer these questions herself, decided to let the matter go. She’s good like that.
But this question plagued me without answer for a great while. Eventually, I became a scientist and thought that would supply all the answers, but what I really learned was how to ask and answer better questions. In biology, we learn that while many dinosaurs went extinct, some evolved into present day birds. There were birds on the Ark; in fact, without the dove, Noah would never have gotten off. So that would have satisfied 7-year-old me. But present day me knows that many people believe that the scientific theory of evolution, and creation theology are at the very least non-conflicting but incomparable and at worst incongruent, making one or the other wrong and/or non-existent. I think we can do better than that explanation.
So comes the reason for this blog. Now grown-up, and with a science Ph.D., I am hoping to finally put the question of Noah’s missing dinosaurs to bed. Along the way, you and I can explore the theology of creation and the science behind evolution in equal measure. Sources will be cited and only peer reviewed science presented in terms everyone can understand. I am not afraid of questions. In fact, I encourage them. So please use the comment section as liberally as you like, as it is a good gauge to see if my arguments make sense and what other questions people have that we can answer. Lastly, thank you for joining in on this intellectual adventure. Many of you have opinions of this topic are your own and you are welcome to share them, but please remember that we are not looking to merely speculate, but to create a discourse rooted in scientific fact and well reasoned theology. Here we go!