What About Dinosaurs and the Age of the Earth?

The short answer: All Christians agree that God created everything and that the world is His good work. How old the earth is, and how to read the “days” of Genesis 1, is a question on which faithful, Bible-believing Christians genuinely differ. This chapter sets out the main views without picking one.

You’ve seen the skeletons in museums: huge bones of creatures that no longer walk the earth. Your science textbook probably says dinosaurs lived millions of years ago, long before humans. Then you read Genesis 1, which describes God making the world in six days. Somebody tells you that you have to pick one: the Bible or the dinosaurs.

You don’t. But you do need to know that this is a question where Christians disagree, and that’s all right.

Where Christians agree

Before we look at the differences, look at how much is shared. Every view below believes:

• God created everything out of nothing. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).
• Creation is not an accident. It’s the work of a wise, personal God with a purpose.
• Creation was good: “God looked upon all that He had made, and indeed, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31).
• Human beings are made in God’s image, are precious and are different from the animals.
• Sin is real, it has spoiled God’s world, and Jesus came to rescue it.

Those are the things Genesis 1 most wants you to know. The disagreements below are about how and when, not about who or why.

Where Christians differ

Young-earth creation. Many Christians read the days of Genesis 1 as six ordinary days, and add up the family trees in Genesis to reach an earth that is thousands of years old rather than billions. On this view, dinosaurs were created along with the other land animals, lived at the same time as early humans, and most of their fossils were laid down in the great Flood of Noah’s day. Young-earth Christians believe this is the most natural reading of the text, and that scientific dating methods rest on assumptions that may be wrong.

Old-earth creation. Other Christians accept the scientific evidence that the universe is around fourteen billion years old and the earth around four and a half billion. They point out that the Hebrew word for “day” can mean a longer period, and that Peter wrote, “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day” (2 Peter 3:8). Some think each “day” stands for a long age; others think the days are a framework for describing God’s work rather than a timetable. On this view, dinosaurs lived and died out long before humans, but God created different kinds of life directly over that long history, and Adam and Eve were specially created.

Evolutionary creation. Still other Christians believe God used the process of evolution over long ages to bring about life, including the bodies of human beings, in the same way He uses the water cycle to bring rain. They see Genesis 1 as true teaching about who made the world and why, written in a form its first readers would understand, rather than a scientific description. They still believe God is the Creator, that humans bear His image and that the Fall was real, though they explain Adam and Eve in different ways.

People have wondered about the days of Genesis for a very long time. Augustine, writing about 1,600 years ago, long before anyone had studied fossils, suggested the days might not be ordinary days at all. Many careful Christians before and since have read them as ordinary days. This isn’t a new fight caused by modern science. It’s an old question about how to read an ancient text.

How to hold this question

Some Christians feel very strongly about this, and you’ll meet people who think their view is the only faithful one. But people who love Jesus, believe the Bible and take science seriously hold all three. Your salvation doesn’t depend on the age of the earth. It depends on Jesus. Paul’s words fit here: “Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on his opinions” (Romans 14:1).

So read Genesis carefully. Learn the science properly. Ask your church what it teaches and why. And whichever view you come to, hold it humbly, and keep the main thing as the main thing: “Before the mountains were born or You brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting You are God” (Psalm 90:2).

Think about it: Why do you think God chose to tell us who made the world and why so clearly, while leaving the how and when open to debate?

Go deeper: The Key Teachings of Augustine of Hippo — Augustine takes the first verse of the Bible and asks what God was doing before He made the world; his answer is that time itself is something God created, which is a good reminder to hold our theories about beginnings humbly. Start with chapter 12, “What Then Is Time?”.