#Y131, Dinosaur Birds Unearthed in Genesis

Genesis 1:20 (NKJV)
Then God said, "Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens."

Note that this is the idea but at this point the living creatures of the water and the birds have not yet been created until the next verse.

Genesis 1:21
So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Note the wording in Genesis 1:21 says every winged bird but makes no mention of flying, flight, sky, air,...

Genesis 1:22,23
And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth."²³So the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

Again note the wording of Genesis 1:22 that the "birds multiply on earth", it does not say "in the sky", nor does it mention "flight" of the birds yet since they were created in Genesis 1:21

Genesis 1:24,25
Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind"; and it was so.²⁵And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Hugh Ross States: Some have ridiculed Genesis for declaring that insects appear late in the record of life on earth, after the birds and sea mammals and just before human beings. The problem reference is to the creatures "that creepeth upon the earth" (Genesis 1:25-26, KJV). The Hebrew word in question is remes, and its broad definition encompasses rapidly moving vertebrates, such as rodents, hares, and lizards. But remes in verse 24 has a more restricted usage. The creatures under discussion are the nephesh (verses 20-25) - soulish creatures, creatures that can relate to human; creatures with qualities of mind, will, and emotion. These can only be birds and mammals. So the remes of verse 24 cannot be insects or even reptiles. They must be short-legged land mammals such as rodents and hares. 1

Genesis 1:26,27
Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."²⁷So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Now we see in Genesis 1:26,27 that the Birds are capable of flight "birds of the air" which is the first reference that the Birds have fulfilled the concept of Genesis 1:20.

Why is this important? Some have pointed out that the animals came before birds and Genesis is wrong about the birds prior placement in Genesis.

Literally, I feel the reference to Birds with no mention of flight in Genesis 1:21,22 are not the modern day birds that we are familiar with but the Dinosaur/Bird combinations that have been uncovered in recent fossils where a number of these dinosaur species fossils have been found covered with feathers but were unable to fly. A recent articles points out these dinosaurs with feathers.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/reu/20010423/dino.html

Ji Qiang, of the Chinese Academy of Geological Science which lent the fossil to the New York museum, said the discovery was particularly important because it showed the feathers were attached to the dinosaur's body.

"This is the specimen we've been waiting for. It makes it indisputable that a body covering similar to feathers was present in non-avian dinosaurs," he said in a statement.

Theropod dinosaurs and birds share about 100 anatomical features, including a wishbone, swiveling wrists and three forward-pointing toes.

Norell said dromaeosaurs were theropod dinosaurs thought to be most closely related to birds. 2

So the early Bird/Dinosaurs had wings but couldn't fly. This coincides with Genesis 1:21,22 where no mention of flight is made.

Why is there no mention of the other non-bird dinosaurs? They were extinct before people were created and had nothing to do with mankind whereas the Birds are still around.

The Bible is about God and people and the relationship between them. To leave out Dinosaurs has no bearing upon this relationship. Genesis 1 emphasize most strongly the who of creation. To a significant degree it explains the how of creation.

Ironic that the apparent contradiction in Genesis of birds being created before animals question provides evidence that Genesis was written with prior knowledge about the flightless Dinosaur/Bird combination, that the Bible does mention the dinosaur time period although it is in a few simple sentences about flightless Birds and that dinosaur/birds were created prior to nephesh mammals.