Posted on 06/23/2014 9:24:28 AM PDT by fishtank
Did Angkor really see a dinosaur?
Jonathan O’Brien and Shaun Doyle
The September 2007 Creation magazine back page feature article ‘Angkor saw a Stegosaur?’ showed a stone carving on a temple of Angkor, Cambodia, (a. 1200 AD), depicting what looks like an artistic impression of a stegosaurian-type dinosaur.1 As such evidence clearly supports the biblical view of dinosaurs, it naturally provoked the ire of vocal atheists. Here are their objections:
“If it is a dinosaur, they carved it from fossils”
The plates along the back of the animal are unlike all the other decorative designs in the temple walls. One objection is that the temple carvers may have carved the stegosaur from nearby fossils. However, it takes a lot of training and skill to accurately reconstruct from fossils what a dinosaur looked like.2 There is no evidence that such was available in Cambodian culture of the time. As one dinosaur researcher has noted, if there are reasonably accurate dinosaur depictions that pre-date modern advances in the science of fossil reconstruction, “then a tremendously powerful case can be made that dinosaurs were being depicted not from the bones, but from real-life encounters.”3
Moreover, no stegosaurian fossils have ever been reported in Cambodia. Therefore fossils are unlikely to have been the basis for the carving on the temple.
(Excerpt) Read more at creation.com ...
“There’s not shortage of examples of small animals and fish in the fossil records, not to mention plants. What evidence do you have that this is what happened?”
I said “for example”, to illustrate one type of drastic climate change that seems to have happened in the past that could account for the type of extinctions which occurred. I didn’t mean to imply that one cause resulted in all the extinctions, I just offered one example that I think is probably specifically relevant to dinosaurs.
“Whatever changes occurred would have to be lethal to a wide variety of birds, land and aquatic animals, and plants, except for people and the modern animals we see today. Whatever conditions existed before that had to be suitable to all of them.”
Well, ecology is precarious. A single extinction caused by environmental factors could lead to a chain of extinctions involving species which were not directly affected by the environmental factor, but which were dependent on the existence of an anchor species. One species could be affected by such a chain of events, but a closely related species living nearby with slightly different habits might escape unscathed. Trying to either predict, or speculatively reconstruct these events, with our current level of knowledge, is not going to be very fruitful I think.
If so, doesn't it provide the same disproof of any theory that the dinosaurs were wiped out in the flood?
“Do you think the evidence presented in this article is sufficient to disprove the theory of evolution?”
No, I don’t really think that this evidence alone is enough to do that. It might be enough, taken together with a lot of other evidences, to show the theory to be dubious.
“If so, doesn’t it provide the same disproof of any theory that the dinosaurs were wiped out in the flood?”
Yes, sure, if this could be shown to be positively a depiction of a living dinosaur, then that would have to mean they survived much later than the flood. Unless, of course, our dating of the temple and its builders were way off.
Doesn’t the article strike you as being a little one-sided in terms of what theories and ideas this evidence supposedly casts doubt upon?
Sure. Call me a literalist.
If so, wouldn’t that interpretation also mean that verse 13 declares that the end had come for the animals?
Yep... In exactly the same way He said the end has come for all men:
Gen 6:7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
But Noah was not corrupt - being 'perfect in his generations' (stop and think about what that means)... So too those animals He selected to be saved along with Noah. I think YHWH made the dragon too - He sure brags it up about Behemoth and Leviathon... But I don't think the lion's share of what we know as dinosaurs were his design... full of violence, and corrupted... I think the Nephilim (fallen angels and their offspring) had a good bit to do with it (see Gen 6:1-4)
So if the "stegosauri" is a real depiction, what is the beast at the bottom of the totem> It looks like a bearded man on a lions body to me.
Sure, why wouldn’t it be? It’s an advocacy piece, not an academic text.
“But Noah was not corrupt - being ‘perfect in his generations’ (stop and think about what that means)... So too those animals He selected to be saved along with Noah.”
The Bible only actually says this about Noah though, it doesn’t say that about the animals. Also, it doesn’t say that was the reason Noah (along with his family) was chosen to be saved:
“7 And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.”
Gen 6:7-8
He was saved because of God’s grace, just as Christians are saved by grace.
Also, Gen 7:1 says:
“And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.”
This is what is meant by the phase “perfect in his generations” earlier in Gen. 6:9. The KJV uses the plural “generations” twice in that verse, but they are actually two different Hebrew words. The first (in “these are the generations of Noah”) is Strong’s #H8435, which carries the meaning of a person’s geneology:
http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H8435&t=KJV
The second (in “Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations”) is Strong’s #H1755, which carries the meaning of a span of time, or the people living during that period of time:
http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=H1755&t=KJV
This same word #H1755 is also the one used in Gen 7:1, so both phrases are talking about Noah being perfect or righteous amongst those alive at the time, that generation of people.
I do not see why some dinosaurs could not have survived into the last few millenia. Are crocs and komodos imaginary?
There is no reason ,though, to think that a “modern” critter would have to be as huge as their ancient ancestors were-——look how much smaller many modern mammals are than their Ice Age predecessors. Maybe the stegosaur pictured was the size of a cow.
Some people think it’s a scientific journal.
LOL!
I think you may have suffered from a misplaced/malformed html tag - did you mean to just quote me to myself, or did you say something afterwards?
Then they MUST have seen a LIVE one...
...except...
Yes; think about it...
Any cureloms?
Alright... Already did that - you’ll just have to splain it to me...
You posted to think about it.
Usually this means that some glaringly obvious point was missed before.
I failed to get your original point, so I reposted it back to you, in hopes you’d be a bit more explanatory in your answer.
I see I’ve pretty much confused us both by now! 8^)
OK, let's start there...
This seems to be the point of departure:
[roamer_1:] But Noah was not corrupt - being 'perfect in his generations' (stop and think about what that means)...
So, in explanation:
Gen 6:9 These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.
(e-Sword:KJV)
Boogieman focused upon 'generations' in his analysis... I would focus upon 'perfect' - The word is tamiym in Hebrew, and is the same word used to describe a sacrificial lamb's 'perfectness' (without spot or blemish). While it can be used otherwise, it's main connotation is a physical one - being without any physical spot or blemish - And I think that here it refers to genetic purity... Not only was he a just man, but he was also a pure genetic line from which the family of Man could be preserved, and also from which a Messiah could come to save Man, and battle the seed of Satan. Among his generation, Noah was perfect... Which assumes also his wife, his sons, and their wives.
Gen 6:12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
Gen 6:13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
The corruption at that time encompassed ALL flesh, the four (earthly) types of which are defined in Gen 6:7 - What had become corrupt were the flesh of Man, Beast, Creeping thing (roughly reptile), and Bird. That isn't to say that ALL flesh (individually complete, every instance) was corrupt, but rather that these types were corrupted in their ways... Corrupted enough to warrant destruction and renewal.
I would submit that likewise, animals that were 'tamiym' (genetically pure to their kind) were also preserved, in order to reestablish all flesh, not just Man... It is the only reason I can come up with that warrants the massive scale of destruction that YHWH chose. Literally, every single thing that held breath had to be wiped clean off the earth. If it was only Man that was corrupt, as the Christian tale is taught, why destroy everything? Why not just selectively Man?
I see I’ve pretty much confused us both by now! 8^)
Well, you've got to do what you're good at... : D
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