Q. The dinosaur age was prior to Adam and Eve. Was the world inhabited prior to humans? This would be more than the 7000 years you speak about.

A. The dinosaurs did live prior to Adam and Eve but not for as long as you think because the premise for your question is flawed. They were created on day five and six (Gen 1.20-25) and at the most some of them existed one day prior to when man was created (the Flintstone cartoons were right!). The belief that they preexisted man by millions of years is based on the theory of evolution that presupposes that God did not create the universe according to the book of Genesis. The only difference between the theory of evolution and the children’s fairy tale about the frog that turned into a prince is time, so the “god” and the power of the evolutionist is time. Eventually religious men began to believe that evolution was right because they didn’t believe Moses so they had to assimilate evolutionary thought into the biblical record in order to justify their beliefs so they came up with what is called “ theistic evolution” which means that God “created” the universe through evolution. God said Himself He created the universe and all that was in it in six days (“He spoke and it was done” Psa 33.9), and rested on the seventh, but His word isn’t good enough for religious men, it never is. So, they went back to Genesis and began to look for a scripture to justify what they already believed instead of framing their belief on what was already said by God. This produced what is called “The Gap Theory” because they said there was a gap between Genesis 1.1 and 1.2. This isn’t true but it is still being taught. Here’s the problem with this theory. It’s unscientific because any attempt to justify evolution when it is just a theory isn’t science and evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics. Secondly it isn’t biblical because it would mean that Adam was already walking around on top of giant, fossilized animal graveyards. Paul in Romans 5.12 and 8.20-22 states that sin brought about death, even of animals. Gen 1.24 tells us that God created all the land animals on the sixth day. The gap theory isn’t even needed because a plain interpretation of Genesis reveals what God did, supported by what He has said about creation in other books like Exodus, Job and Psalms where he said He said he “spoke and it was done” and other verses. Those that support this theory will say that in Genesis 1.2 it says “without form and void” means judgment and will cite Jeremiah 4.23 . However, in other passages it simply means “space” (Job 26.7,Dt 32.10, Job 6.18,12.24, Psalm 107.40). They will also say that “was” in Gen 1.2 should be “became” but the Hebrew word “hayetha” is found 264 times and 258 times it simply means “was.” The Hebrew verb for “became” is “haphek”. A third argument will be when they say that there is a difference between “bara” (created) in Genesis 1.1 and “asah” (made) in Genesis 1.7. But, these words are used synonymously and basically mean the same thing. For example God created (bara) in Genesis 1.21 and God made (asah) in 1.25. In Genesis 1.26 it says “let us make (asah) man” and “God created (bara) man” in 1.27. Proponents of the theistic evolution/gap theory will say that “darkness” in Gen 1.2 means judgment but in this case it means the absence of light and is sometimes spoken of as good (Psalms 104.20-24). Lastly they will say that “replenish” in Gen 1.28 indicates that the world was once filled but the Hebrew word “male” almost always means “to fill” (Exodus 40.34,1K18.33,Psa 107.9). You may wonder “what happened to the dinosaurs?” The land animals died in the flood of Noah and the ones in the water of course stayed alive, and many of them exist today and have been found by fishermen. So, in short Genesis 1.1 is a summary statement of the creation and the remaining verses tell us how He did it.