Dinosaurs and Judaism: Did Giant Creatures Really Roam the Earth?

We recently discussed the question of the age of the universe, but one issue continues to intrigue many people: what about dinosaurs that, according to many scientists, lived on Earth until about 65 million years ago?

From a traditional Jewish perspective, accepting such ancient dates can be challenging because Judaism teaches that the world is much younger. Does that mean dinosaurs never existed?

A Different Perspective

Rabbi Yitzchak Fanger responds with a question of his own: "Why not?"

Judaism does not necessarily deny the existence of large prehistoric creatures. Rather, the disagreement may lie in the dating of those creatures.

According to Rabbi Fanger, Judaism does not object to the idea that enormous animals once lived on Earth and later became extinct. However, traditional Judaism would not agree with the claim that dinosaurs lived millions of years before the creation of humanity.

In fact, the Sages speak of an enormous creature called the Re'em, so large that Noah reportedly had difficulty accommodating it in the Ark.

Were Dinosaurs Known to Ancient People?

Rabbi Zamir Cohen, likewise does not dismiss the possibility that dinosaurs existed.

He points to various reports from around the world that some interpret as evidence that humans may have encountered dinosaur-like creatures. One example often cited is a cave painting in Zambia that some researchers believe resembles a long-necked dinosaur drinking from a lake.

Rabbi Cohen also notes that the Torah describes giant creatures that lived in ancient times, many of which were destroyed during the Flood.

The Flood and Dinosaur Extinction

According to Rabbi Cohen, the biblical Flood was not merely a global inundation of water.

The Torah describes the "fountains of the great deep" bursting open, suggesting massive geological upheavals, volcanic activity, and catastrophic environmental changes.

He argues that such events could explain the extinction of giant creatures and the formation of many fossils found today.

Some creationist researchers further claim that volcanic activity and environmental changes could affect radiometric dating methods, leading them to question conventional fossil age estimates.

How Can We Compare the Scientific and Jewish Views?

Rabbi Cohen argues that the Jewish perspective attempts to address questions that science still debates, such as:

• What caused the extinction of dinosaurs?

• How did some species survive while others disappeared?

• What was the nature of the global catastrophe described in ancient traditions?

The Talmud contains a passage describing God removing two stars from the constellation Kimah, resulting in the Flood. Some commentators interpret this symbolically, while others understand it as a description of cosmic events that affected Earth.

Another Possibility: Previous Worlds

Rabbi Cohen also points to passages in the Zohar and various Midrashim stating that God "created worlds and destroyed them" before the present world.

Some Torah scholars understood these texts as referring to earlier eras or previous forms of life that existed before the appearance of Adam.

Under this interpretation, even if scientific dating of fossils were accurate, it would not necessarily contradict the Torah. The Jewish calendar counts the years since the creation of Adam and the beginning of humanity's current era, not necessarily the age of all matter or every previous stage of existence.

The View of Rabbi Pinchas Badush

Rabbi Pinchas Badush likewise does not reject the possibility that dinosaurs existed.

He argues that the central issue is not whether giant creatures once lived, but how we identify them.

The Torah mentions the creation of "great sea creatures" and describes giants and mighty beings that lived in earlier generations. According to Rabbi Badush, the dimensions of both humans and animals may have been very different in ancient times.

Therefore, when large fossilized bones are discovered, one may view them as the remains of giant creatures described in ancient sources.

As he explains: "Call it a giant reptile, call it a dinosaur — the real debate is not about whether such creatures existed, but about when they lived and how old the world is."

A Question of Interpretation

Within traditional Jewish thought, there is no single universally accepted view regarding dinosaurs. Some reject the conventional scientific timeline, while others allow for prehistoric creatures within various interpretations of Torah sources.

What unites these approaches is the belief that the existence of large extinct animals does not, in itself, contradict the Torah. The primary discussion revolves around chronology, interpretation, and how scientific findings are understood alongside traditional Jewish teachings.