Does the Bible Mention Fossils?

Job 26:5
“Dead [things] are formed from under the waters, and the inhabitants thereof.”

Does the Bible mention fossils? Before you answer too quickly, you need to know that fossils are not a modern discovery.

Long before the time of Christ there were Greek philosophers who knew about fossils. They said the fossils were evidence that simple life forms had developed into complex life forms during the long history of the Earth. This explanation relied upon natural processes and did not require a Creator God they could not see. We recognize this today as evolution.

Fossils are produced when a plant or animal dies and is covered by water or air-carried material before it has a chance to decay. We would naturally expect that the Genesis Flood would have produced most of the fossils. While Job 26:5 is a difficult passage, it seems to be talking about fossil formation when it speaks of “dead things forming under the waters.” Even the 1837 edition of Matthew Henry’s Commentary suggests that Job is here talking about fossils. The commentary even includes a drawing of a plesiosaur fossil. Most of the modern commentaries and Bible translations take an evolutionary view or ignore the subject.

While we cannot be absolutely certain that Job is talking about fossils, we do know that the Bible does have much to say about the material world – and when it does so, it is always accurate!

Prayer:
Heavenly Father, I thank You that Your Word is always accurate in all that it talks about. It is accurate even in worldly subjects, and we pray that it will draw some people to its promises about a relationship with You through Jesus Christ. In His Name. Amen.

Notes:
Photo: Plesiosaur skeleton (Meyerasaurus) in the Museum am Löwentor, Stuttgart, Germany. Courtesy of Ra’ike. Licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2.

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