13 Oct DINOSAURS AND THE FLOOD: DIGGING FOR ANSWERS

Ask a believing Jew
about dinosaurs, and he
may wonder whether
the subject conflicts
with the Torah. After all,
scientists speak of
creatures that lived
millions of years ago. Does the discovery of
their remains challenge our faith?
Already in Parshat Bereishit, the Torah tells
us that Hashem created “the great sea
creatures” (Bereishit 1:21). Rashi explains
that these were the great fish of the sea.
The Gemara in Bava Batra (74b) discusses the
Livyatan and relates that Hashem created it
male and female, but then killed the female so
that they would not reproduce and destroy the
world.
The Torah and Chazal thus describe creatures
of extraordinary size and power, some of
which are beyond our ordinary experience.
We should not automatically identify every
creature mentioned by Chazal with a particular
species known to modern science.
Nevertheless, these sources remind us that the
world Hashem created contains wonders far
beyond what we encounter in everyday life.
The Tiferet Yisrael, Rabbi Yisrael Lipschitz,
addresses the discovery of enormous
fossilized creatures (in his essay Derush Or
HaChaim, printed with his commentary on
Seder Nezikin). He discusses the remains of
creatures found near Baltimore and elsewhere,
including animals known in his time as the
mammoth, Iguanodon, and Megalosaurus. He
connects these discoveries with the teachings
of the Kabbalists concerning worlds that
Hashem created and destroyed before the
present world.
The Tiferet Yisrael saw these discoveries as
consistent with the idea that earlier stages of
creation may have contained creatures unlike
those familiar to us. He discusses fossilized
creatures that we today associate with the
prehistoric world.
Another relevant teaching appears in Bereishit
Rabbah (3:7), where Rabbi Abahu teaches
that Hashem created worlds and destroyed
them before creating the present world. The
Midrash does not mention dinosaurs, but later
Torah scholars have discussed it in connection
with questions about the ancient history of the
earth.
The Malbim, in his commentary to Bereishit
7:23, offers a different perspective on the
remains of enormous creatures. He explains
that the Flood’s waters swept away the bodies
of animals and carried many of their bones
into deep valleys and the depths of the earth.
Although some bones were strong enough to
survive, they became buried far beneath the
surface. According to the Malbim, when
Noach left the Ark, he found no trace of the
remains of the enormous creatures that had
existed before the Flood.
The Malbim’s discussion offers a Torah
perspective on how the upheavals of the Flood
could have affected the remains of creatures

that perished. However, neither he nor the
other sources mentioned here explicitly
identifies dinosaurs by that modern name or
establishes precisely when they lived.
The important point is not that every scientific
theory must be found explicitly in a pasuk.
Rather, we should recognize that the world is
far more complex than what we see around us
today. Discoveries about ancient creatures do
not, in themselves, contradict the Torah. Our
faith rests on the truth of the Torah, not on the
assumption that we already understand every
detail of the world Hashem created.
More Than a Flood
The discussion of ancient creatures raises a
broader question: How much did the Flood
change the world?
We are accustomed to thinking of the Mabul
as a catastrophe that destroyed the people and
animals of that generation, after which the
world continued much as before. But several
Torah commentators describe changes that
went far beyond the destruction of life.
According to their explanations, the Flood
altered the natural conditions under which
future generations would live.
The Birth of the Seasons
At the end of the Flood, the pasuk says:
“From now on, for all the days of the earth,
seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer
and winter, day and night shall not cease”
(Bereishit 8:22).
The Sforno explains that the natural order
after the Flood differed from what had existed
before. He writes that the sun would travel
along a path inclined relative to the equator,
and that this inclination would bring about the
changing seasons. Before the Flood, he
explains, the sun’s path remained along the
equator, so it was always spring.
The Sforno presents a striking picture of the
change that took place after the Flood. To
understand his explanation, consider how
seasons work today. The earth rotates on its
axis and revolves around the sun. Because its
axis is tilted, different parts of the world
receive different amounts of direct sunlight
during the year. When the Northern
Hemisphere tilts toward the sun, it experiences
summer, while the Southern Hemisphere
experiences winter. Six months later, the
situation reverses.
The Sforno’s account is his own explanation
of the natural order described by the Torah. It
should not be confused with the modern
scientific explanation of the seasons, which
attributes them to the earth’s axial tilt.
The Sforno further explains that the change in
the natural order brought about a deterioration
in the conditions of the world. Before the
Flood, the more favorable conditions
benefited plants, animals, and human beings
and contributed to their long lifespans. The
promise that the seasons would continue was
therefore more than a promise about the
weather. It described a new and enduring
natural order.
The Sforno adds that Hashem will ultimately

repair the deterioration caused by the Flood.
He connects this idea to the pasuk:
“For the young man shall die at the age of one
hundred” (Yeshayahu 65:20).
In the future, when Hashem renews the world,
the conditions that existed before the Flood
will be restored.
According to the Sforno, then, the Flood did
not merely destroy one generation. It changed
the conditions under which all subsequent
generations would live.
Rain Once in Forty Years
The Midrash, as cited by the Malbim,
describes another difference between the
world before and after the Flood. According
to this account, illness was unknown before
the Flood, and rain fell only once in forty
years. The rain was so remarkable that people
would gather to witness it, and the land would
produce enough to sustain them for years.
The account also relates that when one of the
Sages of the Gemara suffered from a stiff
neck, he attributed it to the consequences of
the Flood.
These descriptions portray a world whose
conditions differed dramatically from those
we know today. The pattern of rainfall, the
health of human beings, and the conditions of
agricultural life were not necessarily always
as they are now.
The Torah’s account of the Flood therefore
invites us to consider consequences that
extended far beyond the destruction of the
generation that lived at the time. According to
these sources, the effects of the Mabul
continued to shape the world in which later
generations lived.
Continental Drift
Another fascinating question concerns the
history of the earth: Were the continents once
joined together?
In 1915, the German scientist Alfred Wegener
published his theory of continental drift. He
observed that the eastern coast of South
America and the western coast of Africa
appear to fit together like pieces of a puzzle.
He also pointed to matching fossils, geological
formations, and evidence of ancient glaciers
found on continents that are now separated by
oceans.
One striking example was the discovery of
fossils of the same reptile, Mesosaurus, in
both South America and Africa. Such findings
supported the idea that these continents had
once been connected.
Wegener could not initially explain the
physical mechanism that moved the
continents, and his theory was disputed. Later
research developed the modern theory of plate
tectonics, which explains how the earth’s
plates move over long periods.
Torah sources have also prompted discussion
about the history of the earth’s lands. The
Zohar Chadash states:
“One actual land emerged from the waters,
and from it the seven lands developed.”
The Zohar Chadash describes the emergence

of one land from
the waters and the
development of
seven lands.
Some later writers
have connected
this passage with
the continents as
we know them
today. That
identification, however, is an interpretation
rather than an explicit statement of the Zohar.
The Torah itself tells us that, at Creation,
Hashem gathered the waters so that the dry
land would appear:
“Let the waters beneath the heavens gather
into one place, and let the dry land appear”
(Bereishit 1:9).
Later, the Torah records the name Peleg,
explaining:
“For in his days the earth was divided”
(Bereishit 10:25).
These passages have prompted discussion
among Torah scholars about the history of the
earth and the separation of its lands. We
should be careful not to claim that a particular
scientific theory is proven by a source that
does not explicitly describe it. Still, these
sources invite us to reflect on the tremendous
changes the earth has undergone and on how
much there is yet to understand about the
world Hashem created.
Predators and the Tower of Bavel
The Flood changed more than the physical
environment. According to the Ramban, the
relationship between human beings and
animals changed as well.
The Torah records that after the Flood,
Hashem permitted Noach and his descendants
to eat meat:
“Every moving creature that lives shall be
yours for food” (Bereishit 9:3).
The Ramban explains that before this point,
human beings had been permitted to eat
vegetation but not animals. The permission to
eat meat marked a new stage in humanity’s
relationship with the animal world.
The world after the Flood was therefore
different in its natural conditions and in the
relationship between humanity and other
living creatures. The Mabul marked a turning
point in the history of the world, with
consequences that, according to the
commentators, extended well beyond the
generation that experienced it.
When we consider the remains of ancient
creatures, the changing natural order, and the
history of the earth’s lands, we are reminded
that the world Hashem created is vast and
complex. Torah sources offer profound
perspectives on its history, while scientific
discoveries continue to uncover details of the
natural world. We need not claim that every
discovery is explicitly described in the Torah
to appreciate that learning about the world can
deepen our sense of wonder at Hashem’s
creation.