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Dear gramps, I have in my work some good friends who are always insistent on facts when I share various gospel messages with them. I regularly share with them our belief that faith is needed. My wife and I have been watching on telly a program on dinosaurs. Of course this question came up in work. Have any of the brethren elaborated on when they existed? Many thanks.... William 

Dear William,

We know from the scriptures and from the pronouncements of the prophets some of the events of pre-history and their sequence, but a time line is not given. Here are some of the things that have been revealed that impact on your question in one way or another.

First we know that Adam or Michael helped form the earth and helped populate it with flora and fauna.

“All this vast creation as produced from element in its unorganized state; the mountains, rivers, seas, valleys, plains, and the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms beneath and around us, all speaking forth the wonderful works of the Great God. Shall I say that the seeds of vegetables were planted here by the Characters that framed and built this world--that the seeds of every plant composing the vegetable kingdom were brought from another world? This would be news to many of you. Who brought them here? . . . It was some Being who had power to frame this earth with its seas, valleys, mountains, and rivers, and cause it to teem with vegetable and animal life” (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 7, p. 285.)

“Our father Adam . . . helped to make this world, and was the chief manager in that operation. He was the person who brought the animals and the seeds from other planets to this world, and brought a wife with him and stayed here. You may read and believe what you please as to what is found written in the Bible. Adam was made from the dust of an earth, but not from the dust of this earth. He was made as you and I are made, and no person was ever made upon any other principle. (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 3, p. 319.)

We also know that when all this took place the earth was positioned in another part of the universe (near the celestial throne of God,) and was not yet a part of our solar system--

“When the earth was framed and brought into existence and man was placed upon it, it was near the throne of our Father in heaven. And when man fell . . . the earth fell into space, and took up its abode in this planetary system, and the sun became our light. When the Lord said-- ‘Let there be light,’ there was light, for the earth was brought near the sun that it might reflect upon it so as to give us light by day, and the moon to give us light by night. This is the glory the earth came from, and when it is glorified it will return again unto the presence of the Father, and it will dwell there, and these intelligent beings that I am looking at, if they live worthy of it, will dwell upon this earth  (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 17, p. 144.)

When Adam and Eve came to live on the earth they were immortal, not subject to death. Mortality, or death, was introduced on the earth when Adam and Eve partook of the forbidden fruit. Before that time there was no death.

“Adam fell and brought mortality into the world. Thereafter the effects of his fall passed on all created things. Adam thus became literally, not only the first man, but the first flesh (meaning mortal flesh) on earth” (Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p.282.)

Now we know about when Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, near 4000 BC. This was after they had partaken of the forbidden fruit, but how long after has not been revealed. Further, since at the time of the fall of Adam, i.e., when he partook of the forbidden fruit, “the earth fell into space, and took up its abode in this planetary system,” we have no idea what physical aging conditions were active or had been active in that other part of the universe.

The attempt by science to put a time line on prehistoric events assumes some constant conditions that, according to revelation, cannot be shown to be true. Science accepts the premise that from before the time that the earth was habitable, it was a member of our present solar system, and that the natural conditions that effect the aging processes of the earth--wind, rain, freezing, thawing, the imperceptivity slow continental drifts--have always occurred at rates similar to the presently observed rates. Since the earth is the newcomer to this solar system, and we have absolutely no idea what physical processes influenced the earth’s topography until after the fall of Adam, none of the scientific theories of prehistoric time lines can be given any credibility. We simply don’t know when dinosaurs and other prehistoric forms of life appeared or disappeared.

Gramps

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