2. Fearless

“And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.” (Genesis 1:31)

There was once a time when everything lived in harmony. There was no death, no disease, no suffering of any kind. Can you imagine that? No stubbed toes, no paper cuts, no hurt feelings. A time when you could walk up to a cobra and stroke it on the head. This is how the original creation was. Before Adam and Eve sinned, everything was perfect, and everything was vegetarian. That includes dinosaurs!

Hold on a second. T. rex originally ate plants? An animal with big sharp teeth and claws must be a carnivore (eats meat), right? This is a commonly made, mistakenly held assumption. Just because an animal has big sharp teeth and claws doesn’t mean it has to eat meat.

For example, fruit bats have sharp teeth, but they mostly eat fruit. Giant pandas also have big teeth, like other bears, but they almost exclusively eat bamboo. Sharp teeth and claws or even a bone-crushing bite are just as suited for feeding on tough plants, such as gourds, melons, and coconuts, as they are at tearing into other animals.

In fact, the animal with the longest claws ever discovered, a dinosaur called Therizinosaurus, was an herbivore (eats plants) even after Adam and Eve sinned and some animals became carnivores. This theropod dinosaur had claws that were over three feet long! These claws likely helped the animal reach and grasp leaves and fruit off plants more easily. They also likely aided in defense against predators, though not until after the fall.

Sin. Nothing was ever the same after that day when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. However, before that happened, everything lived in peace. Animals and man lived together without fear. Who knows, maybe Adam rode on the back of a Triceratops, or perhaps he ran through the jungle with a pack of raptors? Maybe he posed with a rex and a roo?