Is it apikorises to believe dinosaurs existed?

Question

Is it apikorises to believe dinosaurs existed? I know that scientists say that dinosaurs existed millions of years ago, but that may be potentially controversial, since the Jewish calendar doesn't go that far back. But they've apparently found fossils, so how could we deny it? Is it possible that dinosaurs were included within the category of "shratzim" in the Chumash, and that they really were around when Adam and Chavah were alive?

Answer 1

No. Many respected Orthodox authorities, including Tiferet Yisrael, the Malbim and the Netziv, have written about the dinosaurs.

Answer 2

There are different approaches, put mildly.

One great rabbi was asked, and he replied, simply, with a shrug: I wasn't there.

It seems to be increasingly becoming a battle line between different camps of Orthodoxy, when it wasn't in the past.

As a matter of practical ruling, there are plenty of Orthodox rabbis who are okay with dinosaurs having existed; marriages, divorces, and conversions performed by said rabbis wind up being accepted in virtually all segments of the Orthodox community, even the ultra-Orthodox ones. Here's an interview with Rabbi Hershel Schachter shlit'a about an older earth (which kinds of goes hand-in-hand with dinosaurs):

Q: What do you believe about the opinion of R. Nachum Eisenstein, quoted in R. Elyashiv’s name, that any dayyan (judge) who believes the world is more than 5771 years old is a dayyan pasul (disqualified judge) and that his conversions are invalid?

A: It’s an extreme position, and in this case, he had to retract it the next day. It is not a position I would take seriously.

So is it an acceptable belief? Depends who you ask. Do we treat someone who believes it as a heretic to the point of halachic implications? No.

Answer 3

The large lizards are created in Genesis 1:21

And God created the great crocodiles, and every living creature that crawls, with which the waters swarmed, according to their kind, and every winged fowl, according to its kind, and God saw that it was good.

Dinosaur means "Terrible Lizard" (in ancient Greek, converted into Latin), however the lizards God creates are good. It is apikorsus to say they were terrible.

Answer 4

Rav Avigdor Miller TAPE # 490 (January 1984) says

Now dinosaurs, that’s what puts a thrill in little boys who are taught evolution. And therefore you have to know, dinosaurs are just the same as caveman. Because dinosaurs are a recent phenomenon. They went out of existence as soon as the Mabul took place. A great many of the huge lizards of antiquity that were not able to survive the flood, they were all destroyed in massive catastrophes. And that’s proven by the fact that you find dinosaur graveyards. Huge masses of dinosaur bones are jammed together in certain places as if they were buried together. And that could only be due to catastrophe. They didn’t come and decide to bury themselves together. It’s not like a Montefiore Cemetery where every person applies for a grave. No! It was a catastrophe that swept them up suddenly. When the Mabul came there were great changes in the weather suddenly. Tremendous changes took place. When so much water is subtracted from the sea’s surface, there’s a tremendous change in the climate. And in certain places the dinosaurs were immediately overwhelmed. They were frozen. You find thousands of mastodon skeletons in Siberia. In great cemeteries, great graveyards all buried together. Because there was a big catastrophe that engulfed them suddenly. And therefore the dinosaurs and the cavemen and whatever else you have are no contradiction to anything that we teach in the Torah.