Have You Heard of the Five F's of Dinosaur History?

About 15 years ago, Stacia Byers (now Stacia McKeever) and I began producing a four-page magazine feature called Answers for Kids. At that time there were lots of biblical creation resources for adults, but the availability of the same type of materials for children was very limited. Ken Ham saw this need and asked me to start a kids oriented magazine feature. "Answers for Kids" came to mind as a good title for this feature and a natural fit being that we worked for a ministry called Answers in Genesis. I knew I couldn't write all the needed articles and illustrate the feature too, so Stacia was asked to write the articles for AFK. It was a great blessing working with her on this feature as she brought a great sense of direction and many valuable insights to this much needed magazine feature.

AFK was comprised of articles, games, trivia, cartoons and illustrations, many of which have since been remade and used in various products for AiG. One example of this comes from an AFK series that answered common biblical creation questions. In 2003, AFK number 19 tackled the issue of dinosaurs and the Bible.  Dinosaurs usually have ages such as Jurassic and Triassic attached to them and I figured it would be helpful to talk about dinosaurs by using ages that reflected a biblical way of thinking instead. So I created the Five F's of Dinosaur History, or as they are called in the printed example below, "Five Real Dinosaur Ages."

For a number of years AiG had been using a timeline tool called "The Seven C's of History". The Seven C's of History, of which the first four C's were originated by Dr. Gary Parker (see here on page 31), is an outline of biblical events that both AiG and the Creation Museum currently use to mark seven important biblical milestones in the history of the universe. The Five F's of Dinosaur History were inspired by these Seven C's.


 

These five dinosaur ages began as:
Formed
Fallen
Flood
Faded
Found

  Ken Ham liked this idea so much that he started using these dinosaur ages in his talks and I produced a series of Five F's PowerPoint slides for this purpose. What a nice compliment it was for Ken to use this idea in his talks! At AiG, I know I've hit a home run with an illustration or a cartoon when Ken Ham asks me to make it into a slide for use in his talks. 

In 2008, Ken called me into his office and explained that he wanted to expand the five F's to seven, I guess to be more in line with the Seven C's of history. He had already come up with some words that might work for this expansion and  wanted me to look over the list. I appreciated the fact that he remembered that I had created these ages and wanted me to help make the change. As best I recall, I used one of the words on Ken's list and also used a different word that I liked better to bring the total up to the desired seven.
The new F's added were "Fearless" and
"Fiction." Both additions are really the same age as the one before them only with a different emphasis.


In 2009, a new dinosaur book from Ken Ham titled, Dinosaurs for Kids, was announced. In this book you will see that the Seven F's of Dinosaur History are used as the time outline for the dinosaur information that is presented. Another very nice conformation of a good idea from Ken Ham! So the dinosaur ages idea that began with the Answers for Kids series all those years ago has continued on and now finds life in one of Ken Ham's latest books on dinosaurs. Here are a number of places you can find out about this wonderful dinosaur book:
" Master Books has just produced what they believe is the beschildren’s book they’ve ever published—Dinosaurs for Kids."

Ken Ham's blog - Ken Ham talks about the origin of the 7 F's of Dinosaur History.

YouTube Video - A longer interview on Dinosaurs and the Bible.  

Ken Ham's blog -  Dinosaurs for Kids book:

Ken Ham's blog - An interactive ebook!

Review on Google Books

If you don't already have own a copy of Dinosaurs for Kids, now you have no excuse! 
Buy it here!  

Or buy the ebook version here.