Jesus rides a dinosaur
There seem to be people who believe that dinosaurs weren’t extinct at all when Jesus walked the earth. It’s hard to stomach, but the Beginner’s Bible Coloring Book clearly endorses this belief. I actually assumed that this was fake, but a background check on the internet didn’t yield much. Seems to be quite the elusive coloring book.
Anyway, I found the (both mental and actual) image of Jesus riding a dinosaur so hilarious that I couldn’t resist doing a small papercraft project on the theme:
The whole idea is rooted in the creationist ‘earth is 5000 years old’ credo, and assuming a sufficiently vivid imagination, the rest follows naturally. From a European perspective, where not even the most extreme religious fundamentalists dispute the theory of evolution, the American obsession with creationism and evolution is quite bizarre.
Well, here is to hope the faithful Jesus on a dinosaur model will facilitate dialog and mutual understanding between creationists and biologists.
If you want to build this, take care to get the center of gravity right: Since our little raptor is bipedal, he is prone to falling over if not balanced properly. I strongly suggest to glue a small coin to the center, like so:
Also, take care to align the legs properly, so that our dino and his holy master are more or less upright and stable. Another option would be to glue the raptor to a base plate, which would solve all stability problems. However, although not incredibly stable, the model will stand freely, and I find it looks nicer without a base plate.
I should mention that Jesus can dismount his dino friend, but he doesn’t look that good dismounted:
If you want to build this, you can download the PDF template here. If printed on US letter or DIN A4, this will result in a model about 10cm high.
December 24th, 2012 at 6:25 am
My four year asked me as she was going to sleep “Is Jesus still alive.” I said “No. He lived a long time ago.” So she says “with the dinosaurs?”. We laughed about that for awhile and then I cam downstairs and found this. Just finished it up for Christmas Eve Day. Thanks so much!
November 16th, 2012 at 5:21 am
Oh this is so going larger than life-sized in my front yard this Holiday season, thanks !
February 14th, 2012 at 11:22 pm
cool papertoys. thanks for the template,but it will be better if you made the feet become more solid form so the stability problem will fixed
February 19th, 2012 at 4:48 pm
Yeah, I know – the whole thing isn’t exactly a hallmark of stability. I will revise this sometime soon…
January 20th, 2012 at 10:02 pm
It was hard getting “them” to stand up on their own, but I did it! Awesome figure! (I also added teeth to my dino-figure)
Here’s a link to a picture showing the teeth. http://bit.ly/zluJhJ
January 11th, 2012 at 1:58 pm
[...] Jesus riding a Dinosaur as a paper toy from [...]
January 10th, 2012 at 8:05 pm
I’ve just finished my own product.
Thanks for the template. Here’s my dinosaur riding Jesus for proof: http://jegmacska.tumblr.com/post/15628525343/ive-just-made-my-own-dinosaur-rider-jesus
January 10th, 2012 at 9:31 pm
Wow, pretty cool – thanks for sharing. I especially like your ‘teeth’ upgrade. Looks a lot scarier this way!
January 7th, 2012 at 11:45 pm
and also, yeah, USians are CRAZY…. 5000 years indeed. No wonder they elected (ok, didn’t but let him be president anyway – twice) George W Bush, aka, Barfman (according to the secret service, who would put him to bed but wouldn’t clean up his drink-puke).
January 7th, 2012 at 11:43 pm
Here you go:
http://christiananswers.net/kids/clr-indx.html#dinosaurs
January 7th, 2012 at 10:10 pm
[...] by digitprop. You can download this paper toy from here: Jesus and a dinosaur free papercraft download Category: Others Tags: Dinosaur, [...]
January 7th, 2012 at 12:23 pm
This should explain the original coloring book image.