Hi dominian
To add to Beloved's valuable post, I do not think that God's creation is something God is making up as He goes along. God knows the beginning from the end and God is not an idiot. Death was in the Mind of God before the Dinosaurs were created. All is out of God.
The first time death appeared in God's Mind or when or how that happened I do not know.
Death is not a separate entity but a consequence, result or effect that is in the Plan and Purpose of God.
You ask
Could death have reigned even before man came on the scene??
Death can not "reign." God reigns. Death is a consequence of sin, missing the mark, rebellion, arrogance and disobedience to say the least.
For Christ must reign until He humbles all His enemies beneath His feet. And the last enemy to be destroyed is death. For the Scriptures say " God has put all things under His authority. 1 Cor 15:25I believe that God put all things under the authority of Christ from before Gen 1:1 and not during or after. Christ told us this when He stated that He lays His life down and no one takes it from Him because the Father has given Him the power to lay it down and take it up again.
To conclude that man coexisted with the dinosaurs based on the assumption that death did not exist earlier on does not address that Christ existed before Genesis 1:1 or that Adam and Eve may not have been the first humans or what Science has discovered. Who was Cain afraid of? When did God the Father give His Son the power over
death? Was it before the dinosaurs existed or after?
Have you listened to Ray's latest Conference audio?
Arc