Were Dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark?

(4 Minute Read. 2Mar2022)

Dinosaurs capture imaginations and intrigue people of all ages. In natural history museums, dinosaurs are among the most popular exhibits.

One of the most common questions that skeptics raise about Noah’s Ark involves dinosaurs.

Were these enormous animals on the Ark?

The short answer is YES, dinosaurs were on the Ark.

The Great Creator made land dinosaurs the same day He made Adam and Eve — on Creation Day Six. Dinosaurs would fall in the category of “beasts of the earth.”
Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind”; and it was so. God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:24-25)

The “great sea monsters” (ocean dinosaurs) that were created on Day Five did not need to go on the Ark. But the land dinosaurs created on Day Six had to be on the Ark in order to survive the Flood. (Genesis 1:20-25)

The record in Genesis reports that pairs of all kinds of air-breathing land animals entered the Ark with Noah.
On the very same day Noah and Shem and Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark, they and every beast after its kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, all sorts of birds. So they went into the ark to Noah, by twos of all flesh in which was the breath of life. Those that entered, male and female of all flesh, entered as God had commanded him; and the Lord closed it behind him. (Genesis 7:13-16)

Dinosaur fossils have been discovered on every continent beginning in the 1820s. Most are in vast water-deposited bone graveyards revealing hundreds of jumbled dinosaurs that were buried en masse by flood sediments. This is evidence that dinosaurs lived before Noah’s Flood.

We know dinosaurs existed after the Flood based on dinosaur pictographs and carvings on cave walls which provide extra-Biblical evidence that man knew dinosaurs. Marco Polo Meets Dinosaurs discusses Marco Polo’s eyewitness account of dinosaurs he saw in China. See Dragons for more on dinosaurs throughout man’s history.

The post-Flood book of Job depicts the terror of human interaction with dinosaurs Behemoth and Leviathan (Job 40:15-41:34), giving them its longest description of any animals. From Genesis to Revelation the Bible has some 50 references to monsters or dragons or creatures which were likely dinosaurs.

Thus dinosaurs had to have been on the Ark in order to live on earth after Noah’s Flood.

Too Big to Fit?

Whimsical art about Noah’s Ark will often show dinosaur necks sticking out of portholes or roof vents. Such pictures promote the deception that it would be absurd for Noah to take dinosaurs on the Ark.

But is the idea ridiculous? Weren’t dinosaurs too big to fit on the Ark? Absolutely not! The five-story-high Ark was around 550 feet long and 90 feet wide. It would dwarf the largest of dinosaurs. (See How Big Was Noah’s Ark?.)

Sauropod dinosaurs with their long necks and tails are the largest known dinosaurs. Based on fossil remains, the largest adult sauropod was no more than 120 feet long.

But Noah wouldn’t have taken the biggest specimens available. He would have taken hatchlings or young dinosaurs of smaller size in order to save space, to require less food, and to have as long a reproductive life cycle as possible for replenishing the earth after exiting the Ark.

Moreover, most dinosaurs were not huge. The average size for an adult dinosaur was only about that of a buffalo. Even though scientists have assigned hundreds of names for different species of dinosaurs, there were only 50 different dinosaur kinds.

The Story of Noah's Ark
(Advent Calendar by Dorothy Sayers)

Dinosaurs on the Ark

This has long been a hotly debated issue. But back in the mid-20th century, literary scholar Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957) gave a historical and logical argument why dinosaurs were on Noah’s Ark.

Sayers is best-known for her excellent mystery novels featuring detective Lord Peter Wimsey. She was a good friend of Christian apologist and Narnia author C. S. Lewis. And Sayers was also a Biblical creationist.

In 1956 Sayers authored a children’s advent calendar The Story of Noah’s Ark illustrated by Fritz Wegner. Three pages of text accompanied a full-color illustration with 27 calendar doors that open. Her text is a detailed description of the picture depicting the gathering of animal kinds to board the Ark shortly before the impending Flood.

Children were challenged to find numerous animals in the picture, including behind calendar doors. Sayers remarked that if you couldn’t find an animal, then that meant it was already in Noah’s Ark. Sadly, Wegner’s depiction of the Ark is far too small relative to the animals.

Sayers wrote, “Yes, to be sure there were Dragons in the Ark, or there wouldn’t have been one for St. George to fight with; but they are all dead now.”

“Dragon” is another word for “dinosaur.” See Dragons for more on the identification of dragons with dinosaurs.

Click the picture to enlarge it and see if you can find the dinosaur. Other interesting animals to look for include a hippopotamus and giraffes. (Answers below.) Also look for Mr. & Mrs. Noah, two of their sons and their wives, and a group of onlookers. The other son and wife are likely behind calendar doors.

Sayers logically deduced the existence of dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark from the fact that history records St. George fighting one and that Genesis records the death of all air-breathing animals outside the Ark (Genesis 6:17; 7:21-23).

This was a remarkable statement from Sayers demonstrating her fidelity to Biblical truth in a day when most people scoffed at the idea that dinosaurs were on the Ark.

Sayers also answered the questions skeptics like to ask when told dinosaurs accompanied Noah on the Ark: “What happened to the dinosaurs if they were on the Ark?” Obviously, as Sayers says, they died out — at least to the extent of current knowledge.

Belief in the truth of Scriptural history and straightforward logic led Sayers to her inescapable conclusion: dinosaurs were on Noah’s Ark.

Questions to Ponder

1. In your home, do you have a Biblically-accurate picture of Noah’s Ark or a scale-model Noah’s Ark?
2. What question about Noah perplexes you the most?

Share your thoughts on these questions in the comments below. It could encourage or help another reader.

Answers to the advent calendar questions:
The dragon/dinosaur is pictured at the lower left of The Story of Noah’s Ark advent calendar. The hippo is swimming by the Ark. The giraffes are in front of the castle at the upper right.

For Christ and His Kingdom. Soli Deo Gloria. Alere Flammam Veritatis.

This is the sixth in a series of articles on Noah. This Noah Series will suggest answers to many of the questions believers and skeptics have about Noah, Noah’s Ark, and Noah’s Flood.
Read the prequels:
1. Think You Know Noah?
2. Did Jesus Think Noah Was Real?
3. How Long Did It Take Noah to Build the Ark?
4. Could Noah Build the Ark in 75 Years?
5. How Big Was Noah’s Ark?

Read the sequel:
7. Could Noah Fit All the Animals on the Ark?

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©William T. Pelletier, Ph.D.
“contending earnestly for the faith”
“destroying speculations against the knowledge of God”
“for the defense of the gospel”
(Jude 1:3; 2 Cor 10:5; Phil 1:16)
Wednesday March 2, 2022 A.D.

Then God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of them; and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth. Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; you shall make the ark with rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you shall make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. You shall make a window for the ark, and finish it to a cubit from the top; and set the door of the ark in the side of it; you shall make it with lower, second, and third decks. Behold, I, even I am bringing the flood of water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life, from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall perish.
(Genesis 6:13-17)

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