Dinosaurs on the Ark?
[Noah standing at the door of the ark with a checklist in hand]: “That’s two dogs, two giraffes, two bats, two elephants, two stegosauruses, two pterodactyls, …”
When most people first hear the suggestion that dinosaurs were on the ark they find this incomprehensible. The visual image of dinosaurs walking up a ramp through the doorway of the ark is not a picture many have ever considered. Two mental stumbling blocks make it especially difficult for the average person to give any consideration to this suggestion: evolutionary teaching and their gigantic size. The mainstream media has done such an outstanding job of convincing the general population that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago that the idea of dinosaurs on the ark seems ludicrous. After all, they would have us believe that humans are separated from the dinosaurs by 65 million years.
The other stumbling block is the size of these great lizards. Oftentimes when we picture dinosaurs, we imagine massive Sauropod dinosaurs such as the Apatosaurus that easily weighed over 50 tons! How do you get such massive creatures on the ark—and once onboard, how do you feed such enormous creatures? Furthermore, how did Noah’s family and domestic creatures share living quarters with ferocious creatures such as the Tyrannosaurus rex?
In evaluating what animals were on the ark, it is important to consult God’s inspired Word for details. (Remember, this is the only inspired book.) Consider the following Truths that can found in the Bible:
1. All land-dwelling creatures were created on day six (Genesis 1:24-26).
It is clear that on the sixth day God created all land-dwelling creatures and man: “Then God said, ‘Let the Earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping things and beast of the Earth, each according to its kind’; and it was so…. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image…’” This creative history is emphasized again in Exodus 20:11 which tells us: “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the Earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day.” Clearly, everything—including man and dinosaurs—was created during the six days of creation.
2. Noah was to take two of every unclean land-dwelling creature on the ark—which would include dinosaurs (Genesis 6:19-20).
Moses wrote: “And of every living thing of all flesh you shall bring two of every sort into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. Of the birds after their kind, of animals after their kind, and of every creeping thing of the Earth after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive” (Genesis 6:19-20). God brought every land-dwelling creature to Noah for safekeeping. If dinosaurs were around during this time then one can reasonably conclude that they too would have required safekeeping.
3. The book of Job describes the “behemoth” (40:15), a creature that fits the description of a dinosaur that was living after the Flood. (Additional scientific evidence exists that these amazing creatures lived after the Flood.)
In Job 40:15 God questions Job about a creature He describes as the behemoth. While many (uninspired) footnotes describe this creature as an elephant or hippopotamus, the description better fits a dinosaur-like creature. (How many elephants or hippos have “tails like a cedar,” Job 40:17?) While most scholars consider Job to be one of the first books written, we can tell from the way Job and his three “friends” were worshipping that it fits in “post-Flood.” Also, there is extensive scientific evidence that men living after the Flood saw these amazing creatures. [We will cover this in detail in an upcoming issue on the dinosaurs!]
4. Genesis 1:29-30 indicates that both man and animals were to eat vegetation before the Flood. It was only after the Flood that God allowed the eating of meat (Genesis 9:3). If it were the case that both man and animals were vegetarian prior to the Flood, then sharing close quarters on the ark would not have presented a problem.
5. The Bible does not specify that Noah had to take adult animals onboard the ark. While many would argue that dinosaurs would have been too large to fit on the ark, we must bear in mind that there are some mysteries that God’s Word does not reveal. For instance, why couldn’t Noah have taken juveniles? Consider they take up less space, eat less food, produce less waste, and you don’t have to worry about reproductive problems! Also, not all dinosaurs were massive in size.
So could dinosaurs have been on the ark with Noah and his family? Absolutely!