The Bible in Genesis 6:19–20, tells us that Noah took two of every sort of land vertebrate into the Ark: “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.” Therefore, it is certain that dinosaurs (land vertebrates) were represented on the Ark with the rest of the animals.
But the Scripture does not teach that Noah took aboard the ark two of every “species” of animals on Earth. The truth is that Noah took aboard the ark two of each “kind” of animal which possessed enough genetic variety so that each kind could yield offspring that is significantly different.
Creationist researcher John Woodmorappe has shown that Noah had on the ark representatives from about 8,000 animal genera or about 16,000 individual animals. Note that dogs, wolves, and coyotes are perhaps from a single canine “kind,” so hundreds of different dogs were not needed to be included among the animals that got into the Ark.
Although there are around 55 kinds of different dinosaurs, it is clear that Noah only took the ones that were small in size and young in age. It should be added that not all dinosaurs are huge in size. The largest complete dinosaur that is known to us was the Brachiosaurus (“arm lizard”). This creature was 23 m in length and 12 m in height (about the length of two large school buses and the height of a four-story building). However, the smallest dinosaurs, just somewhat bigger than a chicken; Compsognathus (“pretty jaw”) was about 1 m (3 ft) long and could have weighed about 2.5 kg (about 6.5 lb).
In His service,
BibleAsk Team
