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50 free Noah's Ark trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
40 free Noah's Ark trivia questions with answers. Noah's Ark is one of the most retold stories on earth, and most people know less of it than they think: how long the rain fell, which bird went out first, what the ark was sealed with, and where the story came from before Genesis. This Noah's Ark trivia quiz covers the biblical narrative in Genesis 6-9, Noah's family and his 950-year life, the Mesopotamian flood heroes Utnapishtim and Ziusudra, Mount Ararat, the long history of ark-hunting, the Quranic version, and the modern afterlife of the story in Ark Encounter, Aronofsky's Noah and Evan Almighty. The 50 questions start with details Sunday-school kids know and climb to ones for scholars of the ancient Near East, so it works for church groups, classrooms and pub quizzes alike. Every answer is checked against the text of Genesis and documented scholarship rather than tradition or trivia lists.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Genesis 5 lists Noah as the tenth patriarch descended from Adam. Who was Noah's father?
Lamech
Lamech was 182 when Noah was born; Methuselah, the longest-lived man in the Bible, was Noah's grandfather.
Q 02According to Genesis, how long did rain fall during the flood?
Forty days and nights
The waters then prevailed 150 days before the ark came to rest; the two figures come from two interwoven sources.
Q 03How old was Noah when the flood began, according to Genesis?
600
He was 500 when his sons were born and died at 950, 350 years after the flood.
Q 04What are the names of Noah's three sons?
Shem, Ham and Japheth
Medieval Christians treated them as founders of Asia, Africa and Europe respectively.
Q 05How long did Noah live, according to Genesis?
950 years
That is second only to Methuselah's 969; after Noah, biblical lifespans shrink toward Moses's 120.
Q 06What were the dimensions of the ark in cubits, as instructed in Genesis 6?
300 x 50 x 30
That is roughly 134 by 22 by 13 metres, numbers some scholars tie to a Babylonian fondness for 60.
Q 07How many decks did Noah's Ark have?
Three
Utnapishtim's cube-shaped ark in Gilgamesh had six decks; the three-deck ark echoes the Israelite three-part universe of heaven, earth and underworld.
Q 08From what material was Noah told to build the ark?
Gopher wood
The Hebrew word appears nowhere else in the Bible, so the King James Version simply left it untranslated.
Q 09With what was the ark to be sealed inside and out?
Pitch
The Hebrew word 'koper' is thought to be borrowed from the Akkadian 'kupru', meaning bitumen.
Q 10The Hebrew word 'tevah', used for Noah's Ark, appears only one other time in the Bible, describing what?
Moses's basket
That is why the King James Version calls Moses's vessel an 'ark of bulrushes'.
Q 11Under God's covenant with Noah after the flood, what were humans permitted to eat for the first time?
Meat
The one condition was that the blood must not be eaten; shedding human blood became a capital crime.
Q 12To how many cubits' depth were the highest mountains covered, according to Genesis?
15
Fifteen cubits is half the ark's height, which some read as its draught when fully loaded.
Q 13What sign did God set in the clouds as a pledge never again to destroy all life by flood?
A rainbow
The covenant also permitted eating meat, but not blood.
Q 14After the flood, Noah planted a vineyard and became the first person to do what?
Q 21What shape was the ark of the Babylonian flood hero Atrahasis?
Circular
Utnapishtim's was a cube and Noah's a rectangle, yet all three have almost identical deck areas.
Q 22Which Babylonian priest wrote the last known version of the Mesopotamian flood story, in Greek, in the 3rd century BCE?
Berossus
Surviving fragments show it had changed little in 2,000 years.
Q 23Which son of Prometheus is often compared to Noah for surviving a flood in an ark?
Deucalion
He was warned by Zeus and Poseidon and gave thanks to the gods when the waters fell.
Get drunk on wine
Church Fathers such as John Chrysostom excused him because, as the first wine-drinker, he couldn't have known its effects.
Q 15Which of Noah's grandsons was cursed after Ham saw his father naked in his tent?
Canaan
Why the curse fell on Canaan rather than Ham has puzzled commentators since antiquity.
Q 16Which mighty hunter and king of Babylon was a great-grandson of Noah through Ham and Cush?
Nimrod
Genesis 10 traces the nations of the earth from Noah's three sons.
Q 17Which Mesopotamian poem has the flood story closest to Noah's, told by Utnapishtim?
Gilgamesh
Its Tablet XI was translated in 1872 by George Smith at the British Museum, who reportedly leapt up in excitement.
Q 18In the Babylonian flood story, which three birds does Utnapishtim release from his boat, in order?
A dove, a swallow and a raven
Only the raven finds food and fails to return, the sign that the waters have gone down.
Q 19On which mountain does Utnapishtim's boat come to rest in the Babylonian flood story?
Mount Nimush (Nisir)
The flood in that version lasts only six days and six nights.
Q 20Who is the hero of the oldest known Mesopotamian flood story, inscribed at Nippur around 1600 BCE?
Ziusudra
His Sumerian name means 'he of long life'; the Babylonians called the same figure Atrahasis.
Q 24In which modern country does Mount Ararat, traditionally identified as the ark's landing place, stand?
Turkey
At 5,137 m it is Turkey's highest peak, yet it is the national symbol of neighbouring Armenia.
Q 25How tall is Greater Ararat?
5,137 m
Little Ararat, its sister cone, is 3,896 m; the first recorded ascent was in 1829.
Q 26Which early church historian is among the earliest people recorded searching for relics of the ark?
Eusebius
Josephus, writing earlier still, simply reported that the ark's remains could still be seen.
Q 27What did analysis show Fernand Navarra's 1955 'ark wood' from Ararat to be?
Oak
He smuggled the expedition past Turkish authorities by disguising it as a family holiday.
Q 28What informal name has been given to the modern movement of expeditions searching for Noah's Ark?
Arkeology
In 2020 even the creationist Institute for Creation Research admitted the ark had not been found and likely never would be.
Q 29Which event about 7,500 years ago has been proposed as a real inspiration for the flood story?
A Black Sea deluge
A Persian Gulf flood is the other leading candidate; there is no scientific evidence for a global flood.
Q 30Which 11th-century theologian originated the standard picture of the ark as a hull with a sloped roof and side door?
Hugh of Saint Victor
The third-century scholar Origen had imagined it as a square pyramid floating on a raft.