Wacky-Looking Animals From Olden Biblical Art

This Friday, January 14th, is the annual Feast of the A**. Get your mind out of the gutter--we mean it literally, as in donkey! This holiday celebrates all the donkeys of the Bible…of which there are apparently many, if there's a whole feast in their honor. But we're not the only ones commemorating the animals of the Good Book. In the Middle Ages and Medieval times (are those the same? Sorry, we're not historians!) people loved to paint biblical scenes which included animals.

Now, sometimes that was okay. But looking back now, we can't help but question if these artists had ever really seen an animal, or if they'd maybe had a toddler describe animals to them and painted based on that. Long story short, there's a lot of weird art from that time period where the animals look very strange, or sometimes…a little too human. So here are some wacky drawings of biblical animals from the olden days to brighten your modern day!

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via Pinterest

Starting out at the very beginning of the bible, one common subject of drawings is Adam naming all the animals. And well, there's a lot to unpack here. Adam is way bigger than all of the animals including the horse and the lion, he's giving them what can only be described as a death glare, and the lion has bird talons. Animals sure were different back then.
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via Pinterest

For comparison, here's another painting of the same scene. This one is a lot more colorful and detailed. But…all the animals have human faces, and they all look really angry? And the bugs are giant? Also…there's a unicorn? The more we look at this picture, the more there is to be confused about.
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via u/Paul-Belgium

…And here we see one of the famed biblical donkeys for whom the feast is named! Or half of one, anyway. Serious, where are its hind legs? How is Jesus riding only the front half of it? More importantly…why does it have a look on its face that says "I'm farting right now"?
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via Pinterest

We can't honestly say we know exactly what's going on here, but we know it's biblical because the man has that halo thing around his head. Maybe Noah and the flood? Someone should probably let Noah know that fish are the one animal he DOESN'T need to save from the water. The fish sure looks scared to be dangled above the water and the other animals look like they're just holding their breath waiting for Noah to throw it back in!
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via Pinterest

There's a lot of pretty amazing renderings of the whale from Jonah and the Whale, but there's something about this one that's just supremely hilarious. The whale looks like it smoked too much and doesn't know what's going on. Jonah's trying to reason with someone inside that mini-castle like "hey man, can you please just help me out here?" Amazing.
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via Pinterest
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via Biblio
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via u/Paul_Belgium
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via Pinterest
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via u/harsh_noise
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via Pinterest
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via Jewish Boston