- How Big Was the Ark?
- The Global Flood
- What Did The Carnivores On The Ark Eat?
- How Did All the Animals Fit on Noah's Ark?
- God's Created Kinds
- Why Hasn't Anybody Found the Ark?
- The Age of the Earth
- What Does the Bible Say?
- Why Does it Matter How Old the Earth Is?
How Big Was the Ark?
Contrary to popular belief, Noah's Ark was not a little boat. Noah's Ark was an enormous boat with plenty of room for all the animals..
Genesis, the first book of the Bible, gives the dimensions of the ark:
"So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the top. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks." Genesis 6:14-16
As the picture shows, the ark was almost twice as long as a 747 jumbo jet. representatives of all animals, including dinosaurs, had plenty of room to fit in the art.
(The dimensions in these verses differ slightly with the picture below. In the original Hebrew the measurements are given in cubits, and there is not one set measurement for how long a cubit is. A cubit was the length of a man's arm from the elbow to the middle finger.)
The Global Flood
In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month-on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights. Genesis 7:11-12
The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days. Genesis 7:24
I've read Genesis many times. The only parts that some people don't believe is the first 11 chapters. The rest is accepted as factual and historic. The first 11 chapters are only suspect because of the belief that the world is millions of years old.
However, the world is only thought to be millions of years old if you accept the fossil record as a record of millions of years of evolution. Creationist believe that the fossil record is a record of a worldwide flood.
Floods do a lot of damage. A worldwide flood would bury all the animals not on the ark. At the time of the flood, the Bible says that the fountains of the deep burst open. This means that water and mud spewed forcefully out of the ground. Creationists believe that this action is what caused the mid-Atlantic ridge and the shapes of the continents. The water whooshing back and forth with the tides for a year would create layers of sediment of different densities.
Try this, get a mayonnaise jar and fill it with teaspoons full of dirt from various places in your town till it's almost half full. Then fill it to the top with water. Put the lid on and shake it up good and set it somewhere for a while. Gradually, the different densities of dirt will settle into layers. This is why the sides of a canyon show layers. Animals that just die will rot or be eaten. An animal needs to be covered quickly to fossilize; the minerals replacing the live bone matter. Therefore, the fossil record really is a record of a massive world wide flood.
Noah's Ark was an enormous boat with plenty of room for all the animals.
What Did The Carnivores On The Ark Eat?
There were no carnivores on the ark. All living things were vegetarian until after the flood. After the initial creation God said this:
And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground-- everything that has the breath of life in it-- I give every green plant for food." And it was so. Genesis 1:30
Some time after the flood God said this:
Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. Genesis 9:3
How Did All the Animals Fit on Noah's Ark?
You might ask: "aren't there too many kinds of animals for them to all fit on the ark?" No, there are not too really that many kinds of animals. God created the basic types of plants and animals, and then genetic variation went on from there since the flood. For example, God made the basic types of birds including: hummingbird, woodpecker, parrot, pigeon, sparrow, duck, and so forth. Each type had a lot of capacity for genetic variability as we see in dogs so we have different types of hummingbirds, woodpeckers, parrots, and so on like we have different types of dogs. This genetic variability works within fixed limits. These animals will never turn into anything else; they will just develop into different varieties of the same thing.
God's Created Kinds
There are a lot of different looking dogs, but they are all the same species. Also, wolves and coyotes can both mate with dogs and produce fertile offspring. They are all the "dog" kind of animal along with foxes and others of the dog "kind".
See these pages for more information about God's Created Kinds of animals:
- Most of what people call “evolution” is really genetics
- Using the Dog-Kind of Animal to Disprove Evolution
I have a friend who has exotic animals. One of his zebras had a fertile offspring with one of his donkeys meaning they are both the horse "kind" of animal.
Lions and tigers look different because they have isolated gene populations on different continents, but lions and tigers have mated in captivity and produced fertile offspring. They are both in the cat "kind" of animal.
Buffalo and cattle are often mated together to produce beef with less fat. These are both of the cow "kind" along with oxen.
Every animal, when it has offspring, has an offspring like it. We don't see dogs having any type of animal except another of the dog kind.
There is no evidence that if it goes on long enough that new species can be produced. In fact, each separate type of animal cannot mate with others outside of its type of animal. Bears, cats and dogs are all in the same order, carnivore, when according to evolution means that they are related.
However, bears and dogs can not mate and produce fertile offspring. Neither can dogs and cats. One has to assume that long ago and far away it was possible for an animal to have babies that was a different type than it is, but that has never been known to happen. It is assumed to have happen because of the belief in evolution.
All Noah had to have on the ark was representatives of each of the different "kinds" as stated above. There was plenty of room for representatives of all of the animals. All the dog-type animals have developed from the two on the ark. As the animals multiplied and traveled to different parts of the world they grouped into isolated gene pools so that now we have different looking dogs all over the world. Some might call this "evolution" but, no matter how much they change they are always a dog. They never were and they never will be any other type of animal.
Why Hasn't Anybody Found the Ark?
I'm not concerned that the ark hasn't been found. Maybe Noah used it to build houses or for fire wood. Everything was buried under a bunch of mud. It would have been hard to go look for building materials and fire wood.
The ark would have been 4400 years old right now. Around here, there are wooden houses less than a hundred years old that are falling apart and tipping over flat. I'm not worried that a 4400 year old boat isn't still around.
The Age of the Earth
There is a lot of evidence that the earth is young. Some indications include the fact that there aren't enough people in the world, there is not enough salt in the ocean, the moon is getting further away every year, the oldest tree is too young and the oldest coral reef is too young. There is an excellent book that describes the evidence that the earth is not millions or billions of years old:
The Young Earth
by John D. Morris, PhD
The author, a geological engineer, describes the geological systems of the earth and shows that they have been made within thousands, not millions, of years.
What Does the Bible Say?
According to the Bible, the earth is about 6000 years old. This age is derived from the belief in the six day creation as told in the Bible. Also, it is derived from the genealogies in the Bible. The genealogies say the age of each man at the time he had his children. If somebody accepts the genealogies as literal history, as I do, then from Adam to Jesus is about 4000 years, then about another 2000 from Jesus to the present.
Why Does it Matter How Old the Earth Is?
The earth is only thousands of years old and not millions of years old, therefore, there has not been enough time for the origin of life to occur by chance. Also, there has not been enough time for the process of evolution to develop all the creatures on earth. Because the earth is young, this indicates that life on earth was created by God.
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