The Bible: One Bite at a Time Expository Sermon Series Notes Genesis to The Revelation Sid Galloway © 1999 .....

A ZooKeeper Looks at Noah's Ark: How did All The Animals Fit?  Genesis 6:14-7:24 For more pictures click the earth

Audio Tape # 35 July 16, 2000       (Notes Updated July 15, 2000)

Review: (Gen 1-6) See the notes on the Web -
     

   Your answer to this question is crucial, because if a person doubts the Bible's accuracy about Noah's Ark, then for that person, the entire Bible looses its absolute authority in every other area in which it speaks. Noah and the flood are not a myth only worthy of kid's coloring books. Isaiah (54:9), Ezekiel (14:14, 20), Peter, and most significantly, Jesus, all present this story as historically accurate. In fact, it's historical validity is an essential cornerstone undergirding the very gospel in which we trust. If the story of Noah is not literally true as claimed by the writers of Scripture, then the promise of eternal life "in Christ" would be no more trustworthy than a fable. Yet, the exciting reality is that God has made available a mountain of evidence demonstrating that these events, and the whole of the Bible, are both historically and scientifically true.

In addition, God's sovereign hand has orchestrated history so that events like Noah's ark and the flood are types of Christ and His saving work of grace. Noah's Ark is one of the most powerful pictures of both salvation "in Christ", as well as the coming rapture of Christians before the coming judgment day of Israel and the world called "Jacob's Trouble" (Jer 29:29; Dan 12:1; Mat 24).

Luke 24:27 "And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself."

     As an ex-zookeeper and animal trainer, all issues related to animals, such as creation and Noah's Ark, have been of special interest to me ever since I became a biblical Christian. My background in the study of animal behavior (ethology) as well as veterinary science, comparative anatomy, and a bit of genetics have come in handy as I've studied the Bible's teachings about creation and the curse, the flood, and the "wild" kingdom. In fact, the accumulated evidence from each of these fields of science supports Scripture in all of its related teachings. I have not found one verse of Scripture that contradicts any proven "fact" of science.

  Dr. Jonathan Sarfati (1) says in his article, "How Did All The Animals Fit In Noah's Ark":
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1122.asp   

"Many skeptics assert that the Bible must be wrong, because they claim that the Ark could not possibly have carried all the different types of animals. This has persuaded some Christians to deny the Genesis Flood, or believe that it was only a local flood involving comparatively few local animals. But they usually have not actually performed the calculations." [Emphasis added]

* Dr. Sarfati was born in Ararat, Australia in 1964. He moved to New Zealand as a child and later studied science at Victoria University of Wellington. He obtained a B.Sc. (Hons.) in Chemistry with two physics papers substituted (nuclear and condensed matter physics). His Ph.D. in Chemistry was awarded for a thesis entitled 'A Spectroscopic Study of some Chalcogenide Ring and Cage Molecules'. He has co-authored papers in mainstream scientific journals on high temperature superconductors and selenium-containing ring and cage-shaped molecules.  Dr. Sarfati is the author of REFUTING EVOLUTION, on of the most powerful, yet concise compilations of the evidence against the theory of neo-Darwinian evolution.                      

The Text: Genesis 6:14-7:24 (Strong's #'s in parentheses)

“Make yourself an ark of gopherwood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and outside with pitch ( kopher = covering, atonement, Lev 17:11). “And this is how you shall make it: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. “You shall make a window for the ark, and you shall finish it to a cubit from above; and set the door of the ark in its side. You shall make it with lower, second, and third decks. “And behold, I Myself am bringing floodwaters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die. “But I will establish My covenant with you; and you shall go into the ark—you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. “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. “And you shall take for yourself of all food that is eaten, and you shall gather it to yourself; and it shall be food for you and for them. Thus Noah did; according to all that God commanded him, so he did."

"Then the Lord said to Noah, “Come into the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen that you are righteous before Me in this generation. You shall take with you seven each of every clean animal, a male and his female; two each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female; also seven each of birds of the air, male and female, to keep the species alive on the face of all the earth. "For after seven more days I will cause it to rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and I will destroy from the face of the earth all living things that I have made.” And Noah did according to all that the Lord commanded him. Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters were on the earth.
So Noah, with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives, went into the ark because of the waters of the flood. Of clean animals, of animals that are unclean, of birds, and of everything that creeps on the earth, two by two they went into the ark to Noah, male and female, as God had commanded Noah. And it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were on the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights.
On the very same day Noah and Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark— they and every beast after its kind, all cattle after their kind, every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, every bird of every sort. And they went into the ark to Noah, two by two, of all flesh in which is the breath of life. So those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him; and the Lord shut him in.
Now the flood was on the earth forty days. The waters increased and lifted up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. The waters prevailed and greatly increased on the earth, and the ark moved about on the surface of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed fifteen cubits upward, and the mountains were covered. And all flesh died that moved on the earth: birds and cattle and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every man. All in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, all that was on the dry land, died. So He destroyed all living things which were on the face of the ground: both man and cattle, creeping thing and bird of the air. They were destroyed from the earth. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark remained alive. And the waters prevailed on the earth one hundred and fifty days."

Brief Exposition and Commentary - (Gen 6:14-7:24)

"A Zookeeper Looks at Noah's Ark:
How did all those animals fit?"

In order to determine how Noah got all of the "kinds" of animals on the ark, we must first answer a few subquestions:

1. Why didn't the animals fight and kill one another on the Ark?

- Designed to live at peace.

* In Eden past and in the millennial kingdom future, the whole earth is was and will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord (Gen 1:26-31; Isa 11, 65), causing the wolf to lay with the lamb. Carnivores are a result of social entropy from the second law of thermodynamics that began after sin and Satan entered the world.
The rebellion of Adam (Gen 3) and the subsequent escalation of "entropy" (disorder, death, & decay - dysfunctional 2nd law of thermodynamics) is the reason for imperfections as well as the selfish competition, violence, pain, suffering, fear, and death we see in the "wild kingdom" now.  *  The second law of thermodynamics was functional before Adam sinned, such as in the process of digestion, chemical processes, etc., but death and disease were not.

- God's Spirit led the animals to Adam so he could name them, and led the animals to Noah so he could preserve them.
- It is known that a partial hibernation state is potential in many, perhaps all land animals.

2 . How many "kinds" where there at that time?

a. What is a "kind"?
Our CREATOR originally created many different types of creatures, each "kind" having a DNA genome capable of a vast potential for variation within that kind. Yet, the potential for variation was not infinite, but limited and fixed. Remember from previous sermons on creation, that no new information is ever added through either mutation or recombination of DNA. An original canine kind produced all of the varied dog-like animals (wolves, coyotes, foxes, pet dogs). [* Click here to see the Dog Kind Chart, or the Dog Variation Chart, by Ken Ham from his book, One Blood.) But no matter how many times you reshuffle the genes of a canine, you cannot produce a line of qualitatively new creatures that become a new kind such as primates.

Classification: The creatures we see today are classified by men merely according to general physical similarities in the following taxonomic hierarchy using Latin terms:
Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species.
Example of Humans = Animalia, Chordata, Mammalia, Primata, Hominidae, Homo, Sapiens

A biblical "kind" would have been a "genus" or possibly even a "family". Since the flood, each "kind" has undergone variation through both natural and artificial selection into various related species, but (not macro-evolution) into new kinds. Today a species is often defined as a group of animals who cannot interbreed with another group. However, many modern species can interbreed (dogs/wolves; lions/tigers (liger), whales/dolphins (wholphin), zebras/horses (zorse) - click for pics). In addition, the current inability of some modern species to interbreed within their genus or family is primarily due to structural variation (house cat & a tiger), and destructive DNA mutation. Remember that all mutations known involve a loss of genetic information, not an addition of information.

Therefore, back in Noah's time before the flood, the number of "kinds" was dramatically smaller than the number of species and even genera we see today.

Dr. Sarfati refers to NOAH'S ARK: A FEASIBILITY STUDY, by John Woodmorappe, and addresses this issue:

"Woodmorappe (2) totals about 8000 genera, including extinct genera, thus about 16,000 individual animals which had to be aboard."

What about dinosaurs?

The number of dinosaur genera are liberally estimated a less than 700. And only about 100 genera grew to a size of more than 10 tons. (Remember that reptiles, unlike mammals, continue to grow all of their life. So just as Noah lived to be 950 years old, their were likely only few reptiles that lived hundreds of years and grew to the size of the T. Rex, we see in museums.) In addition, Noah certainly would have taken young or even baby animals on the ark, not full grown adults of every kind. Even T. Rex eggs are smaller than a football, folks. Woodmorappe has calculated that the median size of the animals would have been the size of a rat, and only about 11 % of the animals would have been bit larger than a sheep.

b. Which "kinds" were taken and which "kinds" were left?

Two Hebrew terms represent the animals kinds that Noah was commanded to take. The term "behemah" is translated "beast" or "cattle". The term "remes" is translated as "creeping things". Remes has numerous meanings in Scripture, but in this context it seems to refer to reptiles. Both of these terms refer to land animals that breathed through their nostrils (Gen 7:22). Insects breathe through small tubes in their exoskeletons (body walls), and not through nostrils.

Neither of these terms includes water dwelling creatures, many of whom survived the flood, even though some sea kinds may have gone extinct.

c. What are the clean animals?

"Bible commentators are evenly divided about whether the Hebrew means 'seven' or 'seven pairs' of each type of clean animal. Woodmorappe takes the latter just to concede as much to the biblioskeptics as possible. But the vast majority of animals are not clean, and were represented by only two specimens each. The term 'clean animal' was not defined until the Mosaic Law. But since Moses was also the compiler of Genesis, if we follow the principle that 'Scripture interprets Scripture', the Mosaic Law definitions can be applied to the Noahic situation. There are actually very few 'clean' land animals listed in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14." (Sarfati)

3. Was the Ark big enough to hold all of the "kinds"?

Dimensions of the Ark = Gen 6:14-16, with three decks and rooms ("nests")

= 300 x 50 x 30 cubits (Gen 6:15). [Cubit = 18 inches.]
= 459 x 75 x 44 feet = 43,500 m3 (cubic meters) = 1.54 million ft3.
= 522 railroad stock cars, able to hold 240 sheep each.
= If a cage was 20 x 20 x 12 inches = 75,000 cm3 = 4800 cubic inches.
= Only 14.4 stock cars were needed for the 16,000 animals = (42,000 ft3).
= That leaves 507 stock cars of space free.

What if insects were taken? Even though the terms in Genesis 6:19-20, "behemah" or "remes" do not necessarily include insects, Noah still could have easily taken them. If a million pairs were kept in 4 inch boxes per pair, then all insects would occupy only 1000 m3 or another 12 cars.

* Even assuming the inclusion of insects still leaves 495 stock cars of space free for food, Noah's family, and even for animal exercise "runs" or "range". But remember that this was not a Carnival Cruise Ship vacation. It was an emergency situation, and as stated earlier, the Lord may well have initiated a state of semi-hibernation for many of the animals.
   

 Dr. Sarfati again says:
"Tabulating the total volume is fair enough, since this shows that there would be
plenty of room on the Ark for the animals with plenty left over for food, range etc.
It would be possible to stack cages, with food on top or nearby (to minimize the
amount of food carrying the humans had to do), to fill up more of the Ark space,
while still allowing plenty of room for gaps for air circulation. We are discussing an
emergency situation, not necessarily luxury accommodation. Although there is
plenty of room for exercise, skeptics have overstated animals' needs for exercise
anyway.

Even if we don't allow stacking one cage on top of another to save floor space,
there would be no problem. Woodmorappe shows from standard recommended
floor space requirements for animals that all of them together would have needed
less than half the available floor space of the Ark's three decks. This arrangement
allows for the maximum amount of food and water storage on top of the cages
close to the animals.

FOOD REQUIREMENTS
The Ark would probably have carried compressed and dried foodstuffs, and
probably a lot of concentrated food. Perhaps Noah fed the cattle mainly on grain,
plus some hay for fibre. Woodmorappe calculated that the volume of foodstuffs
would have been only about 15 % of the Ark's total volume. Drinking water
would only have taken up 9.4 % of the volume. This volume would be reduced
further if rainwater was collected and piped into troughs." [Emphasis added]

Noah's rescue in the Ark was real, and so is God's offer to rescue you from the curse of death and decay, and the coming judgment day!

Mat 24:36-39 “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. “But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. “For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, “and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be."

Gen 6:14 “Make yourself an ark of gopherwood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and outside with pitch ( kopher = covering, atonement, Lev 17:11).

* This is the first mention of the Hebrew term for atonement. The ark pictures being "in Christ", and rising (resurrecting) above the judgment of God that is coming. The pitch pictures for us the precious blood of Christ, that covers our sin. Without the shedding of life-blood, there is no forgiveness.
Is your sin covered by the blood of Jesus?

1 Pet 3:20-4:2 ". . . when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water. There is also an antitype which now saves us — baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him. Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God."

* Baptism does not save us. It's a picture, an anti-type, looking back at the death and resurrection of Jesus, at the rising of the ark above this world of death, and at the spiritual regeneration experience of the person's heart by grace alone through submissive faith in Christ alone.

Romans 6: 4-5 "Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, . . . . "

Many people have "walked the isle" and been baptized (buried) physically in water. But only a small percentage of these folks lives bear the evidence of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Why? If a tree produces pears, then it's not an apple tree. If a person who claims to be a believer doesn't grow to manifest the life of Christ, then that person is likely not rooted and grounded "in Christ". Such a person might not be saved at all, but self-deceived with a false assurance of safety.
How about you? What does the fruit look like on the tree of your life?

Heb 11:6-7 "But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith."

* Yourself? True, saving faith (James 2:19) that goes beyond the belief of demons who tremble, is loving submission to Messiah Jesus as both LORD and Savior. "HE IS" the I AM, the self-existent authority above all authorities, and we must submit to Him and trust His perfect work of bearing the punishment for our sin (separation from the Father).
Do you trust only Christ and His Work, or do you hope your own good works will overcome your bad deeds?

* Your Family? Noah worked hard for over 100 years, living in obedience to God, teaching his household about the Lord's Messiah, and leading them toward faith in the Lord's provision. What about the fruit in the lives of your family members? How are you doing in your family? Have you invested your time and energy and money to L.E.A.D. them to restoration and maturity in Christ?
Discipleship Dates? Family Devotions & Bible studies?
Show them, know them, grow them! Before it's too late.

- Get alone with God and His Word, and examine the fruit of your own personal life (Psalm 139:23-24).

2 Tim 3:16-17  Christ's Spirit, Word & Church are Sufficient for:

Use the following chart to examine yourself, and change by putting off patterns of attitude, behavior, & countenance.
See detailed directions at: www.soulcare.org/putoff-puton.html

Teaching God's Commands (A.B.C.'s of J.O.Y.)	Conviction My Sinful Patterns (A.B.C.'s of S.A.D.) ©	Correction God's Way Home (Put off - Put on)	Training A Plan to Change (L.E.A.D. to Maturity)
Attitudes - Priorities  Jesus-Others-Yourself Behaviors - Countenance -	Attitudes - Priorities Self-Appointed-Deification Behaviors - Countenance -	Put off the patterns of the old man, and put on the attitudes, behaviors, and countenance of the new man under Christ's Lordship.	Loving - Equipping - Accountability - Discipline -

 

* For more information, including technical articles, books, videos, etc., about Noah's Ark, click the following links and books:

1 - "How Did All The Animals Fit In Noah's Ark", Dr. Jonathan Sarfati.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1122.asp   

2 - NOAH'S ARK: A FEASIBILITY STUDY, by John Woodmorappe. 1996.

3 - Answers In Genesis (Noah articles)
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/noah.asp

4 - Creation ex nihilo Magazine
http://shop.gospelcomdirect.com/AIG/detail.asp?UID=90-3-001

5 - Preflood population estimates:
http://ldolphin.org/pickett.html
http://ldolphin.org/popul.html

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