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Thursday, July 30, 2009

Noah's Ark Was Plenty Big Enough

I have heard claims recently that Noah's Ark was not big enough to support all of the necessary life, and food the Bible said it did. Just from the description of the ark's dimensions in the Bible we can know that the ark was indeed big enough to house all that it needed to. It was also a very stable boat that would weather the storm and flood nicely. I'd like to direct you to an article on the web that discusses the topic nicely and answers many questions posed by people.

Click here for the article.

In the mean time before you read the article here is the scripture from the KJV dealing with Noah and the ark, as well as a few facts about the ark.

Scripture (KJV as always):

Starting at Genesis Chapter 6 verse 8:

8: But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.
9: These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.
10: And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
11: The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
12: And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
13: And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
14: Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.
15: And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.
16: A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.
17: And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.
18: But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee.
19: And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.
20: Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.
21: And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.
22: Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.

Genesis Chapter 7
1: And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.
2: Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.
3: Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.
4: For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.
5: And Noah did according unto all that the LORD commanded him.
6: And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.
7: And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.
8: Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,
9: There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.
10: And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.
11: In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
12: And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
13: In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark;
14: They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort.
15: And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life.
16: And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in.
17: And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.
18: And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.
19: And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.
20: Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.
21: And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man:
22: All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.
23: And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.
24: And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.
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As you can see I've highlighted some important things from scripture about the ark. Noah was to take the animals on board after their kind and sort... it is possible that "kind" and "sort" are different from species, meaning that Noah didn't have to take every single variation of Dog onto the ark... just two dogs, one male and one female. Also note that God does not command Noah to take only adult animals onto the ark... most likely to save space only young, small animals were taken onto the ark.

Facts about the ark:
From the scriptures above we see the ark:
- Was 3 stories high
- Was made of gopher wood
- Was supposed to have rooms
- Had pitch on the inside and outside
- Was made 300 cubits long
- Was made 50 cubits wide
- Was made 30 cubits high
- Had a window
- Had a door set in the side

A cubit is the measurement from the elbow to the tip of the longest finger on that hand. If the average (smallest) cubit was 18 inches (although it varied from man to man) then:
300 cubits = 450 feet
50 cubits = 75 feet
30 cubits = 45 feet

That means that if the smallest cubit was 18 inches, the ark would have been 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high. Not only that, but it was three stories tall! That means that combining the space on all three decks would have left over 100,000 square feet for animals, food, and Noah and his family.

Now that you have read the sections in Genesis pertaining to the building of the ark and the collection of animals on the ark, please read the article (which will restate some of this information). Click here for the article again.

13 comments:

  1. I was lead to believe no one could know how big the ark was because people were giants, even though i got my estimation from an actual ship discoverd in iran. Then find a estimation that is not only close, but less than mine?

    Im confused.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This article goes with the assumption that "the minimum" cubit was 18 inches, and even just using the minimum sized cubit, the ark would have been big enough. There is still the possibility that Noah's cubit was larger and the ark larger. It is impossible to know for sure exactly how big Noah's cubit was, but we know it had to be at least 18 inches, and if so, the ark was plenty big to take all the necessary animals and food.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Counting only Arthropoda(minus Crustacea)and Chordata, there are approximately 1,384,000 species that rely on land. Since some mammals are marine mammals lets remove the entire category. So 1,378,200 animals. That means if each creature had 4 sq. feet of space(some would need less and some will need more) and all three decks had cages stacked 6 cages high; they would need about 306,266 sq. feet of space, not including food, supply storage, living quarters, or hallways.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrestrial_animal

    ReplyDelete
  4. Could you help me out and find a postulated list of animals, because i cant find one. I would like to know how these animals like marsupials changed from (im assuming) an opossum like creature into a koala or kangaroo and ended up on a remote island; Australia.

    Thanks

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  5. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Come on, if all k-9 species adapted from one then marsupials and primates must have too right?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Everyone of "your" arguments is full of misinformation and contradictions. If you could even call them yours. Go ahead and look up zealot, your pretty good at that.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I am still confused. I read the article and it approximates that only 50,000 animals were needed to be on the ark. There are 1.4 million known species and more are added every day, like just last week 850 new ones were discovered in Australia. The article also states that all the extinct animals also needed to be included many of them needed 7 pairs. And how come fish are excluded? Was the rain salty? Every salt water fish tank keeper knows how crucial it is to keep the salinity of the water precise or the animals will die. So how all that can be reduced to 50,000? The article didn't provide many details. Anybody knows?

    ReplyDelete
  9. This whole website doesnt make any sense. Its full of typical creationist arguments that have been proposed by people with no knowledge of evolutionary biology.

    Saying fewer than 50000 animals were needed is preposterous. Especially the proposal that all species descended from one genus. This directly contradicts every other argument on this website.

    Like every other fundamentalist the moderator only acknowledges what fits in with their particular interpenetration of the bible. No matter how ludicrous it sounds.

    However this website goes a step further by stating anyone that has a differing opinion is not a christian.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Noah's Ark is as big as God's love for us.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Nobody every said it was as big as the universe. The Bible gave exact measurements.

    They only needed every kind, not every exact species. For instance, no need to take every single variety of dog... just one male and one female. Dog breeders know that through selective breeding you can come up with all kinds of varieties of dogs through the generations. The same goes for other varieties of different animals. And the ark didn’t need to be too big, because they could take baby animals on board, and they could stack cages floor to ceiling.

    What makes you think, that the God that created the earth, can’t take care of fresh and salt-water fish for a single year? The God who can do all things, including flood an entire earth, can surely save whom and what he wants to saved, even if it’s not possible for humans to research it today and make it happen on our own.

    And our personal beliefs don’t matter. If you take the Bible literally, word for word, and in context, there’s no need for our own interpretations. The Bible says the whole earth was flooded... not just a localized event.

    To Stephan: Why do you insist on hating on my blog? A blog is for a person to post whatever they want in a cheap, easy to maintain manner. I happen to want to share the Word of God with people. You obviously don’t believe in God’s Word as the pure unaltered word, so why bother reading and posting, and trying to sway people to your side? Post your own blog against the Bible if that’s what you want to do. No need to come in and hate on mine when I’m doing what the Bible told me to do: Spread the good news of Jesus Christ. Spread the Gospel. I never went to your blog and hated on you, and I never invited you into my blog to come in and hate on me or other Christians who believe what the Bible says. I sincerely believe you have nothing better to do than to come in here and try to make things hard on me.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Greate and Nice information
    and i also find a site for Study which is Free Online Study

    ReplyDelete
  13. Great blog. Thanks for taking the time to create and update it. I've just come across it, so I don't have comments now, just "testing" to see if things work. But I'll take more time to check things out in the near future.

    ReplyDelete

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