Genesis 6:13-22 “And God said to Noah, "The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth. (14) Make yourself an ark of gopherwood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and outside with pitch. (15) 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. (16) 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. (17) 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. (18) 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. (19) 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. (20) 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. (21) 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." (22) Thus Noah did; according to all that God commanded him, so he did.”
I will end this section with a brief discussion about the flood of Noah, for it is an important event in the timeline of God’s creation. With regards to the event of the flood, there are certain aspects that occurred in the natural and there are certain aspects that occurred in the realm of the supernatural. The supernatural aspects occurred when God used His power as God, to perform certain tasks that could not be accomplished in the natural, for as we will clearly see, without the supernatural power of God, the biblical account of the flood could not have taken place. That is why in the natural, scientists can convincingly prove the impossibility of the flood ever having taken place. Natural man, in trying to dispute the event of the flood are at a complete disadvantage however, because they are limited to try disprove the flood based on the natural laws (which God put in place) which they have come to understand through scientific observation. And so when God overrides His laws by His divine power, natural man cries foul and accuses God of cheating. In other words, they have no answer against the power of God because they do not understand it and refuse to acknowledge it. And so, as we have already mentioned, approximately 11,000 years ago God caused a flood to come upon the earth that destroyed all flesh in which is the breath of life.
As revealed in the above quoted passage of scripture, God chose Noah to build an ark which was the instrument that He used to save every species of air breathing animals and birds that we see in the earth today. So how did God do this? Firstly God gave Noah very specific dimensions on how to construct the ark, including the sizes of the various compartments necessary for each animal to be housed in. The scripture does not elaborate on the construction detail of the ark and merely gives us the overall dimensions, which in today’s measurements equal roughly a length of 144 meters, a height of 14 meters and a width of 24 meters, with three decks inside. We see a similar example in scripture, when God gave David a very detailed plan for the construction of the temple. That detail however is not recorded in scripture, merely the overall dimensions. We know that Noah would have needed far more detailed plans than that which is recorded in scripture, for he had to accommodate animals that he had never even seen before. Naturally, most people think of the ark as having the shape of a ship that sails on the sea, but that’s not the biblical shape of an ark. We know that to be the case because the only other example of an ark in scripture is the Ark of the Covenant. That ark has the shape and dimensions of a rectangular box. And so, a more accurate description of Noah’s ark would be to liken it to a very large shipping container. The ark did not need to be made in the shape of a ship, simply because it would not need to sail in any particular direction. Again in the natural, most visualise the ark as a large ship encountering large waves as the storm of the flood surrounded it. Scripture makes no mention of any storm however, merely rain. And so, other than the pouring rain, the waters on which the ark floated would have been relatively calm, i.e. no stormy winds and giant waves would have been present.
So how many animals would the ark have needed to accommodate? The creatures that needed to be saved were those in which was the breath of life, i.e. birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals. For obvious reasons no marine life would have entered the ark. All insect species, of which there are over 1 million, would have also been included in the ark but for obvious reasons they will not form part of our calculations as to how many animals the ark could accommodate. There are approximately 10,000 bird species in the earth today[1], and there are approximately 10,700 reptile species in the earth today[2] and there are approximately 7,000 amphibian species in the earth today[3]. Therefore the total number of birds, reptiles and amphibians that entered the ark would have been approximately 55,400. The average size of all of these creatures is equivalent to the average size of a chicken weighing 3 kg. That equates to a total cargo weight of 166,200 kg. There are approximately 5,420 mammal species in the earth today[4]. Therefore the total number of mammals on the ark was roughly 10,840. The average size of all of these creatures is the average size of a sheep weighing 150 kg. That equates to a total cargo weight of 1,626,000 kg. Therefore the combined cargo weight of all the creatures on the ark would have equated to 1,792,200 kg. The volume of water that needed to be stored on the ark to sustain 8 people for a year (drinking, washing, cooking, toiletry, etc) would have equated to roughly 280,000 kg. The volume of food that needed to be stored on the ark to sustain 8 people for a year would have been inconsequential, only equating to roughly 2,000 kg. A team of physics graduates at the University of Leicester have calculated that the weight of the ark’s outer shell would have been approximately 1,200,000 kg[5]. We can therefore assume a similar weight for the internal structures, consisting of the three decks and the various compartments to house the animals, etc. If we use the average daily food and water consumption of a chicken and a sheep, we are able to estimate the total food and water supply that Noah would have had to store on the ark to be able to accommodate them. The total weight for 1 year’s supply of food for the mammals would have been approximately 8,030,000 kg. The total weight for 1 year’s supply of food for the birds, retiles and amphibians would have been approximately 6,132,000 kg. The total weight of 1 year’s supply of water for the mammals would have been approximately 32,000,000 kg. The total weight for 1 year’s supply of water for the birds, retiles and amphibians would have been approximately 41,000,000 kg. Therefore the combined weight of all the cargo and internal structures of the ark would have been approximately 90,462,000 kg. The same team of physics graduates quoted earlier also calculated that the ark could actually hold 50,540,000 kg in cargo and still float. And so, clearly the ark did not have the capacity to carry such a vast cargo.
So what about volume? In other words, was there enough space in the ark to accommodate that same cargo? The total internal volume size of the ark was roughly 440,000 cubic meters. The cubic meter volume required to house the mammals on the ark was approximately 90,000 cubic meters. The cubic meter volume required to house the birds, reptiles and amphibians on the ark was approximately 111,000 cubic meters. The total volume required was therefore 202,000 cubic meters, less than half the amount available. Some believe that the extra space would have been used to store food and water for all the animals onboard. The volume of space required to store 1 year’s supply of food for the mammals would have been approximately 134,000 cubic meters. The volume of space required to store 1 year’s supply of food for the birds, reptiles and amphibians would have been approximately 102,000 cubic meters. The volume of space require++ed to store 1 year’s supply of water for the mammals would have been approximately 32,000 cubic meters. The volume of space required to store 1 year’s supply of water for the birds, reptiles and amphibians would have been approximately 41,000 cubic meters. Therefore the total volume required accommodating all the animals, plus their water plus their food would have been 550,000 cubic meters which exceeded the space available on the ark by 110,000 cubic meters (only 440,000 cubic meters being available). And so, we see that both in weight and in volume, that the ark would have been unable to meet the requirements in the natural, to save all of those animals.
There is also the further aspect of the absolute impossibility of 8 people being able to logistically take care of 65,000 animals every day by feeding them, watering them, and disposing of roughly 55 tons of animal waste every day, for one full year. It simply cannot be done, and so another explanation is required. There is also the completely varied diet of the different species that were on the ark. Some people foolishly believe that Noah collected all the food beforehand for each animal and stored it in the ark. There are numerous problems with that line of thought however, one of which is that Noah had no idea what creatures would be on the ark and so he certainly would not have known what each one’s dietary requirements were in order to make provision for them. And even if he had known that information, he would not have been able to collect the various food sources from the different continents in different parts of the world that he had no access to, like North America, South America and Australia for example. Clearly this aspect of the flood account could not have taken place in the natural, and for Christians to try proving otherwise makes their efforts look foolish in the eyes of the world.
And so, there has to be a supernatural explanation for this aspect of the flood account. Fortunately the bible does give us examples as to how God performed this task in the realm of the supernatural. On more than one occasion in scripture the bible mentions how God placed individuals into a state of deep sleep. One example was when God put Adam into a deep sleep while He operated on him and removed one of Adam’s ribs to be used to form Eve (Genesis 2:21). Another example was when God put the whole of Saul’s army into a deep sleep so that David could walk through the whole camp to remove Saul’s spear, without waking any of them (1 Samuel 26:12). And so, God placed every creature on the ark into a deep sleep, thus completely slowing down their metabolism for the full year that they were on the ark. They therefore did not need to be fed or watered and so no provision of food and water was needed for them. But it goes further than that, because not only did the animals not eat and drink the entire time, they also remained fixed in place and their bodies produced no waste material during that time. Again we also have scriptural evidence for this type of phenomena, for the Lord held Ezekiel the prophet in one position on his side for well over a year, i.e. 390 days (Ezekiel 4:5). In other words, Ezekiel could not move the entire time except for the use of his arm and head, for God held him in place. But even though Ezekiel was able to eat food and drink water over that 390 day period, he never had any bowel movement, for God simply made the food and water in his body dematerialize. In a similar manner, God did the same with every creature on the ark, i.e. they neither moved nor had any bowel movements the entire time. And so, if we were to remove the animal’s food and water supply from the equation, then the ark was well able to carry all the animals and the needed internal structures, both in weight and in volume.
Michael E.B. Maher
[1] Wikipedia
[2] Worldatlas
[3] Worldatlas
[4] Wikipedia
[5] SMITHSONIANMAG.COM APRIL 4, 2014
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