Episode 110 – A Flood of Truth Part 6 – All KINDS of Animals
Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.
Script/Notes:
The Lord then said to Noah, “... Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth.”
Genesis Chapter 7, verses 1 through 3, New International Version
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VK: Hello. I’m Victoria K welcoming you to another episode of Anchored by Truth. I’m in the studio today with RD Fierro, author and Founder Crystal Sea Books. Today we’re going to continue our discussion about Noah and the flood that’s described in chapters 6 through 9 of the book of Genesis. The story is probably one of the best known of the Bible’s stories. It’s so well known that it has been retold in countless forms especially on television and in the movies. But, the TV and movie writers don’t always get the story right, do they RD?
RD: Hello to all the Anchored by Truth listeners. No, unfortunately, they don’t.
VK: And in your view one of the things the popular media re-tellers get wrong the most is what actually happened with the animals. Correct?
RD: Correct. So today on Anchored by Truth we want to spend the whole show just talking about what really happened with the animals. Now, to do this topic justice would probably take more than one show but there’s a lot of good information that listeners can find on the internet. So, our principle goal for today is not to be exhaustive but just to discuss some of the major points that demonstrate that the Bible’s report of the Noahic flood can be reasonably treated as literal history.
VK: Ok. Well, it’s sounds like there’s a lot to get to. So, let’s jump right in. Where do you want to start?
RD: Let’s start by just looking at an illustration of one of the more popular mischaracterizations that is often used to try to discredit the Bible story’s historicity.
VK: You’re talking about the supposedly clever little quip that you heard on the popular TV comedy show The Big Bang Theory. What was it that you heard?
RD: Just about everyone who has even seen one episode knows that “Sheldon,” the genius physicist on the show, is a determined atheist but his has a mother who is a devout Christians. So, one time when talking about his mother, Sheldon acknowledges that she is a sweet woman, but he says that his mother believes that “all the animals in the world got on one boat.” The line is intended to be comedic but it wouldn’t have been included if the writers didn’t think that their audience would get a laugh at the “simpletons” who accept the Bible’s flood account as literal history.
VK: Well, popular culture poking fun at Christians isn’t exactly news. But we readily acknowledge there are legitimate questions about the animals that were on the ark that do merit explanation. And that’s the biggest reasons we do Anchored by Truth - to provide a starting point for listeners to understand that there are reasonable answers to reasonable questions. And when you understand the answers it reinforces the authenticity of the Biblical account.
RD: Precisely. So, let’s look at a few of the obvious questions that are pertinent to the ark and the animals. One of the first questions is obviously how many animals were there on the ark. And a second question is how all of the biological diversity that we see on the earth today could have arisen from the animals that disembarked. So, let’s start with the first question: which animals actually got on the ark. That question has two sides. One part is the animals that got on the ark. The second is the animals that didn’t.
VK: So, let’s make one obvious observation right away. The only animals that the Bible refers to as being on the ark were land animals and birds. There was no reason for fish or other sea creatures, including marine mammals, to be on board the ark. Even though many sea creatures would have died as a result of the extremely rough seas, obviously a large number of sea creatures would have been able to survive. But there is a question about the distinction between how fresh water species and salt water species could both have survived in the same body of water?
RD: There are several possibilities to address the salt water vs. fresh water dilemma. First, it is well known that there are many species of fish that can survive in a wide variety of salinity conditions. Second, experiments with fish have shown that even varieties of fish thought to be exclusively fresh water can survive in sea water. One researcher took some species of cichlids, which is a freshwater species found in 3 continents, and put them in sea water where they not only lived but reproduced normally. Third, since the density of salt water is heavier than fresh water it’s possible that for a time there were layers of differing salinity that formed in the water covering the earth. There is a well-known phenomenon called a halocline where a vertical salinity gradient persists in a body of water. It’s possible that this occurred as the fresh rain water mixed with the previous ocean water and each type of fish just sought out the salinity level it preferred.
VK: Ok. That would seem to address how various fish species were able to persist during the period the water covered the earth. What about after the flood waters receded and there was a distinction between fresh water lakes and the oceans that remained?
RD: As the waters receded some of the fish would have just wound up in the kind of water they preferred but it’s well known that many fish can survive in a wide range of salinities provided they’re given a chance to acclimatize gradually. That certainly would have been the case as the dry land appeared and the final bodies of water became evident. It wouldn’t have happened instantaneously.
VK: Well, that all seems very reasonable. So, let’s move on to talking about the animals that did get on the ark. Sheldon’s comment aside there were a lot of animals that did get on the ark. How many likely made it and how did they all fit?
RD: So, that question obviously has two parts: the number of animals and the size of the boat. We heard in one of the Life Lessons with a Laugh that the ark was an enormous ship. Since the dimensions of the ark that are given in scripture are given in cubits we can’t be exactly sure of the precise size but we can make some very good estimates. A cubit was considered to be the length of a man’s forearm so most scholars reckon the cubit as being between 18 inches and 21 inches. But Dr. Gleason Archer in his book An Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties thinks that the cubit may have been as much as 24 inches because we have some indication that in the pre-flood days human beings were even larger than they were today. So, Dr. Archer estimates that the ark could have been as much as 3.6 million cubic feet. Dr. Jonathan Sarfati in his Genesis commentary The Genesis Account uses an 18 inch cubit and even at the smaller size notes that the ark had a carrying capacity of over 340 semi-trailers. Sarfati also notes that even using current space regulations for animal transport the ark could transport at least 19,000 sheep.
VK: So, under the most conservative estimates the ark had a huge amount of space – especially when you remember that the Lord told Noah to build the ark with three decks. But, when it comes to actually fitting the animals in it’s important to understand a basic point. The Hebrew word that is used to instruct Noah about which animals to bring on the ark is the word “min.” In some earlier English translations the word “min” was mistranslated as the word “species.” The more proper translation should be into the English word “kind.” And that’s the way most translations have it today. So, as we heard in our opening scripture in the New International Version Genesis, chapter 7, verses 1 through 3 reads: “Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth.” So, in terms of modern taxonomy what does the word “kind” mean?
RD: The term “kind” does not correspond exactly to any the taxonomic levels that we currently use but as you’ve noted it does not correspond to what we would refer to as a species. The current taxonomy hierarchy has eight ranks from the general to specific. These are; domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. Most creationist biologists believe the Biblical “kind” falls somewhere between a “family” and a “genus.” When it uses the word “kind” the Bible is simply referring to animals that can breed together and produce fertile offspring. In other words, the Biblical term “kind” is a functional rather than categorical definition. This is a key point. It will eliminate a lot of confusion if people get away from the notion that somehow Noah was instructed to every species of land animal on earth. That’s simply not the case. This distinction of kind referring to reproductive activity not what might be termed external morphology is true in a lot of cases that might surprise people.
VK: Such as the fact that may different types of dogs or cats are known as separate species but they can, in fact, reproduce together. It’s well known that aside from size limitations many different varieties of dogs can interbreed. And there are some more exotic examples. Lions and tigers are definitely different species but they have been successfully bred together to produce a “liger” or a “tigon” depending on whether the male is a lion or tiger. It’s highly likely that only one pair of breeding felines or breeding canines was actually brought on board. Take dogs, for example. Noah didn’t have to take two cocker spaniels, two collies, two red setters, etc. He would have needed just one pair of dogs, like the wolf kind, with much genetic variation, somewhat like mongrels today. Just understanding this helps to show that the Bible’s instruction to Noah about the animals was reasonable. But that still leaves open the question of exactly how many animals were on the ark.
RD: Well, there’s not uniformity in the opinions of Biblical scholars on the exact number for a variety of reasons. So, let’s think about some of the issues that arise when we’re talking about that question. First, there were more different “kinds” of animals around in Noah’s day than there are today. At a minimum we know from fossil evidence that there are a number of different kinds of animals that existed in the past that don’t exist today. Dinosaurs for instance.
VK: Dinosaurs being on the ark raises a whole other set of questions.
RD: Yes. It does. And we’ll get to that in just a second. But first, let’s get back to the basic numbers question. As we’ve mentioned the actual number of animals Noah put on board depends on what a biblical ‘kind’ is. John Woodmorappe was an author and teacher who had degrees in biology and geology. He wrote a book entitled Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study. Woodmorappe calculated that the number of animals would have been less than 16,000, if a biblical kind is roughly equivalent to the group of animals we call a genus today. However, if the biblical kind is equivalent to the ‘family’ grouping, then there would have only been 2,000 animals. The actual number was probably somewhere in between.
VK: So, even if the actual number of animals on the ark were on the higher size, the ark would still have had adequate carrying capacity?
RD: Absolutely. As we noted earlier, just based on space, the ark could have transported at least 19,000 sheep even using current space regulatory requirements for animal transport and even using the most conservative estimate for how long a cubit was. But obviously most land dwelling animals today aren’t anywhere near the size of a sheep. Even considering species, today there are only 290 main types of land animals larger than a sheep. There are 737 that range in size from sheep to rats, and there are between 1,300 and 1,400 smaller than a rat. So, most of the animals would have been easily housed in small enclosures. The average the size of all the animals that would have been on the ark would have been about the size of a rabbit. And even large animals, such as the biggest dinosaurs, begin their lives small. In selecting creatures to repopulate the earth, it would make more sense to choose those that were young and healthy, rather than the older, mature ones.
VK: So, let’s get back to the dinosaur question. I’m gathering that most creationist scientists believe that there were dinosaurs on the ark.
RD: Yes. We know they existed and because of the fossil evidence we know many, though not all, were land dwelling and air breathing. So, Noah would have brought a breeding pair of each kind of dinosaur on board. And despite the scenes they show in science fiction most dinosaurs started out life as relatively small creatures. The largest dinosaur eggs that have ever been found are only about the size of a football and there’s a good reason for that. In order for the embryo inside the egg to survive air must be able to permeate the shell. For an egg to be structurally sound and much bigger than that it would have to be so thick that air wouldn’t be able to penetrate the egg shell. So, it is overwhelmingly likely that even the largest dinosaurs started life as creatures that the ark could easily accommodate. It’s also well-known now that dinosaurs went through growth spurts. For example, the Apatosaurus, which is known to be about 25 tons when it was fully mature, was only about 1 ton when it was five years old. Then between the ages of 5 and 12 it grew about 5 tons a year before leveling off. So, from what we now know about dinosaurs there are no physical or biological impediments to dinosaurs being included on the ark.
VK: And - for any listener who would like more information about dinosaurs being on the ark - we have an entire episode of Anchored by Truth in which we discussed this subject. The episode was part of our Truth in Genesis series and it was entitled Dinosaur Duplicity. Anyone who wants more info can just go to our website or the episode is available through most major podcasting apps. So, let’s get to another question. How about insects? I think a lot of people would have been happy if they had been left off the passenger manifest.
RD: And, in fact, insects weren’t on the original ark passenger manifest. The Hebrew text that about which animals to include basically meant Noah was to take animals or birds that breathe through nostrils. Insects don’t have nostrils so they Noah wasn’t instructed to bring them on board. But it’s pretty likely that many insects were able to climb on board and stowaway through the voyage. It’s also likely that a great may different types of insects survived on islands that were made of floating debris. That’s one of the ways insects have been able to distribute themselves so effectively around the world even among bodies of land that are widely separated by water.
VK: So that brings up the question of how did the animals spread all over the earth when they all got off a single boat that likely landed somewhere in what today we call the Mideast? Obviously, there are animals that are present on islands or continents that are pretty remote from the place where the ark must have landed.
RD: There are two main possibilities – land bridges between spreading tectonic plates or animals being transported on vegetation mats that form from downed trees bound clustered with other plant material. Initially, as the final shape of earth was being formed there may have been land bridges between various islands and the continental coast that have since submerged. After all there are cities in various places around the world that at one point were obviously above water like Alexandria in Egypt that have since been submerged. And large vegetation mats are commonly seen around the world today. In fact, floating islands are found on six of the seven continents – all but Antarctica. In South America (Peru) there’s a group of people called the Uros that live on about 40 floating islands on Lake Titicaca.
VK: Well, that makes sense. But I guess that leads to the next question. If Noah brought only one pair of a particular “kind” how did we wind up with all the different species of animals that we have today?
RD: The kinds of animals that were on the ark developed into contemporary species through adaptation that was built into their original DNA. Contrary to popular belief informed creationists do not dispute that “natural selection” is an adaptive process that permits the development of new species. It’s just that these new species always remain within their original created “kind.” In fact natural selection as an adaptive force was recognized by scientists who believed in Biblical creation before Charles Darwin popularized the concept in book Origin of the Species in 1859.
In 1668 Anglican Bishop John Wilkins (1614 – 1672) the founder of the metric system and the first Secretary of the Royal Society … argued that all the varieties of cattle today, including the American “buffalo” or bison, would have arisen from two (or probably seven) cattle ancestors on the Ark. Wilkins wrote that:
“There being much less difference betwixt these, than there is betwixt several Dogs; And it being known by experience what various changes are frequently occasioned in the same species, by several countries, diets, and other accidents.”
One of Wilkins’ contemporaries, German Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher (1602 – 1680) … had the same idea which he presented in his meticulously illustrated book on Noah’s Ark. Kircher expressed his belief that our modern species had developed by transmutation within definite series of forms.”
Even the award winning evolutionary biologist and paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould acknowledged that ““Natural selection ranked as a standard item in biological discourse” among pre-Darwinian creationists.” Gould believed that Darwin’s great contribution was not the identification of natural selection as an adaptive mechanism but as a “creative force.”
VK: I guess then that there are two final questions. First, what did all the animals eat while they were on the ark? We know that today there are many animals that are primarily meat eaters, but that certainly wouldn’t have worked on the ark
RD: All animals were originally plant eaters (herbivores). We know that from Genesis 1:29 – 30. And it’s well known that even animals that are primarily meat eaters today can survive on plants. Many people live their entire lives as vegans or vegetarians. There’s a famous lion called Lea that was raised in Italy on a diet of potatoes, green vegetables, and cheesy pasta. And in the last decade the remnants of different kinds of grasses has been found in fossilized dinosaur dung. This is a real problem for evolutionary time frames because supposedly dinosaurs died millions of years before the first grasses were thought to have emerged.
VK: One final question then. Why did Noah bring seven pairs of clean animals but only one pair of unclean animals?
RD: This is a time before the Mosaic law but evidently even then God had designated certain animals as acceptable for use as sacrifices. Clean animals could be used for sacrifices so Noah brought more of them so when some were used as sacrifices there were still pairs available for breeding.
VK: So – notwithstanding Sheldon’s obvious skepticism about the accuracy of the Bible’s flood story – there are sensible answers to the questions that most people might have. And as we observed before these answers make sense in the real world. They are consistent with current observations about science and geography and biology and how the world just functions in general. In other words the Bible flood account has all the hallmarks of history so it serves to validate the accuracy and reliability of the Bible even when the Bible describes events that are outside our normal experiences today. It’s a good idea to remember that all of this information is available because there are faithful Christian scientists and researchers who have been willing to dedicate their lives to the pursuit of truth. They have done this even though they are well aware that the popular culture may be hostile to their findings. All this points to the need to both support their efforts and to be faithful stewards of the resources God has entrusted to us. So, today let’s pray that we would all be faithful stewards recognizing that our heavenly Father is the real source of all our blessings.
---- PRAYER TO BE A FAITHFUL STEWARD
We hope you’ll be with us next time and we hope you’ll take some time to encourage some friends to tune in too, or listen to the podcast version of this show.
If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not famous but our Boss is!”
(Bible Quotes from the New Living Translation)
The Book of Genesis, chapter 8, verses 1 through 5. New Living Translation
https://creation.com/topics/global-flood
https://activechristianity.org/6-unbelievably-good-reasons-to-read-your-bible
https://considerthegospel.org/2014/03/28/the-noah-controversy-could-that-flood-have-happened/
How could Noah get all the animals on the Ark? - creation.com
Also, consult Chapters 2 and 3 of “The Greatest Hoax in the World” by Dr. Jonathan Sarfati available from creation.com
VK: So, the details of the Bible story make sense in the real world. A boat with the ark’s dimensions would be stable in an ocean environment even one being racked by huge waves. The ark’s size meant that it had a cargo capacity of up to 3.5 million cubic feet. We all know that boats need proper ballast for stability and the ark would have had the most ballast when the seas were roughest. As the year in the ark went by the people and animals would have eaten the food so the amount of ballast would have gradually decreased.
It made sense that God told Noah to coat the ark with pitch inside and out. People made sturdy wooden boats and covered them in pitch and sailed them for hundreds of years. Doves and ravens still fly in our skies today. It made sense that the raven could survive outside the ark even before the water had completely dried because ravens are carrion eaters. So, the raven could have landed on pieces of a floating carcass and survived, whereas a dove couldn’t. Doves eat fruits, seeds, and vegetables so the dove had to come back to ark until it could find food.
VK: So, the main point is that here is another point from scientific observation that is consistent with the description of the flood account. We’ve covered a lot of ground in the last few weeks and our listeners have probably heard things about Noah’s story they had never heard before. But we haven’t yet talked about the animals on the ark and I think you want to begin that discussion next time.
RD: I do. And one final reminder for today. By their very nature past events, especially those of the distant past – like the flood of Noah - cannot be repeated. So to make intelligent assessments about whether such a flood took place or is highly likely to have occurred we have to look evidence that is available today. And as we reminded everyone last time, all investigators, all interpreters of evidence, bring a viewpoint, a lens through which they interpret evidence. I’m hesitant to say they bring a bias because that word can have a negative connotation but we certainly should be aware of our interpretive lens. This is particularly important when it comes to evaluating the historicity of Bible events.
VK: That is a very important point. Today Bible critics may try to criticize – say a geologist – who believes that the earth’s crust provides evidence that a worldwide flood occurred by saying the geologist is a Christian. But that criticism would be no more valid than someone criticizing a non-Christian geologist who doesn’t believe a flood occurred by pointing out that that geologist isn’t a Christian. It’s no more fair to say that a Christian geologist can’t interpret geological evidence fairly than to say that a non-Christian geologist can’t. Sounds to me like a good time for a prayer. Today let’s listen to a prayer for us all to receive the illumination we need to bring the light of truth to our friends, communities, and world.
VK: It’s amazing to think about the early days of God’s creation and how God has sovereignly superintended everything throughout history. I mean the universe has been around for so long now that we pretty much take for granted everything that we see. We treat our world and in fact the entire cosmos as if it has always been here but the truth is that it hasn’t and it won’t be in the future. God created everything for a purpose and He is guiding everything to a conclusion that will fully fulfill all his plan. That’s part of the reason we wanted to tackle the story of Noah and the flood early on in Anchored by Truth. Noah’s story is a perfect illustration of God’s sovereignty over both his people and creation and His ability to bring all His purposes to fruition.
RD: Yes. That was part of the point that we made in an earlier episode where we contrasted uniformitarianism and catastrophism as differing ways for viewing how our earth came to exist in its current form. Most people today look to uniformitarianism to as the primary explanation for the earth’s current geology but as we have pointed out in previous episodes that there is substantial evidence that catastrophism is as good or better at explaining what we see around us in the rocks and in fossils.
There are massive geological formations on the earth’s surface that were once underwater but today those formations are nowhere near an ocean. The list of details in the Bible story that make sense in the real world goes on and on. But the details in most of the variants don’t make nearly as much sense in the real world. But the existence of those stories themselves are evidence that at one point a real event took place even if some of the details have gotten mixed up over time.
