Noah’s Ark

Answers Bible Curriculum 2nd Edition Unit 3 Lesson 28

This week, in our continued study of the great flood, we’re focusing on Noah’s ark itself. The Bible gives some description of the size and specifications of the ark, but is the ark believable? How would such a vessel have been able to handle the tumultuous conditions of the flood? And how did Noah fit all the land and air animals, including dinosaurs, on the ark? We’ll consider these important apologetic questions and more!

Our main text for this lesson is Genesis 6:13-22.

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all right great well welcome back to Sunday School we’re continuing our study of the flood we’re gonna get started with a little bit of review over the last couple of lessons as we’ve seen there are so many reasons or there are many reasons why the so called wise of our age reject the historicity and global nature of the Biblical Flood and many notable Christian teachers wanting to go along with these wise men hoping to gain or to keep credibility in our world they dismiss or they reinterpret Genesis account of the flood but if we truly wish to be wise if you truly wish to be knowledgeable then we will remember the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge we will start with the scripture and we will submit everything that we see in the world to the Scriptures so when it comes to the flood the scripture is actually quite plain the flood really happened and it really was global some say the flood might have been it a myth that the writer of Genesis Moses was merely going along with what people believed at the time they went along with their myth and he wrote this account of the flood but why can we say confidently from the scriptures that this is not the case and these are some of the things we’ve seen seen that the writings on rrah the style of the writer in Genesis and indeed of the flood account is historical narratives we see that the flood account calls itself a history in Genesis 6:9 when it says these the records of the generations of Noah the details of the timing of the flood and construction of the ark they show that the writer Moses sought to portray real history and not just history in quotation marks over in the New Testament Jesus and the Apostles they refer to Noah’s Flood in their own teaching they use it as the basis of their own excitations shows that they took the flood as an historical event and ultimately to make Noah contextualize or just go along with the myths or the fictions of the time but make God a deceiver because he would be leading his people to believe something that’s not true the bible does make clear that the flood is history but have we misunderstood that history maybe Moses was really just talking about a local flood or a tranquil flood that didn’t really affect the rock layers and the fossils of the earth now last week we dealt with that idea extensively was the flood global and our answer was an emphatic yes now consider some of the things we saw that support this notion last time the language of the flood is extremely inclusive and Universal see terms like all in every repeatedly in the text the passage also repeatedly emphasizes that everything outside of the ark died all the land and air creatures and people who are not in the ark they died passage also explicitly identifies the height of the rising waters more than 20 feet above the highest mountains everywhere all over the earth which would be impossible physically for a local flood and we also saw that the flood water sources these sub ocean fountains and the flood gates of the sky they preclude they prevent they they forestall any notion of a local flood or a tranquil flood this was a tumultuous time on earth and a time that reshaped the earth and definitely formed the geological and fossil record we see today so the scriptures are clear about the global nature the flood as well as the historical nature and what we see in the world today actually reflects that we see confirmation in the world we see flood legends and far-flung cultures all around the world with many of the same ideas of the Bible’s account we see billions of dead things laid down in rock layers all over the earth and we see marine fossils in unexpected places even in the middle of deserts and on the tops of the highest mountains even Mount Everest now the Bible is so clear about the historical nature and the global nature of the flood then and if it makes sense of what we see in the world today then why do so many disbelieve it why do they disbelieve the floods history or the floods global nature I don’t think I said this specifically last time but I think you know ultimately the cause is sin acknowledging the flood for many would be to acknowledge the holy God who sent it which means that each person will have to confront his own sin problem and his and the separation that exists between him and God so disbelieving the flood for many for most is just another manifestation of suppressing the truth and unrighteousness as romans 1 says it’s pretty clear that the that this is a historical record and we do see the evidence of the flood even outside of the Bible but that is being suppressed but the rationalization of the suppression it often takes the form of man clinging to another authority asserting another authority like his own autonomous reasoning his own observation according to his own worldview to explain away what would be confirmations of the flood and we talked about a number of these anti biblical assumptions last time like naturalism uniformitarianism evolutionary theory man is able to suppress what it doesn’t want to believe by looking to these excuses and those who may not have such a malicious intent may be many Christians they go along with that in naivety and ignorance in a night in a way to gain credibility and they also just believe the flood account or at least reinterpret it but as we’ve seen as Christians we have no business following the world in its ignorance or in its compromising the Bible to fit the world’s own folly now we have a sure word that we can believe and that we should defend not be embarrassed about now there is one realm of objections though to the Genesis flood account with which we have not yet dealt with and that is the supposed inadequacy of the ark itself you’re skeptic you might look at the Genesis account and say things like this New York as a giant wooden box could never survived a year-long flood that wooden ships are notoriously leaky in a box would not fare well in stormy waves or maybe there’s no way that Noah could have fit all the different animal species on the ark that’s millions of animals the heart just wasn’t big enough for that or you DIF know it could have fit all the different animal species on the ark what did he do about the dinosaurs would have been impossible for him to include include these large beasts along with all the rest do you expect me then to believe this account the supposedly historical account if there’s this clear problem imagine so many somebody said one of these things to you what would be your response I do like one response I read from Answers in Genesis a basic Bible affirming response and it goes something like this well obviously the Ark was good enough because you and I are alive today and obviously the ark was big enough for the animals because we still have animals today all different kinds of animals God doesn’t lie and his word is true I might not be able to explain exactly how God did it but the fact that he did it is clear because it’s recorded in the scriptures and we should be able to say the same thing ultimately people may have a lot of different questions about things that happen in the Bible and we won’t know all the specific answers to it sometimes it’s just not known explained but we can rely on the Bible nevertheless when it comes to this specific issue we can say born by paying attention to the Genesis text as well as employing some scientific inferences that are consistent with the Bible we can see and affirm the great wisdom of Noah’s Ark and we can show actually how the ark was indeed seaworthy and how indeed the land animals of the Ark dinosaurs included were comfortably represented on the ark and that’s what we’re going to talk about today can noah’s flood our McKean noah’s ark itself hold up under closer scrutiny and here’s our agenda for dealing with these that question we’re going to re-examine the description of the ark in genesis 6 well then answer questions about the ark size and shape and then answer questions about the animals on the ark let’s pray before we continue a great god we do thank you for your wisdom and your kindness and your grace in noah’s ark although type 8 you how many be able to explain this information well I pray God that you would equip your people to be confident with your truth thank you Lord for preserving life if you’ve been giving us life today in mercy I pray that you would be merciful to others and use this as witnesses to them in Jesus name Amen and before we really get going here let me just ask when people draw pictures or print illustrations of the ark how is the ark usually depicted that’s right usually a little boat with big animals totally overcrowded kind of looks like a floating bathtub something like this I see these kind of illustrations in children’s books all the time and it is a cute rendering but probably very far from what the ark actually looked like in fact there’s a danger and only thinking about or picturing the ark this way what’s the danger I mean it’s not realistic right so maybe the whole story isn’t real oh sorry I didn’t see that it’s a hand in the back map but yeah maybe it’s all just a fairy tale only depict it like a fairy tale maybe it really is a fairy tale we can get a better sense of what the ark actually looked like by revisiting the description of it in Genesis 6 let’s do that open your Bibles please to Genesis 6 verses 13 to 16 Genesis 6 which is 13 to 16 and this is where we find the only description of Noah’s Ark in the Bible so let’s read it and then we’ll do some observations and interpretation to follow along with me as I read God said to Noah the end of all flesh has come before me that the earth is filled with violence because of them and behold I am about to destroy them with the earth make for yourself an ark of gopher wood shall make the ark with rooms and shall cover it inside and out with pitch this is how you shall make it the length of the ark 300 cubits and its breadth 50 cubits and its height 30 cubits shall make a window for the ark and finish it to a cubit from the top and set the door of the Ark in the side of it shall make it with lower second and third decks kind of a brief description let’s see what we can notice first of all notice that this is God speaking to Noah about building the ark now what is an ark actually we don’t know we might want to say that an ark is a box and there is another item in the Bible that’s translated Ark which does have the meaning of box and that’s the Ark of the Covenant in fact our word Ark in English comes via Latin and it does mean box and this other Ark Ark of the Covenant is the Hebrew word our own and it can be translated box chest or coffin but the word for Ark here tebah in Hebrew it’s a different word and its meaning and its origin is uncertain it may have something to do with a box there’s some interesting etymological arguments along those lines but the only other time this bird this word TiVo is used in the Bible interestingly it’s of the floating basket that Jacque Abed makes for Moses Exodus 2 3 we see the same Hebrew word this so X is 2 3 says but when she could hide him no longer she got him a wicker basket or ate a vow of papyrus reeds and covered it with tar and pitch and she put the child into it and set it among the reeds of the banks of the Nile that’s kind of interesting the shape size and building material of these two tebah are obviously different in the two instances but in both cases tebah refers to some kind of floating life preserving structure and therefore some interpreters have offered a translation of tebab that is more about purpose than shape that is at a BA is a lifeboat or something along those lines so it is a unique term and that’s the one use in our passage but notice what this arc this table was to be made of go for wood now what’s go for wood again we don’t know the Hebrew word go fair it appears no other place in the Bible or in Hebrew for that matter some say gopher wood was cypress wood or cedar wood yeah others say that go fair refers to a process that’s applied to would like planing or covering the wood with pitch it’s also possible that gopher wood is simply a wood that doesn’t exist anymore this said only before the flood or maybe existed after the flood and then died out it’s over harvested or something so we cannot even say what this word means for sure but this was the wood this was the kind of wood that Noah was to use to build the ark and of course by the way go for what has nothing to do with the animals call it Gophers notice also I know is told to build the ark with rooms mm-hmm interesting lee yubi word for room here is actually literally nest some sort of some sort of safe and enclosed space and it is that word is used for nest actual nests and other places in the Bible notice Noah is told to cover the inside and out of the outside of the ark with pitch now for what is pitch use this petroleum substance for what is it used yeah it’s a sealer it’s for would you put it in there so that water can’t get inside it’s a waterproof er it’s a sealer and it would prevent water from getting in tight inside the boat now notice the dimensions of the Ark they have 300 cubits long by 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits tall so we can counter the cubit if you times now what is a cubit again about 18 inches it represents the length of what – what that’s right the elbow to the length of the fingertips now how long is a cubit it varied it was often around 18 inches but there were longer cubits so it would go from maybe about 17 inches to 21 inches depending on the culture and some cultures even had two types of cubits they had the short cubit and a long cubit so which cubit is meant here it’s not said specifically but without getting into a long argument we’re probably looking at a long cubit for this construction about twenty point four inches of course we can’t say this for sure but there’s some good reason to think it’s a longer cubit and if we use this long cubit to make calculations twenty point four inches we can then convert these cubit measurements into feet and that’s what I’m going to do for you here add the length we just multiply three hundred cubits by twenty point four inches per cubic we get six thousand one hundred twenty inches to buy that by twelve inches per foot very good about 510 C so five hundred and ten feet long and we do the same thing to the width and height width would be about eighty feet and the height would be about 51 feet now from this we can see that the ark was a very large vessel I’m going to show you a picture in a little moment that compares dimensions of the ark to a semi-trailer according to the dimensions that we’ve calculated you can actually fit 500 semi trailers inside the volume of the Ark so today it would actually be comparable to some medium-sized cargo ships it’s a very large vessel notice also that God tells note to make a window and a door for the Ark now the term window may actually indicate something like a closeable skylight or hatch but notice where the window is supposed to go now cubit from the top or literally a cubit from the bus but on which side of the ark is this window is supposed to go or we’re in the middle of it if it’s on the ceiling is this supposed to go text doesn’t say well what about the door where’s the door supposed to go the text says and the side of the arc but which side Dex doesn’t say how many cubits high is this store supposed to be placed I mean because there are a number of places one could put the door how high is it supposed to be wait huh no doesn’t say how big does the door supposed to be it doesn’t say finally God tells Noah to give the ark three decks I mean this we could ask number questions to how tall was each deck supposed to be doesn’t say in the text how is one supposed to travel between the decks doesn’t say in the text though we can conceive of some ramps ramps would make sense between the two different or between them between the decks considering we’ve got animals coming aboard it probably wouldn’t use ladders so well so that’s pretty much what we can observe about the construction of the ark from the text so let’s ask some interpretation questions now first is the description of the ark and exhaustive blueprint or an overview of specifications why do you think yeah it has to be an overview right because there are many details that are simply not answered in these instructions how BIG’s the door supposed to be where am I supposed to put it how do I put the wood together in such a way that the boat doesn’t leak how many rooms should I build how big should each room be what should I build so that I can move between the decks and the animals can move between the decks how should I prepare the skylight these questions and many others are simply not answered so how did no one know what to do for these unspecified parts of the ark there’s only one of two answers either God gave from other instructions that are not mentioned here or what’s the other possibility era right so either God had to give him all the directions they’re not recorded in the Bible or God gave him some general directions and Noah filled in the rest from his own knowledge from his own experimentation he recognized he was building a boat and he filled in other features so this means then that while everything in this chapter is true of the ark could the ark have been something other than a box it could have because this is just an overview would Noah have been violating God’s instructions is if he included ship-like components in his construction like a front that came to a point no he wouldn’t be violating that because this is not an exhaustive description now again it may be that God gave him more directions we don’t know that for sure but it may be that know was given freedom of flexibility it’s quite possible that understand that Noah could have produced something other than a box like Ark I would say even likely now God could have successfully preserved an ark that was in the shape of a box but it’s likely that when Noah received these instructions he knew what he was building he knew he was building a ship and so he constructed like a ship and to Rob’s comment it’s not as if there were no ships in the world at this time this is 1700 years after creation according to the Genesis 5 genealogy and it’s likely that man had discerned how to build ships just as he discerned how to how to raise animals animal husbandry how to make music how to work higher these are things that are actually recorded in Genesis is being discovered in those days and so shipbuilding was not unknown nevertheless the ark was a unique ship it was a huge ship that was built with the unique challenges of the flood in mind so if not a box what did the ark look like and how did its features help it manage the flood well probably looks something like something like this this is a design a concept that is promoted by Answers in Genesis you can see the little trailer the semi-trailer off in the bottom right to give you a scale comparison the front is on the right with a raised thin and the back is on the left with this little piece sticking out at the bottom now why this shape why do Answers in Genesis think this shape because again this is not explicitly stated in the Bible we’re gonna watch a little video presentation about this for those in the sound and video booth this is the modeling the Ark this video is about six six and a half minutes and it’s gonna explain where this concept comes from you’ll hear in the video of references to a couple different people I’ll just identify them before we watch the video the first year of John Whitcomb and Henry Morris these are two important authors who wrote a landmark young earth creation book called the Genesis flood I think that was the 1960s or 70s a lot of young earth creation arguments make references to that work you also hear of a Tim in this video that’s Tim love it he’s a mechanical engineer and Ark specialist for the Creation Museum and they’re all I believe Tim actually says a number of things in the video so let’s watch the video now and then we’ll talk about the Ark and its concept would command Morris showed the world that the biblical Ark was large enough to hold all the land dwelling air-breathing animals they also established that the biblical dimensions of the Ark gave it the needed proportions to be a truly seaworthy craft while the initial box shape was certainly a step in the right direction dr. Whitcomb admits that the Box design could be improved upon Henry Morris did the engineering part of our book and he simply took the dimensions given of course 300 cubits long for maybe 450 feet approximately the width of 50 cubits the height 30 cubits and just assumed from those three dimensions given that you have a rectangular shape now the refinements of that of course of God didn’t record in the text and so that is left to our evaluation analysis as we think through the issues today we need to distinguish between holding on to items that the Bible clearly references clearly talks about you know statements the Bible clearly makes which we adhere to and we don’t change but being prepared to be flexible in regard to man’s models that are built upon the Bible the ark in the shape of a box also gained popularity in 1976 when a documentary in search of Noah’s Ark was released this film also presented the shape of the ark as box-like but that conclusion came from unsubstantiated eyewitness accounts and a few blurred photographs of a structure on Mount Ararat it’s important to understand that there’s no solid evidence to support the claim that Noah’s Ark has been found and that it was indeed box-shaped I personally don’t believe we’ve ever really found it that doesn’t bother me friend because jesus said blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed you don’t have to find a piece of the Ark to believe that it was there some were buried deep in those mountains and if and when some day God shows it to us we’ll say Lord were amazed because the design of that gigantic thing that you put people into and air-breathing and animals into is exactly what was needed for the catastrophism through which had passed working with two naval architects on the other side of the world Tim quickly discovered that the familiar box shape would not fare so well at sea the flat sides and bottom would give the passengers a very rough and even dangerous ride Tim built several six-foot models for some open water testing one of his models was built to the specifications of a PhD naval architect the model turned and aligned with the wind in contrast to the box like boat that rocked sideways on the waves he took this discovery and applied it to his proposed model of the ark was this a logical model based on information given in the book of Genesis the first question is what were the conditions like for Noah’s Ark was it dead calm or with a waves wind etc well is it there’s a number of clues in the Bible the first the first clue is that Noah had to build something that looked like a ship it wasn’t just any old shape it looks very ship like that 300 by 50 by 30 that’s a big clue that looks like a ship so we’re expecting the water to act pretty normal it’s like the ocean because we’re building something that looks like a ship there’s other clues as well for example in Genesis 8:1 God send a wind and wind creates way the Bible doesn’t specify a mean caching feature on the ark but it does tell you a relatively long hull and that is not exactly what you’ll expect if you were just designing a vessel to float on the water you wouldn’t make it so long it takes more work to build it long takes more wood and it’s more of a danger as it crosses over waves that could break what makes the most sense is that a vessel was built for comfort as well as strength and capacity and seeking we have to balance all these factors together in order to make it comfortable you want that Ark to be running through the waves not side onto the waves which it would fall into naturally there’s a number of ways to do that all you need is any sort of wind obstruction on one end could be a sail could be a her building could be could be a wooden fin but I wanted something which was low-maintenance I didn’t want sails that they had to look after so if we just build a wooden fin to catch the wind on one end and at the other end I wanted something that would catch in the water and the usual way to do that is to have a thing called a skeg which acts like a rudder at the back of a ship once Tim had completed his art model he noticed a remarkable resemblance to ancient ship designs what I ended up with was something that looks familiar it looked a little bit like the designs of ancient ships such as the Greek triremes and more ancient ships what I noticed them that ancient designs is they had high stems and a lot of the very ancient ones had heist into one end and a extended mysterious appendage on the other where the features in these ships leftover technology from Noah’s Ark itself we can’t say for sure but it’s possible that the storm weathering design that Tim developed for his Ark is seen on some of the earliest ships historians who’ve been studying ships have found these appendages and back of ships now some people have thought that there were prototypes of the Greek ramming Bell but this is at the back of the front this Stern appendage is is called a mystery if you don’t know what it’s for but if you if you view it as part of a storm keeping package in conjunction with a heist M at the other end and it makes perfect sense so maybe these ancient ship builders knew exactly what they’ll do or maybe they were just copying features from Noah’s Ark which they’ve seen if their fathers and grandfathers do all right very good all right so from that video we get a number of good pieces of information let me see if I can summarize why does answer in Genesis why do these young earth creationists why do they think that this shape makes sense for the ark I should mention by the way we have a life-size model of the ark that has been produced in the Ark Encounter Museum in Kentucky jennie-o some of you have seen visited I’m sure they’ll be a blessing if you did go and visit but that you can actually see a representation of that in the flesh you can actually look at it of course there’s a picture of it there but why this design here’s some arguments presented from the video the ark the ark proportions are the proportions of a ship and the ships and ships are not boxes as Tim Lovett actually testifies in a different video the proportions of the ark are actually extremely similar to modern cargo ships so much so that one of his colleagues when he realized this about the ark he believed in the Genesis flood account because it says that’s too uncanny those are very realistic dimensions of a large cargo ship so again we’ll probably not talking about a simple box that a long hole also it implies an ark designed for a movement not simply floating otherwise you wouldn’t make a long hole as I mentioned in the video a long hole requires more wood or labor and that lessens the overall stability of the ship and even Genesis 718 when it describes the ark floating on the surface of the water that word for floating contains the idea of movement so the Ark was not designed to be stationary the box would be stationary the ship would move similar features were found on ancient ships similar features as those inferred to be on the ark this rear appendage that is mystified modern naval engineers it would make sense on the ark it would be for the movement through the water and the stability of the ship the race stem the thin that would also be for ship safety and come on an ocean voyage but the box shape would not handle wind or waves very well now makes much more sense to go through the waves and to get slapped by the waves sideways and we can see our boots as we saw in the video this design can handle the wind in the waves because of the pronounced stem the thin as the wind hits the fin it pushes the arc in the same direction as the wind so the arc goes in the same direction it has the waves moves along the way is rather than slapped sideways by them and the scag that fixed rudder in the back it’s also per aligning with the currents that would arc would not be hit by strong currents because it would move along with the currents the rudder would orient itself to how the water itself is moving this scag this rear appendage basically works like an underwater sail so the water flows with the arc and not against it now of course in all this we can’t say that this is the way that Noah built York it’s not recorded in the scripture specifically we can’t claim it and poet ativ Lee as Court has inspired Scripture but Noah probably built something like this something that went beyond the basic description of the Genesis 6 passage something that was truly seaworthy and able to withstand the unique challenges of the great flood this is not adding to the Bible this is just pointing out there are not details that are not mentioned for their details that are not mentioned in Genesis 6 description so however Noah did it if you did it exactly this way or some way similar it was a vessel perfect for the flood and by the way asked the objection of wooden boats always being leaky that’s really only true of wooden ships since about the Middle Ages ancient ship makers had a different construction technique that was very labor-intensive but was an effective way of building tightly bound wooden ships wouldn’t that would that would keep out water but also remain light I’m not saying that the ark was a light ship I mean it was rather large but other ships that use this same design we’re quite a light and they could be brought onto and this technique is called mortise and tenon planking I won’t go into the specifics of it but you can find out more about it at Answers in Genesis org and of course at the Ark Encounter now this is really just one component of the apologetic question we’re trying to deal with today maybe the ark was seaworthy a skeptic will concede but how did Noah cram all the animal species on there including those dinosaurs that’s why we want to look at next and for that let’s just look a little bit further in our passage you’re still open to Genesis six look at verses 17 to 22 I’ll read a little bit further down Genesis 6 17 to 22 God continues in speaking to Noah he says behold I even I am bringing the flood of water upon the earth to destroy all flesh and which is the breath of life from under heaven everything that is on the earth shall perish but I will establish my covenant with you and you shall enter the ark you and your sons and your wife and your sons wives with you and if every living thing of all flesh you shall bring two of every kind inste ark to keep them alive with you they shall be male and female of the birds after they are come now the animals after they’re come of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive as for you take for yourself some of all food which is edible and gather it to yourself and it shall be for food for you and for that thus Noah did according to all that God commanded him so he did now when reading this passage there’s really one main idea I want us all to notice one key observation that’s going to help us with this apologetics question notice the phrase that repeats itself in verses 18 and 19 after their kind or after its kind maybe remember we talked extensively about kinds in our lessons about creation kind is a very important concept for us to grasp Noah only needed two animals of each kind that is he needed a male and a female and he needed 14 animals of each kind of clean animal remember two of the regular 14 of the clean by away why take so many clean animals what do you think yeah do they are being sacrificed at the end of the flood and if you took the only two or took one of the two it sacrificed it that’s it for this that’s it for that K animal kind so God instructed Noah to take certain animals take more not only for sacrifices but maybe also for food after the flood because God does say when the flood is over at the I have given you the animals for food as well and the clean animals were perhaps part of that food supply God still one of those animals to be able to multiply so extras were needed but anyways for most animals we’re only taking two of every kind americaand is a very broad category that’s similar to the modern designation families they’re not quite the same just to remind you for example if we take lions tigers bobcats house cats there are all examples of one kind even though they’re various species of that kind they’re all examples of the cat kind but a cat family as modern scientists would call it now then when it comes to cats how many of the cat kind did no one need to take on the ark just two didn’t have to grab a lion a tiger etc which of course nullifies me the children’s pictures that we have of the the animals in the ark he just needed to male cat female cat and he’s got the cat kite or think about the various species of dog that we have today domesticated dogs wolves hyenas dingoes coyotes African Wild Dogs how many of these did no one need to bring on the ark just to you just needed an ax man on the female vidcon just said you needed a male and a female the cat cut and we can imagine the same thing for all the other animal cuts only two spiders only two beetles only two Hawks only two bats only two bears only two deer only two snakes only two frogs only two turtles if you think about this instead of thinking in terms of species this drastically cuts down on the amount of animals that Noah would need to care for on the ark and this would have been true for the dinosaurs as well we classify many different species of dinosaurs today as many as 700 from the fossil record but if you break them down into kinds they’re probably only about 50 dinosaur Khan’s and you can see an example of different variations of one kind there on the screen a ceratopsian we think of the Triceratops sometimes but they’re just a lot of variations on the one kind now when it comes to dinosaurs how could Noah have exercised some wisdom when it came to fitting in the bigger animals onto the ark yeah take the younger versions get the younger smaller versions there’s no reason to get a full-size brontosaurus on the ark when two younger versions will do they can grow to full size after they leave the ark meanwhile delete less and we’ll take a bliss space now no it probably didn’t take newborn animals onto the ark since they would need motherly care we probably took younger travel-sized versions of the bigger animals at least on the ark just for logistical purposes besides we should note most animals actually aren’t that big dinosaurs included me remember in our lesson on dinosaurs that the average size of a dinosaur was actually about full-grown dinosaur mind you was actually the size of a sheep though I did see another place that’s actually the size of Buffalo so maybe there’s there’s some debate is that the average size of sheep or Buffalo but we’re not talking extremely extremely large animals like we see in the movies all the times sometimes actually weren’t that big even at full even win a full ground and it’s true of animals today you think of the average size of an animal today it’s probably less than a sheep a lot of small animals out there and there are only a few animals that are quite large so putting these things together or actually let me let me say this we might be wondering then all right if we’re working according to kinds and if we’re taking these smaller versions of some of the bigger animals still how many pairs of animals did know and need on the ark now this is an interesting question that’s hard to answer because we’d have to figure out just how many kinds there are if we take the number of scientifically classified families of animals today that number would probably be around five to six thousand so if we’re taking two of every kind at least then we’re talking about maybe ten thousand animals which is a fair amount but the problem is families as we designate them in modern times it doesn’t quite align with a biblical kind so in two thousand eleven Answers in Genesis started a research project where they tried to classify all the animals according to biblical kinds and that research effort is still ongoing but a 2013 publication from this research estimated that the number of land and air animal kinds in the world is about 950 of course this includes animals that might have gone extinct but the estimate is around nine hundred and fifty land and air animal kinds so then if we need to of each kind and if we factor in the amount of clean animals and birds into this estimate and how many animals are we talking about on the ark about two thousand and four such a large ship that is very very manageable so when it comes to responding to the objection how could Noah fit all those animal species on the ark yes it’s actually quite simple he didn’t have to he was instructed only to bring pairs of different animal kinds not one of every species and moreover he likely exercised wisdom as the maturity of each kind of animal that he brought with him onto the ark he only took the younger versions again it might not have been exactly 2000 but we’re talking about a few thousand animals not ten thousand or more probably now this may provoke another question because someone might ask are you saying that all the diversity we see in the animal kingdom today all the different kinds of species it arose in the few thousand years after Noah’s Flood in the four thousand years or so after the flood took place all the diversity well yes absolutely in fact this is the best way to explain the speciation we see in the animals of the world today and along these lines we’re gonna watch another short video clip from Answers in Genesis this one is entitled rapid speciation and to explain this calm this concept a little bit further so let’s queue up that second video now if we can this one is only about three minutes and we’ll say a little bit about it afterwards camels and llamas so different and living on different continents yet able to breathe together and produce young examples of bound of species that can be bred together zebras with horses Tigers with lions potatoes with hot peppers and so on this amazes biologists based on modern rates of change new species should quickly lose their ability to enter breed with other species so modern species that interbreed must have formed recently and rapidly it’s amazing that camels and llamas though separated by oceans and thousands of miles came from the same parents in relatively recent times so how could such major changes have arisen so rapidly this is a mystery to biologists because they don’t see such widespread rapid change today and they don’t know of any natural process that can create the biological information necessary for such changes the biblical account of creation may provide the answer to this mystery breeders have long known that domesticated plants and animals possess a huge reserve of information that can produce a stunning variety of shapes and functions most modern dogs for example came from just a handful of breeds in the 1600s and these dogs have a wide range of features that suit them for a wide variety of environments from sledding at the poles to hunting in the desert and none of that variety was put there by humans the information was already built into the dogs such variety of information can be found in cattle pheasants pigeons apples orchids and many other domesticated plants and animals if all the non domesticated animals on had this same wealth of information then we could understand how a single pair of cats could produce all known cats today crossbreeding between domestic cats and wild cats between Cougars and leopards between lions and tigers indicate that all modern cat species are the same created kind the original cat kind carried all the information necessary to build the variety of cats we see today but where did this information come from in the first place the Bible reveals that God created all the animal and plant kinds in the beginning and we’re now learning that God placed a huge amount of information within each created kind allowing them to diversify into the myriad of plants and animals we see today the information was there all there right from the start this is not evolution from a lower form of life its creation by an all-knowing all-powerful infinitely wise creator who is worthy of our worship and praise very good so basically I want some right I won’t refer to all the details that video but the circumstances that we find animals today requires an explanation first of all as to how they can be so different but also how they can be so similar that even when they’ve been separated to different continents many animals can still breed together because they’re part of the same kind the only explanation for that would be really what the Bible says that we had this flood and that all animals came from the kinds that were preserved on the ark even the various species we see today so then so far from being helpless to the objections that skeptics raised about the viability of the ark the Bible actually stands unscathed there are very reasonable explanations for what the ark probably looked like how it functioned and how easily housed all the animal kinds and even dinosaurs on board actually as Answers in Genesis emphasizes the ark could have accommodated all these animals and still have room why would there be extra room for people for people who would repent and get on the ark as I said in the beginning the Bible doesn’t need our explanations to prove its viability God has shown us that his word is true and as the Bible you can says of itself every word of it is tested it cannot be broken nevertheless with these specific objections about the ark we can actually show people from the Bible that their objections are groundless we always want to point people to the authority of Scripture of course there are many other questions that might arise when dealing with the ark and we don’t have time to deal with them today questions such as how did eight people care for all these animals 2000 plus animals on the ark how did they do that how did the animal spread out after the flood how did plants and aquatic animals survive the flood if you’re interested in pursuing these questions and their hands you can find many great resources on the Answers in Genesis website Answers in Genesis org of course this Reformation is also represented at the Ark Encounter Museum I know many of you can testify to that but I think you’ll be edified by looking into this information so I commend that to you but do you always remember that even if we can’t explain how God did something in the Bible and sometimes we simply can’t we still know that God did it because it’s recorded in his true Word and we can feel the preserving effects of what God did even today in our world now what questions do you have based on what you’ve heard today yeah Rob what’s the question about the swimming things okay so did Nora Noah bring the swimming things like bugs onto the ark it’s interesting in the Answers in Genesis research project I wanted to talk about the different kinds they actually don’t factor in bugs into the equation either because they figure they’re so small that they’re they’re not really a space consideration or that it is possible that they might have been able to survive the flood I don’t know enough about bugs to know whether they whether they could be whether they could hibernate and survive in that way my guess would be that Noah brought them onto the ark just like all the other animals it’s a good question though other questions yes tea hmm hmm good questions to you so in terms of modeling the arc trying to figure out how feasible it was did they factor in food now in the specific research project from Answers in Genesis I don’t know if they did that was specifically about animal kinds but I know that there are articles from Answers in Genesis that do deal with that question how did they how do they actually care for the animals and even feed the animals and I do believe they even have calculations like and that took tons of food that would be de-iced a tons in a more literal sense of measurement how many times so yeah that is something that Answers in Genesis has thought about made estimates about I don’t remember specifically what they said about it but that’s something that would be available on their website other questions any other questions okay I hope you think of something else always feel free to email me is it for this week we have one more lesson on the flood and then we’re gonna move to talk about the confusion at Babel before we hit our next review day next week we’re going to talk about the concept of an ice age once there really an ice age and how does the concept of an ice age if there was one sit with the Bible’s description of Noah’s Flood look forward to talking about that with you next time let’s pose in prayer Oh Lord God you are all wise and all loving the flood account reveals so much to us about you you are not a god to be trifled with the overwhelming nature of your judgment is clearly on display your anger against sin your zealous justice your love of goodness but also your mercy you preserved Noah you preserved the animals and as far as we can tell God it wasn’t a bare minimum preservation even in the way the ark was constructed is not just to bring animals and people through the flood but to bring them through it in a way that was as comfortable as possible and that soft to preserve life to the max because we can imagine how dangerous the flood would be even for those in the Ark but in your wisdom you made sure to preserve that we thank you for that God because we are the beneficiaries of that today thank you for preserving our lives even in the days of the flood and thank you for giving us life today but God just as the people of those days were beholden to you as the creator and life sustainer so are we today so god I pray that we would not trifle with you but as even was mentioned in one of the videos today God that we would approach you with a reverence approached you with the love that you deserve approach you with the praise that you deserve you have been so good to us you’ve been good to all people of the world I’m reminded of that scripture in acts 14 how you testify to everyone by doing them good even by giving them food and preserving their lives we know this world has broken God and we see in the news just again and again the trouble and pain and evil of the world and yet you have done good you are continually doing good and that kindness is to draw people to yourself it is a testimony of God that they should seek you so I pray that each person today would that each believer would seek you God as they grow in faith and that those who don’t know you would seek you god they’d home on themselves before the creator and the judge of the world pray God that you’d be so pleased to be merciful in this way and Jesus name Amen all right thank you everyone I’ll see you next time