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SUBJECT:
Noah and the Ark
QUESTION:
How were all the animals able to get into Noah’s Ark?
ANSWER:
When God saw the sinfulness
and corruption of man upon the earth, He revealed Himself to
Noah. He told him HOW to make an ark---a great ship---so he
and his immediate family and representatives of the land
animals could escape destruction by water.
Turn to the Biblical account
of the size of the ark as recorded in Genesis 6:13-14.
Notice! The ark was designed by GOD HIMSELF! Noah and
others built it, but God was the Master Planner and Designer
of the ark. God knew EXACTLY how much room was going to be
needed.
Notice the dimensions of the
ark. Genesis 6:15 tells us that it was 300 cubits long, 50
cubits wide, and 30 cubits height. Anciently there were two
primary cubits---one Babylonian (about 18” long), and an
older Hebrew cubit (about
25” long). The Hebrew cubit used here would have
made the ark over 600 feet long, l00 feet wide, and 60 feet
high! No small size! Its three decks (Genesis 6:16) would
have contained an area of about 38 standard college
basketball courts! It volume would have been 3,600,000
cubit feet! This is the carrying capacity equal to 25
trains ---each one 52 freight cars long! The ark had this
tremendous carrying capacity. Many think of the ark as a
small vessel---not realizing how large it really was.
And now, how many animals
were on the ark? Notice that God told Noah there would be
one male and one female of each unclean “kind” of animal and
seven pairs of each clean “kind” of animal on the ark (Gen
7:2, 14). We need to understand that when the Bible speaks
of a “kind” of animal, it is not speaking of what a
scientist calls a “species.”
For a Biblical proof of this
fact, turn to Genesis 2:19-20. Notice a very important
point: “And out of the ground the Lord God formed every
beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought
them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and
whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the
name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the
fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field…” The
number of Genesis “kinds” were so few that Adam was able to
easily give them each a name that day! This, in itself,
tells us that the original Genesis “kinds” were relatively
few in number.
God has placed definite
bounds beyond which the different “kinds” of animals can not
vary. But it is possible by selective breeding to reproduce
numerous varieties of a single kind in a relatively short
length of time. Take the dog kind, for example. There are
many varieties of dogs. But all belong to the “dog kind.”
Not every species and
variety of animal we see on the earth today had an exact
representative in the ark! Since the end of the Flood about
4300 years ago, there have developed many different
varieties of the “kinds” of animals taken into the ark.
Thus from the single unclean pair of the “pig kind” have
come, since the Flood, the many varieties of hogs now sold
on the market.
Now you can understand how
the huge ark had adequate room for the birds, animals and
all the supplies.
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