The idea of a man building a giant boat to rescue
humanity has been the subject of much interest, scrutiny, and ridicule throughout human
history. And Noah and his Ark have been represented in many different
ways over the years. But what did the Ark really look like? Does the Bible shed any light on the
size or construction of the Ark? How would the Ark compare to
the ships we have today? How could Noah possibly round up all
of the animals on the earth? Has Noah’s Ark been found? Is there any symbolism in the Ark? All of these questions, and more, will be answered
as we explore the Genesis account of Noah’s Ark. The account of Noah and
the Ark is one of the most widely known events
in the history of mankind. Unfortunately, like other
Bible accounts, in this day and age, it's often
taken as a mere fairy tale. However, truth as they say,
can often be stranger than fiction… For Bible believing Christians, the Bible
is the true history book of the universe, and it’s in that light, that the most-asked
questions about the Ark and Flood of Noah can, and should, be answered,
with authority and confidence. If we’re to answer the critical questions of the
day, let’s make sure we’re doing it from what the Bible actually says, not versus some straw-man
argument or popular misconception of the day. For example, people will often confidently
dismiss the account of Noah’s Ark by simply stating “There’s no way Noah could have
fit all of the animals on the Ark!” And yet when you ask
them how many animals were needed to go onboard,
or if they know how big the Ark was, they’ll often plead
ignorance, but then still reiterate “But there’s
no way he could have done it!” Which shows they probably
have some misconceptions about Noah’s Ark, and haven’t thought
it through very deeply at all. So, let’s dive into this and get more specific,
and let’s begin with this question- Just how large was Noah’s Ark? Well, unlike the many more whimsical drawings
that often depict the Ark as some kind of overgrown houseboat (with
giraffes sticking out the top), the Ark described in
the Bible was a huge vessel. It was so large in fact that it wasn’t likely
until the late 1800s that another ship was built that exceeded the
capacity of Noah’s Ark. The key to understanding just how large it
was comes directly from the Bible’s account of God commissioning Noah to create this
huge craft. In Genesis 6:15 we read: "The length of the ark shall be three hundred
cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits". Now the word cubit
(the primary unit of measure in the Old Testament) isn’t
one commonly used today, so understanding the length of
a cubit is the key that gives us a good indication of the
size we’re talking about. The length of a cubit was based on the
distance from the elbow to the fingertips, so it obviously varied between
ancient people groups. But when Noah came off
the Ark, only one cubit measurement existed—the one he
had used to construct the Ark. Now the exact length of this cubit is unknown
due to the effects of the Tower of Babel when people scattered from one another
and began using their own cubit. So it requires some logical guesswork to reconstruct
the most likely length of the original cubit. Most ancient cultures ended
up with two cubits—an older or royal cubit and
a common or shorter cubit. Using an older cubit, which
is the most likely cubit length in Noah’s day, we can
get a close estimate. One known and well attested ancient royal
cubit was at least 20.4 inches, so we know that the Ark must have been no less than 510
feet long, 85 feet wide, and 51 feet high. Now in the Western world, wooden sailing ships
never got much longer than about 330 feet long, yet the ancient Greeks had built vessels
at least this size 2,000 years earlier. China built huge wooden ships in the 1400s
that may also have been as large as the Ark, but the biblical Ark was one of the largest
wooden ships of all time—even though it would be a mid-sized cargo ship
by today’s standards. But the common question from many skeptics
and Christians alike is obvious; How could Noah have
possibly built the Ark? To most people the task of
building the ship described in the Bible just seems
overwhelmingly impossible. But again, before people dismiss the idea,
they should look at what the Bible actually says. You see the Bible doesn’t tell us with wooden
literacy that Noah necessarily built the Ark all by himself, and as a
matter of fact, the idea that he would have doesn’t
really make a lot of sense. When we see other accounts in the Bible such
as that ‘Solomon’ built the temple, we don’t actually believe he was the one doing
the actual laying of every stone or building the physical structures himself, but that
he designed and commissioned it to be built. Now this isn’t to say that Noah wasn’t
personally involved in the construction of the Ark, but understand that besides his sons
helping, Noah could have hired skilled laborers or had relatives, such as Methuselah and
Lamech, to help build the vessel. All that being said, based on an
analysis from Scripture, Noah could have had between 55 to 75 years to build the Ark, so
except for the fact that you wouldn’t want to have to go back and repair work that had
been done too many years previously, there’s actually no reason to believe
that Noah and his sons couldn’t—or that they
didn’t—build the ship themselves in the time allotted. You
see despite what many might believe, there’s no reason to
think the physical strength or mental processes of men in Noah’s day weren’t
at least as great as our own. There is actually compelling scientific evidence
that the genomes of all living creatures are slowly degenerating - due to the accumulation
of slightly harmful mutations, which means the genetics of people in Noah’s day were
likely even far superior to ours today. They certainly would have had efficient means
for harvesting and cutting timber, as well as for shaping, transporting, and erecting
the massive beams and boards required. If one or two men today can erect
a largehouse in just 12 weeks, how much more could three or
four men do in a few years? After all, the Bible reveals Adam’s descendants
were making complex musical instruments, forging metal, and building cities—so their tools,
machines, and techniques were not primitive. And history has shown that
technology can be lost. In Egypt, China, and the Americas, it was
often the earlier dynasties that built more impressive buildings or had finer art or better
science than those who came later. For example, the ancient Maya were the first
Mesoamerican civilization that built stone cities and astronomical observatories with
a mastery of mathematics that the later groups like the Olmecs and Aztecs who came
after them never surpassed. And we must recognize that many so-called
modern inventions we have today are actually re-inventions, like concrete,
which was used masterfully by the Romans
over 2 thousand years ago. Even accounting for the
possible loss of technology due to the Flood, early
post-Flood civilizations would have possessed all the engineering know-how
necessary for a project like Noah’s Ark. It’s very reasonable to believe people were
sawing and drilling wood in Noah’s day, only a few centuries before the Egyptians
were sawing and drilling granite! The idea that more primitive civilizations are
further back in time is an evolutionary concept. In reality, Scripture says when God created
Adam, he was essentially perfect, the best physically and mentally that
mankind has ever been. Today, the individual human intellect and physique
has suffered from 6,000 years of sin and decay. The sudden rise in technology in the last
few centuries has nothing to do with increasing intelligence; it is a combination of publishing
and sharing ideas, and the spread of key inventions that became tools for
investigation and manufacturing. One of the most recent and widespread tools
of course is the computer, which may make us feel superior somehow to our ancestors,
but is likely quite needed now as it actually compensates a great deal for our natural decline
in mental performance and discipline, since it permits us to gather and store information
as perhaps never before. Now, let’s move on to one of the most common
queries posed surrounding the idea of this floating, wooden, zoological masterpiece that
almost always comes up, and answer this question; “So how could Noah round
up so many animals?” And of course, you’ll often
hear a follow-up question after it something like;
“Are you saying Noah had to travel to Australia to get some kangaroos
and koalas?” followed by a chuckle or two. But once again, let’s start by checking
to see what the biblical text actually claims before we make our analysis.
In Genesis 6:20 we read: "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." This verse contains a critical key concept
in answering the question, because it tells us that Noah didn’t have
to set out and search or travel to far-away places to
bring the animals on board. Thinking it through, with the devastation
a global flood would have wrought, the world map would have been completely different before
the Flood, there would have been no Australia, Iceland or Africa for example, none of the
continents we have today, and on the basis of Genesis 1:9 and Psalm 104:8-9, there actually
may have been only one continent in the beginning. According to the Scriptures, there was a
call by the Creator. The animals were sent to Noah and simply arrived at the Ark as if called
by a “homing instinct” (some kind of behavior implanted in the animals by God) and presumably
would have marched up the ramp, all by themselves. Though this was probably a supernatural event
(which means one that can’t be explained by our understanding of nature), when we compare
it to the impressive migratory behavior we see in some animals today,
it's easily understandable. We are still far from comprehending all the
marvelous animal behaviors exhibited in God’s creation: the migration of Canada geese and
other birds, the amazing flights of monarch butterflies, the annual travels of whales
and fish—like salmon, hibernation instincts, earthquake sensitivity, and countless other
fascinating capabilities of God’s animal kingdom. But remember, answering the objections people
pose against the account of the Ark should be dealt with according to
what the Scripture plainly says. But what about dinosaurs?
Were dinosaurs on the Ark? You see, when people begin
to realize that the Bible’s account of the Ark isn’t as full of holes
as they originally thought, they often begin to bring out their ‘big guns’ of doubt,
asking what they consider the toughest questions of all, and the topic of dinosaurs
certainly looms large among them. Now dinosaurs are a subject that bring up
all sorts of questions that we don’t have time to get into here, but what we'll do is
deal with as much as we need to in order to discuss them in context of Noah’s Ark. So
we’ll begin by going back to the biblical text… Now the history of God’s creation (told
in Genesis 1 and 2) tells us that all the land-dwelling creatures were made on Day 6 of
Creation Week—the same day God made Adam and Eve. Therefore, it’s clear, without influence
from sources outside of Scripture, that dinosaurs (being land animals) were made
along with man. Also, two of every kind (seven of some) of
land animal boarded the Ark. And nothing indicates
that any of the land animal kinds were already
extinct before the Flood. Besides, the description of the “behemoth”
in chapter 40 of the book of Job (and of course Job lived after the Flood and the dispersal
of animals from the Ark after it landed) only fits with something like
a sauropod dinosaur. So the close ancestors of “behemoth”
must have been on board the Ark. We also find many dinosaurs that were trapped
and fossilized in sedimentary rocks laid down by the great flood, that
is, in Flood sediment. And from people groups
around the world, widespread legends of encounters
with what people refer to generically as ‘dragons’
give another strong indication that representative dinosaurs
kinds survived the Flood. And obviously, the only way this could have
happened is if they were on the Ark. Of course, when speaking about dinosaurs and
the Ark with people, you can almost see the questions tumbling around in their head, and
that inevitably come out. But what about how big they were? Even though the Ark was huge could it really
have housed giant dinosaurs? Well, juveniles of even the largest land animals
wouldn’t present a size problem and, being young, they’d have their full
breeding life ahead of them. And despite our fascination with the more
giant types depicted in museums, popular movies and books, most dinosaurs
weren’t very large at all. Most scientists agree that the average size
of a dinosaur is actually the size of a bison, so many were smaller,
some were bigger. For example, God most likely brought Noah
two young adult sauropods (like apatosaurs, or similar to what I knew
of as a brontosaurus when I was a kid), rather
than two full-grown sauropods. The same goes for the
elephant kind, the giraffe kind, and other animals
that grow to be very large. However, there was adequate room for most
fully grown adult animals anyway. As far as the number of different types of
dinosaurs, it should be recognized that, although there are hundreds of names for different
varieties or species of dinosaurs that have been discovered, there are probably only 60
to 80 actual different kinds. Think of them like many popular kids shows
describe them- long necks, spiky ones, sharp toothed ones, ones with beaks and horns, but
just like we see variations in all creatures, like for example,
the dog kind today. We see chihuahuas and Great Danes, poodles
and Pyrenees, Canadian Eskimo dog, but they’re all just dogs even though they vary
in shape and size quite a bit. So, as we can begin to see, having room to
house all of the animals Noah needed to take wasn’t the problem many people think it would have
been, and we’ll explore the specifics of that even more a little later on. But for
now, let’s examine the full scope of this terrifying judgement
that deluged the earth… "And all flesh died that moved on the earth:
birds and cattle and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and
every man. All in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, all that
was on the dry land, died." (Genesis 7:21–22). So the question that often
follows when contemplating this verse is, “But how could a
flood destroy every living thing?” Well, the Bible makes it clear that Noah’s
Flood was much more destructive than any 40-day rainstorm ever would be, even though just
a 3-day heavy rainfall today can cause major catastrophic effects on the local terrain
and wildlife where it occurs. But the flood event went
well beyond torrential rainfall. When the Scripture says that the “fountains
of the great deep” broke open, in other words, it’s easy to understand that earthquakes,
volcanoes, and geysers of molten lava and scalding water were squeezed out of the earth’s
crust in a violent, explosive upheaval. These fountains were not stopped until 150
days into the Flood—so the earth was literally churning underneath the
waters for about five months! Continental shifting was
occurring until the mountains were lifted into the
approximate current places— there is still some residual mountain building and
continental shifting occurring today as a result! The duration of the Flood was extensive, and
an analysis of the text shows Noah and his family were aboard the Ark
for around a year. For those that struggle to understand how
the flood could be so destructive, a quick internet search with
keywords like ‘flash flood’ reveals hours of footage of
how utterly devastating moving water can be. Relatively
recent local floods, volcanoes, and earthquakes—though
clearly devastating to life and land—are tiny in comparison
to the worldwide catastrophe that destroyed and reshaped “the world that then existed”
as 2 Peter 3:6 describes. Noah’s Flood accomplished
what it had been sent to do. All land animals and people not on board the
Ark were destroyed in the floodwaters per Genesis 7:21-23—and the
result was the billions of animals preserved in the
great fossil record we see today. Join us next time as we explore the possible
construction of Noah’s Ark, its ability to survive such a catastrophic experience,
and answer questions as to whether Noah’s Flood might possibly have been a local rather
than a worldwide event as some have proposed… in part 2 of the Genesis
Account of Noah’s Ark.
