Every Species On The Ark?

Biblegems #192

Question: How could the millions of species fit in the ark, and the climate and environmentally sensitive animals make the migration from distant places like South America or Australia to Mesopotamia to board the ark?

According to “Nature,” there are approximately 8.7 million species of life on the earth (a ‘best guess’ based on new methods of prediction), with roughly 86% of land species and 91% of marine species still undiscovered.[i]

The Bible, however, nowhere claims that all land and marine species were paired up on the ark. The meaning and application of the term “species” has been debated among scientists since Aristotle, but the Bible uses the much broader term “kinds.”

         Gen. 1:21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

         Gen. 1:25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

Consequently, there was no need to bring several species of dog on the ark, but only one pair of the Canine “kind.” The same is true of the feline “kind”, the cattle “kind”, the horse “kind”, and so on. In addition, only air-breathing “kinds” were included on the ark, not fish or insects (Gen. 7:22). The ark’s dimensions (750’ X &5’ X 45’) provided more than enough volume to house the earth’s air-breathing “kinds”. Following the Flood the earth would once again be repopulated with an ever-expanding variety of “species” within each “kind”.

As for the migration of creatures from distant regions across inhospitable environments, such as deserts, mountains and oceans, this assumes that the pre-Flood world was much the same environmentally as it is now. As the previous Bible Gems post shows, that assumption is false.

The pre-Flood, single-continent world described in Genesis appears to have enjoyed a very hospitable, tropical garden-like environment. Recent studies of a lush, “greenhouse” type environment suggest that the pre-Flood atmosphere would have been comparatively carbon dioxide rich, causing plant life to be extremely abundant, growing larger and more environmentally efficient than is the case today. This would also have supported large plant-eating dinosaurs, as well as providing the raw material that would become the vast coal and oil deposits created during the global Flood.

Animals, birds and reptiles made their migration across the continent during the considerable time required for constructing the ark. Once the ark was complete the representative “kinds” and the required food staples were brought aboard by Noah and his family (Gen. 6:18-22). In addition to all the paired animals Noah was to set apart, not just two, but seven pairs of “clean” animals. This was to ensure that in the post-Flood world there would be sufficient numbers of reproducing “clean” animals that the re-starting human race could have meat for food without risking the extinction of edible animals.

These are the kind of details that set the Genesis account apart from the world’s myth-laden memories of that catastrophic period of earth’s history.

         Ps. 119:89  Your word, O LORD, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens.

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[i] Published online 23 August 2011 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2011.498 
Corrected online: 24 August 2011

Dinosaurs On The Ark?

Biblegems #34

One young lady recently asked, were dinosaurs on the ark?

The first question that needs to be asked is, what, technically, is a dinosaur?

Today, most scientist agree that the term “dinosaur” generally refers to a variety of extinct, land-based reptiles whose limbs extend beneath the body, like that of a crocodile. Many were very large, some quite small. Most of these scientists also adhere to the theory of evolution, and so would assume that dinosaurs existed between 230 million and 65.5 million years ago. According to that point of view, dinosaurs were extinct long before humans came on the scene.

Biblically, of course, dinosaurs and humans did coexist. In fact they were both brought into existence on the sixth day of creation (Gen. 1:25-27). Roughly 1,600 years later the Flood inundated the entire earth, and nearly all land based animals and mankind were annihilated, including the dinosaurs. However, God had Noah bring onto the ark representatives of every “kind” of animal, including dinosaurs, along with the eight people of Noah’s family.

The term “kind” in the Bible refers to living creatures of the same type. Dinosaurs would be considered one “kind” of animal. So it was not necessary for the ark to have carried several variations of dinosaur, such as a brontosaurus or tyrannosaurus. It is certainly possible that a flying pair of dinosaurs were aboard the ark in addition to those that walked on the ground. It is also quite possible that infant dinosaurs of the larger variety were aboard.

What we do know for sure is that some dinosaurs were on the ark, because Scripture itself gives eyewitness accounts of humans interacting with them long after the Flood had receded (Job 40: 15-24; Job 41:1), and art work from post-Flood human settlements portray a great number of dinosaurs. Well known and respected historians and travelers such as Herodotus, Marco Polo and Alexander the great reported sightings of dinosaurs. And several Native American tribes have left oral and cave art records of interaction with dinosaurs, especially a giant flying reptile they call the “thunderbird.”

Most dinosaurs, of course, perished in the Flood. Those that did travel on the ark would have found it extremely difficult to survive in the radically altered landscape of the post-Flood world. Gone were the vast plains of tropical vegetation and the green-house-like conditions maintained by the pre-Flood water canopy around the earth. The Ice Age that followed the Flood would have wiped out many dinosaurs that struggled to breed and survive.

Eventually, dinosaurs became extinct, with the slight possibility that an extremely small number have continued to breed and may exist to this day in remote jungles, the ocean, or deep places in some large fresh water bodies where local inhabitants claim to encounter them.

The fossil remains of dinosaurs and the artwork and oral history of ancient peoples are a great testimony to the authority and accuracy of Scripture. God has left His signature upon the canvas of creation. The whole earth is indeed full of His glory!