How did Noah fit all the animals on the Ark?

Response

How did Noah manage to accommodate all those animals on the ark? Was the ark sufficiently spacious to house “two of every kind… of the birds after their kind, and of the animals after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind,” and seven of some kinds? What about provisions? There needed to be ample space to store enough food to sustain Noah, his family (totaling 8), and all the animals for at least a year (see Genesis 7:11;see Genesis 8:13-18), and possibly longer depending on the time required for vegetation to regrow. That’s a substantial amount of food! And what about drinking water? Is it plausible to believe that Noah’s vessel was large enough to accommodate all these animals, along with the necessary food and water supplies, for over a year?

The dimensions for the ark provided in Genesis are 300 cubits in length, 50 cubits in width, and 30 cubits in height «And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. », (Genesis 6:15). But what exactly is a cubit? A cubit is an ancient unit of measurement, equivalent to the length of the forearm from the elbow to the longest finger (the term “cubit” is derived from the Latin word “cubitum,” meaning “elbow.” The Hebrew word for “cubit” is “ammah.” Given that everyone’s arms vary in length, this unit may appear somewhat imprecise to some, but scholars generally concur that it falls within the range of 17 to 22 inches (43-56 centimeters). The ancient Egyptian cubit was approximately 21.888 inches. Therefore, by calculation,

300 x 22 inches = 6,600; 50 x 22 inches = 1,100; 30 x 22 inches = 660

6,600/12 = 550 feet; 1100/12 = 91.7 feet; 660/12 = 55 feet.

Hence, the ark could have been up to 550 feet long, 91.7 feet wide, and 55 feet high.These are not unreasonable dimensions. But how much storage space does this amount to? Well, 550 x 91.7 x 55 = 2,773,925 cubic feet. (If we take the smallest measurement of a cubit, 17 inches, we end up with 1,278,825 cubic feet). Of course, not all of it would have been free space. The ark had three levels “A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.”, (Genesis 6:16) and a lot of rooms “Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.”, (Genesis 6:14), the walls of which would have taken up space. Nevertheless, it has been calculated that a little more than half, 54.75%, of the 2,773,925 cubic feet could store 125,000 sheep-sized animals, leaving over 1.5 million cubic feet of free space (see – http://www.icr.org/article/how-could-all-animals-get-board-noahs-ark/).

John Woodmorappe, author of the definitive Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study, estimated that only about 15 percent of the animals on the ark would have been larger than a sheep. This figure does not take into account the possibility that God may have brought Noah “infant” animals, which can be significantly smaller than adult animals.

How many animals were on the ark? Woodmorappe estimates 8,000 “kinds.” What is a “kind”? The designation of “kind” is thought to be much broader than the designation “species.” Just as there are over 400 dog breeds all belonging to one species (Canis familiaris), many species can belong to one kind. Some think that the designation “genus” may be somewhat close to the biblical “kind.”

Nevertheless, even if we presume that “kind” is synonymous with “species,” “there are not very many species of mammals, birds, and reptiles.”

ds, amphibians, and reptiles. The prominent systematic biologist, Ernst Mayr, states the number as 17,600. Considering two of each species on the ark, along with seven of the few so-called “clean” kinds of animals, and a reasonable addition for known extinct species, it is evident that not more than, let’s say, 50,000 animals were on the ark” (Morris, 1987).

Some have approximated that there were up to 25,000 kinds of animals represented on the ark. This is an upper-end estimation. With two of each kind and seven of some, the total number of animals would surpass 50,000, although not significantly, relatively speaking. Nevertheless, whether there were 16,000 or 25,000 kinds of animals, even with two of each and seven of some, scholars concur that there was ample space for all the animals on the ark, along with provisions and water with room to spare.

What about all the waste produced by these animals? How did eight people manage to feed all those animals and handle tons of waste on a daily basis? What about animals with specialized diets? How did plant life survive? What about insects? There are countless other questions like these that could be raised, and they are all valid questions. To many, these questions seem unanswerable. However, they are certainly not new. They have been posed repeatedly for centuries. Throughout that time, researchers have sought answers. There are now numerous, highly scholarly feasibility studies that have scrutinized Noah and his ark.

With over 1,200 scholarly references to academic studies, Woodmorappe’s book is “a contemporary systematic assessment of the purported challenges surrounding Noah’s Ark” (John Woodmorappe, “A Resource for Answering the Critics of Noah’s Ark,” Impact No. 273, March 1996. Institute for Creation Research, 30 January 2005 http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-273.htm). Woodmorappe asserts that after meticulously examining all the questions raised over the years, “all the arguments against the Ark are… found lacking. In f

Indeed, the vast majority of the arguments against Ark, initially appearing plausible, are easily refuted.