The Evidence Doesn’t Lie

There are many events documented in the Bible that are so miraculous they require great faith to believe.  The donkey that God made talk (Num 22:28), the great fish that swallowed Jonah (Jonah 1:17), Gideon’s defeat of 135,000 Midianites with only 300 men (Jud 8:11).  Out of all the miraculous events in the Bible, the story of Noah’s flood is probably the most attacked and misunderstood.  So much so that even many conservative Christians believe the flood was local or that it was an analogy.

Why is the global flood under such attack by the secular community and so watered down (pardon the pun) by Christians?  Why is it so important that the epic story of Noah be discredited?  The answer is simple.  The flood of Noah explains all of the unsolved mysteries that secular geologists can’t explain.  It explains why we see trees buried through sediment layers supposedly laid down over millions of years.  It explains why millions of fossils have been found all over the world.  It explains why we have so many layers of sediment across the world.  It also completely washes away the evolutionary timescale assigned to the geologic column.  If a global flood truly did happen, it would give credibility to the Biblical account of Noah and, therefore, to God.

​The evidence for a global flood is so strong it can’t be ignored.  But I will admit that the idea that one man and his family were able to construct an ark that could hold all the animals that would eventually reproduce all the species that we see today is difficult to imagine.  My goal for this section is to walk you through some evidence and logical thinking which led me to believe that, not only is it possible, but likely given what we know.

Was the Flood Local?

Dr. Andrew Snelling is a geologist at the world’s largest creation ministry, Answers in Genesis (AIG).  AIG is an incredible source for trustworthy information (although even Biblical Creationists have differing opinions on some things).   Dr. Snelling talks about whether or not the flood could be local:

Scripture makes it very clear that the flood event was global.

1. Reference to all the high mountains under the whole heaven being covered (Gen 7:19-21).
2. The rain poured down for 5 months straight (Gen 6-8).  This much water would certainly cover the entire planet.
3. God’s reference to wiping out all man and the Earth (Gen 6:7-13).
4. Jesus referenced the global Flood in Luke 17:26-30 when He said that, “the Flood came and destroyed them all.”
5. Peter warned about exactly what is happening in our world today, that the last-days scoffers would willfully forget that the Earth perished after “being flooded with water” (2 Peter 3:3-7).
6. If the flood was local, why build an ark and gather all the animals?  Why not just travel to where the earth wasn’t flooded?

Was the Ark a Real Event?

There have been many claims that Noah’s Ark has been discovered but I haven’t seen convincing evidence of that.  However, there is some convincing evidence that the account of Noah was true even outside of the Biblical text.  Dr. Kent Hovind discusses this in one of his presentations.  He poses the question – what should we expect if the flood were true?

I remember going to “Bible” class in college many years ago.  The very likable professor began to talk about Noah’s flood.  He immediately labeled the event as just a fable passed down over generations and likely taken from one of the hundreds of other cultures that have a similar story.  I remember being very disappointed and saddened.  I didn’t like the idea that something in the Bible wasn’t true, but it made sense to me at the time.  Many years later I realize how ludicrous that claim was.  If hundreds of cultures all have a legend with a similar theme – it would support the truth of the story – how else would they all know about it?  Was it a grand conspiracy thousands of years ago?  Was there an explorer who made it his mission to reach every major civilization around the world, learn their language and embed this legend into their culture to be passed down for thousands of years?  Or is it more likely that there was an actual global flood which resulted in Noah and his family telling the story to their families and after the disbursement at Babel all the cultures already knew the story and continued to pass it down for all generations to come?  Below is a chart created by Answers in Genesis that shows some of the major cultures and what they had in common with the Biblical account of Noah’s flood.

This is exactly what we would expect to be the case if there was indeed a global catastrophe.  So now that we can logically and intelligently come to the conclusion that the Bible states that there was a global flood and that, based on cultures all over the world, it appears that could be true. Below, we will evaluate the other aspects of the ark that have been questioned or compromised.

Putting the Account of the Ark to the Test

A Christian who believes in the historicity of the Ark will encounter many skeptics.  There is a wide range of attacks against the claim that Noah’s Ark was a true event.  Let’s examine the most common.

The Ark wasn’t Large Enough to Hold all the Animals

The Ark was a magnificently large sea vessel.  But aren’t there millions of species of animals?  Even as a ship of that size, how could it hold millions of animals?  And even if it could, how could eight people manage to feed, water and dispose of the waste for that many animals?  This seems impossible.

First, let’s address how many animals had to be on the Ark.  The Bible clearly states that that “Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive” (Gen 6:20 – emphasis added).  Notice that the word “kind” is used.  When God created animals, he created them “according to their kind”.  Essentially, this is a classification that most closely aligns with the “family” in today’s taxonomy.  As an example, there are 300 species of dog but the original dog “kind” was probably closer to a wolf.  As you learned in the section on natural selection and genetic diversification, the original dog kind began to reproduce and diversify and it doesn’t take long for this process to translate into many variations of different species.

As you can see from the illustration below, there are right under a thousand (938) different kinds or families of animals.  This is the best representation of the biblical “kind”.  However, to really test the feasibility of the Ark and remove doubt, creationists often use an estimated number of genera.  Based on a study in 1996, that number was just shy of 8,000.  Assuming two of each kind and seven of the clean kinds, a very liberal estimate would be 16,000 animals on the Ark (as a worst-case scenario).

Now you may be asking, “How about the dinosaurs?  Did a T-rex and a sauropod get on the Ark?”  Absolutely.  Ok, I see why you have a problem with that.  You are picturing the gigantic, full-grown dinosaurs that you saw on Jurassic Park.  Let’s give God a little credit.  God would have probably brought juvenile animals to the Ark.  Young animals would be more resilient, eat less, leave less waste, better adapt to a new environment and reproduce more.  Small dinosaurs would have been much more manageable.  In addition, most fully grown dinosaurs were probably the size of a sheep. Therefore, it would have only been a handful that would have required larger spaces (and even then there was plenty of room).

Speaking of gathering all the animals, how did Noah collect all of those animals from every continent?  The Bible says that the animals came to the Ark (Gen 6:20).  This is in line with other accounts in the Bible. God often controlled animals to fulfill his purposes.  Here are some other examples:

• Locusts devoured Egypt’s crops (Exodus 10:13-15)
• Balaam’s donkey spoke (Numbers 22:28)
• Fish swallowed and disgorged Jonah at the appointed time and place (Jonah 1:17)
• Lions were thwarted from harming Daniel (Daniel 6:22)
• Ravens brought food to Elijah (1 Kings 17:6)
• Fish entered Peter’s net (Luke 5:4-9)

For some reason, protesters often scoff that God is needed to gather the animals.  There is no logical conflict here as the foundation of the Bible is based on the belief that there is an all-powerful, all-knowing God who interacts with His creation.

And the animals most likely would not have had to cross continents as it is theorized that before the flood there was only one large super-continent. This is not the same as the “Pangea” super-continent you learned about in school, but a similar concept. We have an entire page dedicated to Dr. Walt Brown’s Hydroplate Theory in our resource page for those curious minds who want to understand why the surface of the world looks like it does.  But if this conclusion is correct, it would not have been difficult for God to summon all of the animals on the continent to the Ark to prepare for their voyage.

So far, there’s nothing here that seems unreasonable, but let’s address a few more objections.  How about feeding and cleaning up after the animals? 16,000 animals would eat a lot of food and produce a lot of waste!  Also, wouldn’t the food go bad?  First of all, we mustn’t confuse food “needs” with food “wants”.  These guys were not eating their ideal meals. However, most animals in captivity will adapt to a new diet.  Here are some possible food sources that could have been used:

• Hay is commonly fed to animals as diverse as horses and elephants.  Many ancient civilizations have been able to store hay, grains and seeds for more than a year and to water-proof food with simple methods.
• For most mammals and birds, dry vegetation can be substituted for fresh vegetation.
• Dehydrated meat has been used since ancient times and can last a long time.
• Many root vegetables (potatoes) can keep for months in a cool, dry place.

But how about specialized diets for animals like the panda and the sloth?  Pandas are very picky eaters and the three-toed sloth is one of the most difficult animals to maintain in captivity.