How Many Of Each Animal Was On The Ark?

Ask any man, woman or child who is even vaguely familiar with the story of Noah’s Ark how many of each animal was taken on board the Biblical boat and you will get the usual answer: two. This answer is usually given because of the instructions recorded in Genesis, which God gave to Noah:

You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 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 6:19-20

However, what most people don’t know is that later on in Genesis, God also gave Noah these instructions:

Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth.

– Gen 7:2-3

This discrepancy between texts, begs the question:

How many animals was Noah to take onto the ark? Was it two….or seven?

At a glance, these two passages appear to offer contradictory information.

The Documentary Hypothesis

One manner used by Biblical scholars to resolve this apparent issue is the documentary hypothesis. The documentary hypothesis maintains that the Old Testament was put together from multiple sources which wrote independent of each other. According to this theory, an editor – or multiple editors – came along and fitted the texts together into one narrative which could explain any contradictions or duplicate material in the Biblical text (a noticeable duplicate often cited to support the documentary hypothesis is the two human creation stories which appear in Genesis 1 and 2). Biblical scholars who subscribe to the documentary hypothesis argue that God’s command to bring seven pairs of clean animals was a later addition to the original story in order to explain how Noah was able to sacrifice animals after the flood without risking the animal population’s future.

A Close Reading

While the documentary hypothesis may provide an explanation for the discrepancy in the two passages, the inconsistency may also be able to be resolved by a careful reading of what the verse says.

The first passage states that Noah is “to bring into the ark two of all living creatures.” Here, God is instructing Noah to bring one pair of every living creature with him – every kind of animal on earth. This instruction is delivered with the specification that each pair be made up of one male and one female in order for each pair to repopulate the earth after the flood. The command here is universal: it concerns all animal life.

The second passage states that Noah is to bring “seven pairs of every kind of clean animal.” The distinction between the two passages is clear – the second instruction is bound up with the idea of ‘clean’ and ‘unclean’ animals. In this passage God instructs Noah to bring extra pairs of ‘clean’ animals. The command here is specific, referring only to ‘clean’ animals. This passage also confirms the instructions given in the first passage, stating that seven pairs of clean animals need to come aboard the ark, in addition to the one pair of unclean animals that has already been commanded.

The two passages differ because the second one is a command given in addition to the first passage – while the first instruction concerns all animals, ensuring that the pairs taken on board will repopulate the earth, the second instruction concerns only clean animals and is probably referring to animals for sacrificial purposes. This is indicated by the sacrifice Noah makes immediately after the flood:

“ So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives…Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it.”

– Gen 8:18-20

If Noah took only the reproductive pairs then he would not have had any available animals to sacrifice. God knew this, and so gave a further instruction to ensure that all needs would be met.

Conclusion

What we have here is not a contradiction – it is two different instructions given by God, to Noah, regarding the animals that needed to survive the flood.

Each instruction has its own purpose – one reproductive, one sacrificial – and is given for its own reasons. God supplemented his original instructions to ensure that clean animals were brought onto the ark for the purpose of sacrifice.

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Why Do We Not Live As Long As Methuselah?

Genesis 5 describes the oldest man to ever live:

“Thus all the days of Methuselah were 969 years, and he died.” (v27)

Though Methuselah did not have a starring role in the Old Testament, his life, and its length in particular, has been a subject of much interest for creationists and theologians. Nowadays, the name Methuselah has come to be associated with anything that is old.

Though Methuselah is only mentioned briefly in the Hebrew Bible, he came from a prominent line of Old Testament characters (Methuselah was the son of Enoch, the father of Lamech and the grandfather of Noah) and his final mention in Genesis 5 is of great significance, begging the question:

Why do we not live as long as Methuselah?

Some creationists argue that certain environmental and theological factors have affected our ability to age to this degree, including the introduction of sin into the original design, the elimination of the water vapor canopy over the earth. DNA and changes in lifestyle factors.

Without further ado, let’s take a look at each of these factors.

The Original Design

Anybody who has read the book of Genesis and taken notice of the genealogies it contains will have noticed a sharp shift that occurred after the flood, particularly in relation to lifespans. Creationists have long agonised over how to explain the discrepancies in lifespans in the pre- and post-flood ages but have failed to come up with any single argument to explain the difference.

Theologians, however, often argue that the solution lies back at the beginning, in the Garden of Eden.

According to Genesis, God created the first man and woman, perfect and without sin. The Garden of Eden where he placed them was abundant with everything they would need to live forever in their perfected state. Adam and Eve were commanded not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil:

“Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat;but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (v16)

In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve eat from the forbidden tree and humanity is changed forever. Access to the tree which was once able to sustain their lives permanently was forbidden:

^“Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.”

From this point onward, the perfect creation had been radically altered. Sin and death had entered the world and changed the original design. Humanity was no longer able to live forever.

Genesis 5 tells us that Adam eventually went onto die, as God predicted:

“Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died.” (v5)

The Great Deluge

In the time between Adam and Eve’s fall in the Garden of Eden and the great flood, lifespans continued to be long, though not eternal as they had been originally intended. However, after the flood, there is a progressive decline in the lifespans of the Old Testament characters, which raises questions about how the flood and the conditions of the earth after it took place, affected humanity’s claim to long life.

The decline is depicted as rather rapid, describing Noah as one who lived to be 950 years old, with Abraham living only to 175. By the time of Moses, the expected lifespan is only 70-80 years old (similar to what we would expect today):

“Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures” (Psalm 90:10)

Interestingly, extra-biblical evidence also supports the decline of long life spans after the flood in Genesis. The Sumerian King List is an ancient surviving manuscript which describes a flood similar to what is depicted in the Hebrew Bible, as well as a list of kings who reigned before the flood took place. What is most interesting is that the Sumerian King List also portrays a significant decrease in lifespan following the flood.

The rapid decline in life years which appears to take place after the flood indicates that something about the world radically changed at the flood. We can assume that such a cataclysmic event would have changed the environment and living conditions substantially and possibly changed larger systems such as weather patterns. Crop fields and pastures were wiped out, as were trees and all animal life. Where, before the flood, the world had been a perfect creation which was fractured, now it was completely destroyed.

Diet

In addition to the environmental changes that took place at the flood, something else about humanity changed radically – Noah and his family were granted permission to eat meat. At the creation of Adam and Eve, the pair are given abundant access to all plant life for food, but after the flood, in a world now filled with nothing but scarcity, humanity is now able to start incorporating meat into their diet.
In his Commentaries on Genesis, Martin Luther attributed the long, pre-flood lifespans to the diet that was adhered to in the opening chapters of Genesis, stating that:

“…the general vigor and strength of limb which men had in paradise before the advent of sin, had passed away…. With reference to food, who cannot easily believe that one apple, in that primeval age, was more excellent and afforded a greater degree of nourishment than a thousand in our time? The roots, also, on which they fed, contained infinitely more fragrance, virtue and savor, than they possess now. All these conditions, but notably holiness and righteousness, the exercise of moderation, then the excellence of the fruit and the salubrity of the atmosphere – all these tended to produce longevity till the time came for the establishment of a new order by God which resulted in a decided reduction of the length of man’s life.”

At creation, humanity was appointed a vegetarian diet which would sustain them, but after the flood, meat was allowed to become a part of the human diet. Modern medicine is quite clear about the effects of meat eating on human health, so it stands to reason that in allowing meat eating, God may have intended on shortening the human lifespan, as Luther suggests.

Since we now cannot live beyond the age of around 120, the effects of moderate meat eating are probably negligible, but in an age where humans lived for several hundred years, the introduction of meat eating may have changed everything.

DNA

Since we know that Noah continued to live for another 350 years after the flood, some suggest that it’s unlikely that the post-flood environment was so hostile that it alone was the cause of lifespan decrease. Rather, they argue, it is more likely that other internal factors, such as DNA were responsible.
Modern science has found that DNA in our systems is constantly mutating and evolving. If Adam and Eve were created with perfect DNA, then it’s likely that the DNA become less and less perfect as it was passed down through each generation. We develop genetic mutations of our own, as well as inheriting some of the mutations from our parents, which we then pass down to our children. This creates a kind of snowballing effect for substandard DNA.

Since we know that the first humans were created perfect, we must assume that genetics associated with aging and lifespan were radically affected at the fall – in fact, we know that they were, since death did not exist before the fall.

Water Vapor Canopy

Though a lot of creationists no longer subscribe to the vapor canopy idea, some still insist that this theory is the cause for the dramatic change in lifespan.

Genesis 2 tells us that before the flood, it did not even rain:

“Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground.” (5-6).

However, we know from earlier in Genesis, that God placed large amounts of water above the sky:

“And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so.”(v 6-7)

Since we know that it did not rain, we can conclude that this body of water was not simply a collection of rain clouds. This body of water was what creationists call the ‘water vapor canopy’ – a large body of water suspended above the sky.

When we come to the great flood in Genesis 7, we see God using this canopy of water to cause the deluge.

“In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.” (11)

These ‘fountains of the great deep’ most likely refer to the water vapor canopy which is unleashed over the surface of the world for ‘forty days and forty nights’ (12). The fact that there is no mention of rain in the Bible until after the food reinforces this idea.

The argument put forward by creationists is that this body of water, while suspended in the air, would have been functioning as a filtration system for much of the harmful radiation that the earth is exposed to from space. Once this water had been released, our earth would have undergone many changes, including a decrease in the amount of oxygen we inhale, and an increase in the UVA and UVB rays that we are exposed to – two significant factors which scientists agree have an impact on health and lifespan.

So, Can We Live for 900 Years?

Put simply, no. The Bible is very clear that the sin of humanity, both through Adam and Eve and through the pre-flood generations caused an unrepairable fracture in God’s creation. We will never be able to attain the long lifespans granted to those early generations because they were a result of God’s perfection which was ruptured in Eden. We also know that the earth underwent significant changes during the great flood, and we cannot repair it back to its original pre-flood state.

We also know that regardless of how long we get to live, death is always going to be the end result. Even if it were possible for us to live until we are 900 years old, we would never be able to eliminate death. It also pays to remember these words by the Psalmist, which point out that our lifespan has already been predetermined by God before we are even born, whether it be set for 100 days or 100 years.

“…all the days ordained for me were written in your book, before one of them came to be.” (139: 16)

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Scientific Evidence for the Great Flood

“The waters swelled so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered; the waters swelled above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep…

…He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, human beings and animals and creeping things and birds of the air; they were blotted out from the earth.

Only Noah was left, and those that were with him in the ark. And the waters swelled on the earth for one hundred fifty days.”

A Great Flood

The account of Genesis tell of a monumental flood that describes the earth being plundered by the ‘fountains of the great deep’ when God let loose on his creation. We can only imagine the catastrophic destruction that took place. Modern floods – though devastating to both life and land – pale in comparison to the cosmic demolition that this flood brought about.

Flood Geology is a branch of ‘pseudoscience’ that deals with analysing features of the Earth which have been shaped by the Genesis flood. The scientific community considers flood geology to be ‘myth’ and ‘falsifiable’ because it is seen to contradict mainstream science.

However, mainstream science has provided evidence which reinforces the idea of a global flood, such as is described in the Old Testament.

Evidence For The Flood

-Flood Stories-

The story of Noah’s Ark and the great flood is so famous that even young school aged children are familiar with Noah and his ‘Arky Arky’.

What children and some adults aren’t aware of, is that ancient flood legends exist in every corner of the earth. Many of these stories contain elements that are common to all of them:

the construction of a boat in advance
one family that is spared
some amount of animals that are kept out of danger
a rainbow
the release of birdlife to determine if the water has subsided and the destruction of humanity

These are all examples of common themes that appear. When a famous Babylonian text – The Epic of Gilgamesh – is compared to the story in Genesis 6-9, the similarities in the two flood stories are remarkable.

The overwhelming consistency amongst these traditions indicates that they have derived from the same origin. In other words, after one global flood, an oral tradition developed which was passed down through a kind of ‘Chinese whispers’. These stories were eventually written down in different parts of the world, by people living within different cultures. What is left is a mosaic of stories which have different features and nuances, but which ultimately reflect the one event.

Since we know that shortly after the flood was the scattering of languages at Babel, it seems likely that this played a part in the way the story was orally developed and altered as it was passed down through generations.

-The Black Sea-

The Black Sea, located in South-eastern Europe is famous for its concentrated salt level, but scientists are now claiming that it was once a freshwater lake before an enormous flood deluged it.

The most recent proponent of this theory is Robert Ballard – an underwater archaeologist who rose to fame after discovering the underwater wreckage of the Titanic in 1985. Ballard acted from a hunch that The Black Sea must have preserved items from antiquity because of its concentrated salt intensities and lower oxygen levels. When Ballard and his team unearthed an ancient shore line, this was an indication that a catastrophic event took place in the Black Sea.

The volume of water that caused the flood into The Black Sea is said to have been 200 times more than that of Niagara Falls. This caused the original shoreline to plunge underneath hundreds of feet of salt water. This theory is reinforced by the fact that there are layers of freshwater molluscs below the surface of the Black Sea. By carbon dating these shells, Ballard believes the timeline for the flood to have taken place around 5,000 BCE. Further to his findings, is the discovery of a vessel, and one of its crew members in The Black Sea. The ancient shipwreck is said to be perfectly preserved, along with the bones and teeth of the seaman.

-Fossils-

Rock layers all over the world are filled with fossilised marine animals, insects, spiders, amphibians and plants that are buried in places miles above sea level – including the walls of the Grand Canyon and high in the world’s tallest mountain range – the Himalayas.

The presence of these fossils are silent testimonies to the waters that flooded over every continent before being buried in massive flows of sediment as a result of powerful flooding.

Rock layers across every continent also show features that indicate they were deposited very quickly. Some strata within the Grand Canyon show clear signs that sand was deposited by huge water currents in a matter of days. In order for these layers to be deposited so extensively implies a global flooding of the continents.

Of these layers, there are large amounts which show evidence indicating that the rock layers were still wet when deposited. Rocks do not bend; they shatter and break because they are hard. Yet, in whole sequences of rock strata, we find bends without any fractures indicating that the rocks folded and rippled as if they were wet and pliable before setting as hard rock. This is best demonstrated by the Tapeats Sandstone in Grand Canyon which is folded at a right angle without any evidence of breaking.

The only explanation for this is that the layers were laid in rapid succession and buckled while still soft.

What Does This All Mean?

The Bible speaks of the events of Genesis 6-9 as real, authentic events that took place under the divine providence of God, describing a global flood that destroyed all human and animal life, except for that aboard the ark.

If the Bible is the infallible word of God, then it’s not surprising that geological evidence all over the world confirms exactly what we are told happened in the days of Noah. The physical features of the earth and its geological structure clearly indicate an event that was catastrophic, and global in nature. The evidence is undeniable.

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Last week we looked at how dinosaurs fit in with the biblical account, and offered one possible reason for their extinction: the global flood described in Genesis 6-9.

To check out the last article go here.