Whenever the topic of Noah’s Ark comes up, mockers will attempt to destroy the Biblical narrative.

This is not limited to unbelievers, there are some that claim a belief in God that also deny the literal story of the ark, the flood & even the creation.

The True believer can stand confidently on the biblical narrative. Science & reasoning will bear out that the evidence points to a literal world-wide flood and with it the real possibility that Noah could carry out God’s command to rescue himself, his family and the animals.

The first objection fails to acknowledge that Noah wasn’t called to carry every single species of animal. The bible tells us that the ark only needed those animals that were air-breathing. “All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.” (Gen 7:22) This eliminates all marine animals logically reducing the number of land animals dramatically!!

Then they will use the logical fallacy of equivocation. The denier of the narrative will replace KINDS of animals with Species of animals. They will lump together every species of animal AND its variant, making it impossible for them to fit into the ark. The Bible clarifies that Noah need not carry every species; he only needed the KIND. “Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.” (Gen 6:19-20; emphasis mine seb) “KIND” is not the same as species. Today’s scientific terms uses “family” or “genus” to categorize the animal kingdom. For example, dogs, wolves, foxes etc are all of the “CANINE” family. This significantly reduces the number of animals.

Science classifies all life into ‘families’ or Kinds. Science has catalogued the number of species to about 1.8 million. This number includes Plantae, Fungi, Protozoa, Chromista, Archaea, and Bacteria, which were not included with the command of “two of every kind.”  When you consider just the air-breathing KINDS, you come up with a number of about 6,700 animals!

This brings us the next subject, that of the size of the Ark. Was it large enough to house all of those animals, and their needs? When you consider the dimensions of the ark as revealed in scripture, using a cubit of 20.4 inches, you will find that the ark was INCREDIBLY huge. The ark was 510 feet long, 85 feet wide, and 51 feet high. An ark had a volume of about 1.88 million cubic feet. The ark of the bible has enough volume to hold a comparable volume of 450 semi-trailers. We have learned that there were significantly fewer animals housed in an INCREDIBLY larger ark than most realize.

On a side note; this discussion about the KINDS of animals gives us clarity to the NAMING of animals by Adam. The animals of Adam’s early days would have been the original ‘genus’ or class of animal. This would mean he could NAME them very rapidly. (cf. Gen 2:18-20). Science doesn’t really know how many KINDS originally existed at creation.     

While we’re talking about kinds let’s talk about DINOSAURS. That term only came about in 1841. Scientifically, DINOS are classified as Dinosauria. Dinosaurs include reptiles, a group that includes crocodiles, lizards, turtles, and snakes. Crocodiles are the closest living things to dinosaurs. Birds also fall under this family of animals!! So yes, DINOSAURS were on the ark. The specific KIND of DINO is unknown.

One final consideration is that of the SIZE of the animals. The antagonist will point to an adult elephant as proof that the ark was inadequate. What they fail to consider is that it was not necessary to carry only adult animals. Noah likely would have been sent SMALL juveniles. Additionally, the vast majority of animal kinds are very SMALL. The majority of animals in the world are about the SIZE of a beagle (13-16 inches tall & 20-25 inches long). To visualize this think about the size of a jumbo package of paper towels one could buy at Walmart!! This greatly reduces the space needed for the animals, and their needs. Noah could easily house all the required animals with room to spare.

The Christian can firmly stand with the word of God.

ht tp s://answersingenesis.org/noahs-ark/how-could-all-animals-fit-ark/

ht tp s://apologeticspress.org/was-the-ark-large-enough-for-all-of-the-animals-5704/