Is Noah and his Ark just a fable?

Question

He was instructed to gather a male and female of each animal and put them in the Ark. After the flood they landed somewhere right, so why is it that you can only find certain animals in certain places then. If they had landed in what is now let's say America, shouldn't all the Animals that exist in the world be native to this continent, then how is it that Kangaroos can only be found in Australia or Pengins in the Artic, did Kangaroos swim all the way to Australia after the Flood?

Answer 1

Science makes impossible the notion that all species were wiped out by a worldwide flood 4,000 years ago and that all life on earth today is descended from a single surviving pair of each respective species. Do you know how long it took humans to evolve into the different "races?" Far longer than 4 millennia.

That said, almost every ancient religion had the collective memory of a great flood. Perhaps it's the memory of the glaciers melting at the end of the last Ice Age, which likely submerged much of the earth and caused much death and sorrow.

Incidentally, one of the reasons the flood supposedly occurred was to wipe out the Nephilim, which were hybrids between humans and the "sons of God," which has created many a conspiracy theory about alien/human hybrids walking the earth. More likely, these superhumans were Neanderthals, who would've seemed like giants to our human ancestors.

Answer 2

It's obviously just a fable. There is no way you could get a mated pair of EVERY species on the planet onto one boat, much less find a way to keep them from killing each other, provide the proper diet and medical care for all of them, etc., especially with a limited number of caregivers.

"Noah's Ark is a problem. We'll have to call it early quantum state phenomenon. Only way to fit 5,000 species of mammals on the same boat." -- River Tam in "Firefly"

Many paleontologists believe that there was a time during the prehistoric era when the water level or ice level was extremely inhospitable to human life, and the human race dwindled down to about five thousand individuals, from whom we've all descended. "The Great Flood" is probably a story handed down from post-Ice Age storytellers about a huge natural disaster that happened before recorded time.

Answer 3

Actually Noah wasn't instructed to gather animals - God made the animals come to him. All he had to do is construct the ark and the animals lined up to get in :)

To answer your question about Kangaroos in Australia: Populations of animals may have had centuries to migrate, relatively slowly, over many generations.

So, why is species x found only in madagascar and species y only in the Australia? All that the present situation indicates is that these are now the only places where x or y still survive.

The ancestors of present-day kangaroos may have established daughter populations in different parts of the world, most of which subsequently became extinct. Perhaps those marsupials only survived in Australia because they migrated there ahead of the placental mammals (we are not suggesting anything other than "random" processes in choice of destination), and were subsequently isolated from the placentals, and so protected from competition and predation.

Palm Valley in central Australia is host to a unique species of palm, Livingstonia mariae, found nowhere else in the world. Does this necessarily mean that the seeds for this species floated only to this one little spot? Not at all. Current models of post-flood climate indicate that the world is much drier now than it was in the early post-flood centuries. Evolutionists themselves agree that in recent times (by evolutionary standards), the sahara was lush and green, and central Australia had a moist, tropical climate. For all we know, the Livingstonia mariae palm may have been widespread over much of Australia, perhaps even in other places which are now dry, such as parts of Africa.

The palm has survived in Palm Valley because there it happens to be protected from the drying out which affected the rest of its vast central Australian surroundings. Everywhere else, it died out.

Incidentally, this concept of changing vegetation with changing climate should be kept in mind when considering post-flood animal migration -- especially because of the objections (and caricatures) which may be presented. For instance, how could creatures that today need a rain forest environment trudge across thousands of miles of parched desert on the way to where they now live? The answer is that it wasn't desert then!

Check out the links for more information.

Answer 4

It may well be, much of the Bible is representational, symbolic, or addressed to Biblical times. We really have no way of knowing. We do know that around that time there were several floods, but that is not uncommon in the area.

fa·ble /ˈfeɪbəl/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[fey-buhl] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation noun, verb, -bled, -bling.
–noun 1. a short tale to teach a moral lesson, often with animals or inanimate objects as characters; apologue: the fable of the tortoise and the hare; Aesop's fables.
2. a story not founded on fact: This biography is largely a self-laudatory fable.
3. a story about supernatural or extraordinary persons or incidents; legend: the fables of gods and heroes.
4. legends or myths collectively: the heroes of Greek fable.
5. an untruth; falsehood: This boast of a cure is a medical fable.
6. the plot of an epic, a dramatic poem, or a play.
7. idle talk: old wives' fables.
–verb (used without object) 8. to tell or write fables.
9. to speak falsely; lie: to fable about one's past.
–verb (used with object) 10. to describe as if actually so; talk about as if true: She is fabled to be the natural daughter of a king.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Origin: 1250–1300; ME fable, fabel, fabul < AF, OF < L fābula a story, tale, equiv. to fā(rī) to speak + -bula suffix of instrument]

—Related forms
fabler, noun


—Synonyms 1. See legend.
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

Answer 5

I'd like to help you decide the answer for yourself by sharing the fact that the story of Noah is almost identical to other stories from other cultures. In particular I'd like to highlight the story of Utnapishtim, which I believe is Babylonian. His story is found in the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the earliest surviving pieces of writing--ever. Humanity has angered the gods because they were so terribly noisy, and the gods cannot sleep. So one of them hatches a plan to kill off all of these noisy people by drowning them all in a deluge. One god has a favorite though, and he goes to him secretly and tells him of the impending flood. He builds a great boat and takes his family and animals with him. After a time he sends out a dove...sound familiar?
My personal opinion is that the sacred writings of any religion loose a lot of their siginificance when people insist on interpreting them literally. Is it more important that you learn the flood as a "fact," or that you get something deeper out of the story that helps strengthen your relationship with the Divine?

Answer 6

Noah's Ark originated as a story in Sumer. During a flood of the Tigress and Euphrates Rivers, a King loaded up a boat with his family and treasure.

And the story grew....and grew....and grew....

Answer 7

Yes. the Noah and Ark story are most certainly just Allegory.

Your powers of rational and intelligent thought are working perfectly. Keep listening to them.

Answer 8

My pastor says that when Noah happened, the earth was still one big pan called Gee-ya, and that all the continents maybe broke up afterwards and that the animals later evolved from what God had first created them to be. So, no, its not a fable. Its a true story.




VLR

Answer 9

No he just took a little side trip to Australia and let the kangaroos and platypus off down there.

Answer 10

i could be extra prone to imagine it were genuine if it became discovered one or a lot less cases. no longer 5! And of all thoughts to get a not ordinary-on over...thats the most boring one. a guy in a deliver with a set of animals and his kinfolk. It became the start of such an outstanding form of fetishes.