some christians have mentioned that there were fewer types of animals at the time of noahs ark, but?

Question

doesn't that imply that some of those animals evolved into other types of animals? why are many christians so against evolution until it seems to add validity to their stories?

primoa - if we haven't discovered all of the animals yet, then how could noah have put them all in the ark?

Answer 1

Did we mention that with God all things are possible.

Answer 2

Well, there were animals that changed due to the intervention of man, not natural selection. Domesticated animals are really quite different from their wild ancestors. The domesticated pig and the wild boar are quite different. Have you ever seen a wild turkey? And I don't even know what the wild ancestor of a cow would be, do you? There are thousands of breeds of dogs in the AKC registry, and very many more are created by consistent cross-breeding, such as the cockapoo, a cocker spaniel and poodle cross.

Of course, these changes also suggest that changes were made by Mother Nature long before humans domesticated animals, but the Bible story has animals domesticated in the middle of that remarkable first week in Genesis.

But you are right; consistency has never been a strong point of the fundamentalists. They can't afford to make it an issue, because they have to swallow so many contradictions all day long.

Answer 3

Get a Strong's Dictionary of Bible Words, it has a great translation for the original Hebrew / Aramaic / Greek in the Bible. In the tale of Noah, the word used in English is "world", but in the original Hebrew, the word was 'erets, (pronounced eh'-rets) and means either land, as in a particular piece of property, or a common land (like we'd say "the Gulf Coast"). `Erets could mean either a little piece of land or an entire country, and only lastly means the world.

So read the tale again, only this time use the original word used, and it makes more sense. No, there weren't any polar bears or zebra on the ark, but there were animals of every kind in that land.

Answer 4

1.) To me, the story says that God preserved all life He saw worthy of being saved. Yes, I believe God has done that. 2.) Even if you take the story literally, it still could be consistent with our knowledge of the enormous variety of life forms we know exist now. That is because Evolution may well have allowed a relatively small number of life forms to give rise to a great many life forms. The Bible does not tell us for certain when the flood occurred. Maybe Noah took a few hundred animals aboard, which certainly could be done, and then a few million years later, the evolved descendants we many billions of creatures. 3.) I regard the flood story to be allegorical. It says to me that life matters. It also says that God recognizes right and wrong, good and evil. Anyone who missed these points would do well to read the story again. I am Roman Catholic. Peace be with you. EDIT: It is right to regard parts of the Bible as metaphors or allegories because that is what they are. Familiarity with literature tells us this. A reasonably good education in literature should allow a person to recognize whether he or she is reading a poem, a simple factual report, a song or a prayer.

Answer 5

God doesn't mention the animals in detail in the Noah account of Genesis....

But He does say "All the animals"

So I think that would imply all creatures on the earth.

Have some species died out since then? Yes
Did we discover new ones? Yes

But this is no way implies that evolution is true......we just simply hadn't discovered certain creatures yet. We're still discovering new things every day that have been around for a long time.


Edit:
Riegan,
I know this will sound like an easy way out but it remains true nontheless: I cannot explain how God did certain things. If I knew all there was to know about the universe and creation.....then I would be equal to God.

Answer 6

I think 'Halley's Bible Handbook' would come in great here. Science has proven that Noah's Flood did not literally flood the whole earth, only Noah's half of it. Also, about the animals, over on that side of the world, the animals were different and unknown at the time from our side of the world. Likewise our animals were unknown to them. At Noah's time, we did not know what a camel was for instance. Just like we didn't know what a tiger was at that time. So Noah could only load the animals from his land, not ours.

Answer 7

I would not use the word evolve.
It is thought that the animals, the TYPES, carried the genetics necessary to give so many variations.
It says in Genesis that they would reproduce "after their kind"
meaning there would be no mixing of animal to animal. But, just like in humans, there are genetic variations. NOT to where you'd end up having an entirely new critter, just a variant.

Answer 8

Most modern day creationists don't argue against micro-evolution (evolution within the species- wolves to dogs). What they take issue with is macro-evolution (whales to hippos). According to organizations like Answers in Genesis, these changes are unscientific since they can not be observed.

For example, despite over roughly 4,000+ years of direct breeding of dogs guiding by human intelligence dogs breeds are all (from Great Danes to Pugs) well within their species. In addition, despite breeding fruit flies with dramatically short life spans that can breed several generations in a very short span of time, fruit flies have never developed into anything more than fruit flies. While we see differences in color, size, and other features, we have not observed macro-evolution.

In defense of the evolutionist I would add that they propose time periods too great to observe during a human life time. Although I would ask what amount of undirected and unguided time in the evolutionary time line is equivalent to 4,000+ years of change guided directly by human intellect?

Answer 9

Its very, very simple. They are wrong.

There is no evidence for a standpoint that species have vastly diversified in the last 6,000 years. And taking one class of life - insects - there are around 4 million species today.

That means that just to take insects two by two Noah would have needed a ship the size of a modern oil tanker.

Answer 10

well its like this one time when I was backed into a corner and the only way i could get out of it was to change my story.....

no seriously.... I think that some people just get so hyped up on their arguments that they don't think them through clearly..... and are not open to anything else. this is what i believe and it is right and I don't care what you say. But if you prove me wrong, maybe I will change my story just a bit, so my story stays right.....

Answer 11

They are fundamentalists. Fundamentalists literally interpret the bible.

Some christians (like myself) believe that God only spoke in parables and without a parable god did not speak.