Can someone who believes the Noah story please explain how you can fit about 17 million species on one boat?

Question

I read another post that some people believe in the literal stories of the bible, like the Noah story. So, given the dimensions of the boat, which I assume are known, how do you fit 17 million critters in there? This number is the current estimate of all species on earth. Everything that exists today HAD to be on that boat...right???

I'll make it easy, let's say Noah was a slacker and only brought half the species, how could he still fit that much stuff on one boat?
How could he build a boat that big?
How could he provide that much food for a diverse number of animals from all over the globe?
How could he stand the smell of that much crap in the boat? You can't train a warthog to do its business over the bow you know.

Logistically, this makes zero sense.

Source:
http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/sci_update.cfm?DocID=134
the estimate of the current number of species is 1.7 million and that is only 10% of the total estimated to live on earth. Back then, it would have been

higher because thousands, more likely, millions, of species have died off in the past 6 to 10 thousand years.

777: Good point. Er, make that, not good point. A species IS A KIND OF ANIMAL. And since you don't believe in evolution, then ALL MUST be on the boat or it doesn't hold water (pun intended).
You actually made me realize something: the number I gave must be doubled because you need male and femle for all the animals. But hey, I'm a nice guy, so I'll still just ask you to prove it would work with just 8 million critters. (I'm a slacker, kinda like Noah I guess)

LIZ: wouldn't work because they don't believe in evolution.

DOMA: I appreciate the long answer, but I completely disagree with your starting estimate of creatures. And the other logistics still don't work. I can see you really believe this to be true, and I can respect that, but I completely don't buy it at all and if you really think about it, you probably won't either.

Answer 1

here's what i know so far:

either the ark was like the TARDIS - bigger on the inside than it was on the outside, or one pair of each "created kind" was represented on the ark and subsequently evolved at a fantastically impossible rate to produce the species we have today. the ark also contained aquaria for marine life specifically adapted to extremes of temperature, pressure or salinity. well either that or the flood waters were magic, so that they didn't kill marine life by suddenly changing their environment. after the flood, god planted a line of eucalyptus trees from turkey to australia so the koala bears could survive and end up where they should be. currently i'm "researching" how god handled the polar bears. maybe a REALLY large iceberg would do the trick...

Answer 2

The Bible says 2 of each "kind" not species. God chose the ones to go onto the Ark. He knew which ones to choose. who said they were purebreds? The two dogs could have been a mix of many kinds of dogs, which ended up being many different "species" by now. Same way with other animal. As for dinosaurs, (which, by the way were on the ark) were probably babies, and only 2 of each "kind" like 2 dinosaurs that fly, 2 dinosaurs with long tails, 2 dinosaurs with sharp teeth, etc.
The Bible gives the exact dimensions of the Ark, which God gave to Noah. It would have been the size of 3 football fields long, and 3 stories high. So, 3x3=9 football fields. The birds probably didn't even take up floor space, but perched on railings and stuff. If God told Noah how to make a huge Ark, and God made the whole earth flood, and God made everything on the earth anyway, and God made all the animals come to the ark, why do you think God couldn't make the animals be still, and not defecate for a year? Don't you think a God who could do all these things could do this also? That is such a trivial question considering how Big God is!

Answer 3

You assume that the number of species present today was the same number in existance in Noah's time. THIS is your flaw. In the creationists viewpoint, the earth had a uniform climate and land scape before the flood and the variety of species that have evolved since the flood only did so to adapt to the new ecosystems that came about due to the great flood and the way it completely reshaped the Earths surface and climate.

In a sense, humanity is like every living thing, at one time you had one basic race but the varieties of human types that we know if today only came about as humanity dispersed to different locations upon the earth.

Answer 4

It is interesting -- creationists say evolution did not factor into creation, but evolution factors into what happened after Noah and the flood. Because he packed up KINDS of animals not SPECIES. Go figure.

Answer 5

There are many accounts in the Bible, which employ a literary device used by Jewish Old and New Testament writers called Midrash. Midrash is the substantive of the Hebrew word darash which means to search, to investigate, to study and, also, to expound on the fruits of the research. The aim of Midrash is to draw from Scripture a lesson for the present.

Midrash could also be defined as a "reflection on Scripture in the light of the actual situation of God's people and of the developments of God's action on its history." It proposes to explain the meaning of Scripture in the light of the later historical experience of God's people. This kind of interpretation often opened the door to embellishments of the sacred accounts, anachronisms, and a freedom in handling and maneuvering the data of tradition that were at times a little too candid and certainly very imaginative.

For more information about Midrash please go to this link. ://www.catholicity.com/encyclopedia/m/midrashim.html


Sources:
New Advent Catholic Encylopedia
New World Dictionary-Concordance to the
New American Bible

Answer 6

http://christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-c013.html

The total available floor space on the ark would have been over 100,000 square feet, which would be more floor space than in 20 standard-sized basketball courts.

The total cubic volume would have been 1,518,000 cubic feet [462,686.4 cubic meters] --that would be equal to the capacity of 569 modern railroad stock cars.

Now comes the question, how many land dwelling air breathing animals would have had to be taken aboard the ark to survive the flood?

According to Ernest Mayr, America's leading taxonomist, there are over 1 million species of animals in the world.

However, the vast majority of these are capable of surviving in water and would not need to be brought aboard the ark. Noah need make no provision for the 21,000 species of fish or the 1,700 tunicates (marine chordates like sea squirts) found throughout the seas of the world, or the 600 echinoderms including star fish and sea urchins, or the 107,000 mollusks such as mussels, clams and oysters, or the 10,000 coelenterates like corals and sea anemones, jelly fish and hydroids or the 5,000 species of sponges, or the 30,000 protozoans, the microscopic single-celled creatures.

In addition, some of the mammals are aquatic. For example, the whales, seals and porpoises. The amphibians need not all have been included, nor all the reptiles, such as sea turtles, and alligators. Moreover, a large number of the arthropods numbering 838,000 species, such as lobsters, shrimp, crabs and water fleas and barnacles are marine creatures. And the insect species among arthropoda are usually very small. Also, many of the 35,000 species of worms as well as many of the insects could have survived outside the Ark.

Doctors Morris and Whitcomb in their classic book,The Genesis Flood state that no more than 35,000 individual animals needed to go on the ark. In his well documented book, Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study, John Woodmorappe suggests that far fewer animals would have been transported upon the ark. By pointing out that the word "specie" is not equivalent to the "created kinds" of the Genesis account, Woodmorappe credibly demonstrates that as few as 2,000 animals may have been required on the ark. To pad this number for error, he continues his study by showing that the ark could easily accommodate 16,000 animals.)

But, let's be generous and add on a reasonable number to include extinct animals. Then add on some more to satisfy even the most skeptical. Let's assume 50,000 animals, far more animals than required, were on board the ark, and these need not have been the largest or even adult specimens.

Remember there are really only a few very large animals, such as the dinosaur or the elephant, and these could be represented by young ones. Assuming the average animal to be about the size of a sheep and using a railroad car for comparison, we note that the average double-deck stock car can accommodate 240 sheep. Thus, three trains hauling 69 cars each would have ample space to carry the 50,000 animals, filling only 37% of the ark. This would leave an additional 361 cars or enough to make 5 trains of 72 cars each to carry all of the food and baggage plus Noah's family of eight people. The Ark had plenty of space.

Answer 7

Noah only brought kinds of animals on the boat and they "super evolved" in a few hundred years to all the species we see today.

It's all shown in this video: =P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mPPnN1c0jk

I'm not an idiot so I don't believe this but creationists....well...they do believe it.

Answer 8

not necessarily the most religious person here but maybe noah brought the evolutionary ancestors of present day creatures

Answer 9

you see, Noah lived 150 million years ago and the animals have evolved since then...ha

I'll go along with the Chuck Norris theory...because Chuck can do anything

Answer 10

God gave Noah several years to build the boat. Even Noah was a little apprehensive at first. But he trusted God, and trusting God is all that it takes for a miracle to occur. And that's what it was, a miracle. God provides. God gives strength. God gives patience. God made everything possible.