Noah - Could the ark really hold all of those animals?

[Brother Jerry]

Could the Ark really hold all of those animals?

One of the common arguements brought up by non-believers is the ark.  Not even the global flood thing but they often state that there is no way that the ark could have held all of those animals.  This is often filled by our own artistic downfalls.  We often see the ark painted in cute pictures and such as something about the size of a 40' yacht, all made of wood and just looking really pretty and cute.  However the reality of the Bible is something different.

Lets take a look at some of the numbers and see if it is truly feasible for the ark to have held all of those animals.  First we have to take a look at the ark.  Genisis chapter 6 lets us know that the ark was 300 cubits long, by 50 cubits wide, by 30 cubits deep.  And that it was constructed of 3 decks.  Now this puts the ark on par with an aircraft carrier that was used in World War II.  Just as tall and wide but not quite as deep.  But then some people find it hard to imagine that an air craft carrier could carrier as many planes as they did. 

So now that we have that lets dig a little deeper.  A cubit is a measurement that runs anywhere from 18 inches to 21 inches depending on who you talk to.  For the sake of arguement we will stick with 18 inches.  So the ark was 5,400 inches long, by 900 inches wide by 540 inches deep.  Lets now figure out the volume with in the ark itself.  5,400 x 900 x 540 equals 2,624,400,000 cubic inches. 

Now that we have the volume of the ark figured out we need to look at the contents of the ark.  Currently we figure there are about 1.4 million named species of animals on the earth.  They figure that there could be anywhere from 2-100 million species.  To make the math easy we will look at 100 million species.  So lets see how much space would each species take up if you gave them each equal space.  2,624,400,000 / 100,000,000 = 26.2440 cubic inches for each species.  But we know that it was 2 of each kind of the unclean animal so lets divide that by 2 and we get 13.1220 cubic inches for each animal.

But wait.  Because we all know that is not good enough because the Bible tells us that of the clean animals we took 7 pair for a total of 14 of the good animals.  We really have no way of knowing all of the good animals...not without doing some very exhaustive research on breaking down the species...so let us just assume it is a perfect world and 100% of the animals are perfect animals.  That would mean that there were 1,400,000,000 different animals on the ark.  And each one would have taken up 1.8745 cubic inches.

Now most people are going to say that an elephant cannot fit into 1.87 cubic inches, and they are correct.  And I am not about to say that God shrunk them down so they could (although He could have if He wanted to).  However there are other considerations to look at as well.  Over 50% of the known species to exist today are insects.  And quite honestly 14 ants do not need to take up roughly 26 cubic inches of space.  Neither do 14 termites, 14 lady bugs, or 14 of most insects for that matter.  So a great deal of space could be made up of them.

Not enough you say?  Approximately 18% of the known species counted today are plants.  None of them went on the ark.  So if we remove them from the equation and still assume 100% clean.  Then we are taking 1,148,000,000 animals on board.  And space for each individual animal grows to 2.286 cubic inches.

Still not enough?  You are beginning to push it   But let us not forget fish, mollusks, crustacians, and other aquatic life.  Let us just for simplisity state they are 15% of known species.  Now we are taking 978,800,000 different animals on board the ark.  And each one of them is taking up 2.6894 cubic inches.  That would be an astounding 37.6 cubic inches for those 14 ants. 

I think that is more than enough to show that the ark had plenty of space for all of the animals.  These numbers being very conservative and on the side of those that would argue against it being possible.  Since we have not even breached 2 million species and these took into account 100 million.  These figures also did not take into account that of the unclean animals there was only 2 on board the ark.

Just for fun let us take the number of species down to 2 million.  All other factors the same, such as 100% clean.  We would end up with 134.47 cubic inches for each individual animal. If we took 100 million species and upped the cubit to 21 inches we would have 4.27 cubic inches for each individual.  And then if we dropped the species down to 2 million with cubit at 21 inches then we would have an astounding 213.54 cubic inches per individual animal.

All in all it is very safe to say that the ark had room to spare when it came to the creatures of the world that would have had to fit into the ark. 

I hope that was insightful. 

Sincerely
Brother Jerry

[Soldier4Christ]

Amen brother,

Another thing that is not taken into consideration is the "type animals". If they are typed according to evolutionists then there would not be enough room on the ark. Typing them according to the Bible then there is enough space for the animals the bible says that there were on board. There is an extensive study done on this by "Answers In Genesis".   http://www.answersingenesis.org/

[Shammu]

First off welcome to Christians Unite forums, Brother Jerry.  The only thing I can say about your post, is AMEN!!

[ibTina]

WOW... comparing it to an aircraft carrier, I never thought of it like that. Being a retired Navy wife who has been on a few aircraft carriers I can see how all those animals could fit!

   In His service... Tina

[airIam2worship]

Brother Jerry, thank you for all the math you certainly worked very hard on that, I have one more thing to add. In 40 days a cat, a dog, a mouse, a bear, penguin, an elephant, alas almost all animals grow very very quickly, so for those who still won't believe, what if most of these animals were still babies, not their full mature adult size when they boarded on the ark. Let's assume they were, that would leave even more space.

[Soldier4Christ]

For those who have never been on or around aircraft carriers.

The World War II air craft carriers are smaller than our current ones. The USS Enterprise CV-6 was one of the few such craft that made it all the way through WW II. The cubic inch size of it is approximately the same as that of the ark.

It could carry 96 planes, 178,000 gals of aviation fuel, 433 tons of aviation ordinance, and 2,919 people. These figures do not include the propulsion engines and fuel necessary for them, other non-aviation ordinance carried, communication equipment, radar equipment, aircraft maintenance equipment, medical facilities with equipment, a large kitchen, and much more I can't think of off hand.

[Amorus]

Amen! Very cool post.
One thing to also remember is that  non-believers have never experienced the power of God.  They always seem to want to put "human" restrictions to His will.   People have said to me before that they think there is no way that Noah could have built the ark, not even if he was a master boat builder.  This confirms my point.  In Genesis it states that Noah walked with God! If it was God's will, Noah could have built two arks with only his hands.  Its sad, but non-believers will always limit the Lord's awesome power.  I just pray that they will read posts like this and their eyes will be open. 

[Soldier4Christ]

Yes people do doubt the word of God. There are many doubting Thomas' today both in and out of the churches. These people doubt much of the Bible forgetting the power of God.

Noah had over 100 years to build the ark. It has been done in mofern times using the same tools and the same amount of manpower so their argument of Noah not being able to do it is thrown out in the grabage.

[airIam2worship]

AMEN!!!

God provided Noah with the blueprints and the material to build the ark. Noah didn't have to go shopping for the material for the ark, and he didn't have any need for any other blueprints, no lazy workers either. 
He also had God given health and energy as did his sons and the four women. Noah didn't get tired nor his sons. God made sure they got their rest as well and if you take into account that Noah rested well at night he took his lunch and dinner breaks, and he observed the Sabbath as well so he actually didn't work non stop for the 100 years. He probably worked only during daylight hours. I'll leave the math for Brother Jerry to do  .
God knew how long He wanted Noah to take building the Ark and what he would need.

[Brother Jerry]

LOL...100 years is good enough for me...no further math needed

But as another side thought concerning the Ark, and it whereabouts today.  Many people have been looking for the ark for many years and have come up short of finding it.  You would think that something that size would be somewhere wouldn't you?  As well as very hard to hide, even under the ice of the mountain wouldn't it?  Sure it would.

But what if it is not on the mountain any more?  Imagine you are Noah and his family...or more to the point Noah or one of his family, unless schitzophrania is a problem   You just finish up with a huge trial of rain, being at sea for months and the destruction of the world as he knew it.  But now you have landed.

You want to start the world anew.  Along with your 3 sons you set out to build yourself a house.  Now would you go out and either cut down or move trees that are knocked down to where you want to build this home/villiage?  This would entail cutting the wood, shaping the wood, covering the wood, weatherproofing the wood, etc, etc.  Or would you look back and see this ship that has carried through the worst storm in history, floated on the waters for months, and then say to yourself "Why that wood has been cut, shaped, and treated already.  Instant lumber for a new home"

I would guess that most would consider using the lumber that they already had that was already covered in pitch to prevent the rain from coming in and the ocean out as well.  So it is going to keep any future rain from coming in for a while.  The limbs and such have already been cut from them so you do not have to worry about that either, just cut to length needed (or get the lengths already cut) and start building that house.  And future generations could have also used that lumber as well because they would want the plants and such to repopulate and grow.  So they would be using what was available and the ark was available.

If we want to look for the ark then look down the mountain for timbers used in ancient homes and I bet we can find parts of the ark down there.

Just a though

Brother Jerry