Unlike many secular scientists/evolutionists who insist that the universe is over 4.5 billion years old and that dinosaurs and man’s existence on the earth was separated by nearly 65 million years, the Bible teaches that the universe is young and that both man and dinosaurs were created at the same time (day 6 of creation – Genesis 1:24-27) and that they lived together on the earth from that moment forward until most of these reptiles (i.e.; at least those you see on movies like Jurassic Park) became extinct. Last week we offered possible proof of this in very pages of scripture itself. One example we noted, located in Job 40:15, seems much closer to the description of a Brachiosaurus or some similar creature than any modern animal we know of today, and this was during the time after Noah’s flood.
One of the questions asked by people who do not accept the account of Noah’s ark in Genesis chapters 6 through 8 as a literal historical event, is “how could 2 of each ‘kind’ of animals, and especially those as big as dinosaurs, have fit on the ark?” To answer that question, one first needs to understand how big the ark was. Based on what is believed to be length of a cubit in Bible times (18 inches), the ark was at minimum 450 feet long (1 ½ football fields), 75 feet wide and 45 feet high (see Genesis 6:15). This is a massive ship with multiple decks (at least 3) which took around 100 years to build. A ship this size would provide a lot of area to house animals, especially when you consider no sea creatures were on board.
Another thing we need to understand is that the Bible doesn’t say that Noah housed two of every ‘species’ of animal on the ark, but two of every ‘kind’ (see Genesis 6:20). This cuts down considerably on the number of animals on board. So, “What is the difference between a species and a kind?”
Let me provide an example. It is my understanding that in the original creation, all dogs come from just two, one male and one female; and that the genes of every type of species of dog that exists today can be traced back to the original two. This would include everything from the wolf to the chihuahua. This represents the ‘dog kind’. So there would have only been two dogs on the ark. When people talk of a different species, they would consider a wolf and a Collie a different species, but they are of the same kind.
Same thing with the ‘cat kind’, everything from your house cat to a Siberian tiger are all related and of the same kind. Doesn’t take a lot of room to house two dogs and two cats on something as large as the ark Noah built, does it? Well, you get the picture.
But even if that is the case and helps explain how the ark might be big enough to house all the mammal and reptile kinds that exists today, what about animals as big as those huge dinosaurs that would have still existed in Noah’s time?
The first thing we need to consider is the fact that nothing says any of the animals taken aboard the ark were fully grown. In fact, since they were being housed there during the flood so that they might repopulate the earth after the waters receded, it only makes sense that they would have been young and probably had not even reached maturity when taken aboard. And as far as the dinosaurs, according to Ken Ham of ‘the Genesis Project,’ the largest fossilized dinosaur egg ever found is about the size of a football, which would mean no dinosaur was very big early in life. Also, according to Mr. Ham, based on the fossil records, “There were probably fewer than 50 distinct groups, or ‘kinds’ of dinosaurs.” So, if there were not more than 100 dinosaurs and they were all young, they would, in truth, not have taken up any more room than 100 animals that were a year old like horses, cows, elephants, hippos, bears, etc.
So when you begin to consider all the facts and use a little common sense, the idea of being able to house 2 of every ‘kind’ of animal and bird on the ark, it is not nearly as far-fetched nor as unbelievable as those that hold to evolution would have us believe. No, the word of God is more than reliable, and based just on evidence alone that has been discovered in all disciplines (i.e.; paleontology, genetics, science, geology) over the last century, the plausibility of things happening exactly as described in the Bible, even in the earliest chapters, are becoming easier and easier to defend.
For God’s glory and His alone,
Pastor Terry.