Noah

[screwtape]

The Lord then said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. 2 Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, 3 and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. 4 Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.”

I'm curious.  How do creationists explain the remains of mammoths, and other extinct animals if Noah was supposed to have collected at least one pair of every kind of animal?  Did Noah forget mammoths and sabertooth tigers?  I know some YECs think dinosaurs were wiped out in the flood, but why?  Were they not supposed to also be on the ark?  The biblical account does not show yhwh making any exceptions on animals.  It doesn't say "get the elephants, but not the mammoths". 

I understand the YECs sometimes abuse the word "kind", as if it is equivalent to genus.  But if that is the case, why did Noah collect African and Asian elephants, or the root "kind" of them, but not mammoths?

[Nick]

You mean Noah got all those animals together in 7 days?  Man, talk about multi tasking.

[Tero]

There is also no snow or ice in the bible. Therefore ice ages are fake.

[Nick]

You know...if I did not know better I would think that some of the bible was made up.

[sun_king]

They have an explanation http://creation.com/mammoth-riddle-of-the-ice-age

"Although the media use mammoths as evolutionary propaganda, they can be properly explained by a biblical world-view. Mammoths are a variety of the elephant kind, created on Day 6. The elephant kind was preserved from extinction by being on board Noah’s Ark. But many of the descendants of the Ark animals, including the mammoths, died in catastrophes at the end of the Ice Age, some 4,000 years ago. Some of their frozen carcasses are preserved, but their genetic material is not intact. Some mammoth genes have lived on in Nepalese elephants"

My personal theory is that Noah had plans of mating Asian elephants in front of some furry fences. That might not have gone as planned.

[ParkingPlaces]

You understand, of course, that that part of the world is within 7 walking days for all known animals. You're trying to make this whole thing sound impossible.

And as for the wooly mammoths, in order to save weight, they were shaved. Hence they looked like plain old elephants, and can often be seen accurately depicted, most notably in children's books on the subject. Which are authoritative.
'
And in order to keep the other critters calm, the saber tooth tigers were hung off the side railing by their giant teeth for the entire trip. And in a brilliant move, rattlesnakes and cobras were tied around the saber tooth tigers legs for safekeeping.

If you're thinking your so-called "questions" about the ark are going to do any good, I laugh at your puny efforts. There are perfectly reasonable explanations about everything. And don't try bringing up naked mole rats. I'll have you  know that they were clothed for the entire trip.

And of course, you are probably going to ask WTF they ate. Well, you know that seeming "discrepancy" between seven pairs and one pair of each kind. Its simple. Seven pairs got on, one pair got off. The rest were kind of like giant-sized animal crackers.

There is no mystery. Even the water depth thing is a no-brainer. People today keep trying to measure it in meters or feet. They didn't have meters or feet back in those days. They measured with cubits. Which explains how it is possible. You silly gooses.

[screwtape]

They have an explanation http://creation.com/mammoth-riddle-of-the-ice-age

interesting.  I particularly like the part where it talks about volcanoes occurring with the flood:

Evolutionists find the cause of the Ice Age a mystery. Obviously the climate would need to be colder. But global cooling by itself is not enough, because then there would be less evaporation, so less snow. How is it possible to have both a cold climate and lots of evaporation?

The creationist meteorologist Michael Oard proposed that the Ice Age [possibly referred to in Job 37:10 and 38:22] was an aftermath of Noah’s Flood.18,19 When ‘all the fountains of the great deep’broke up, much hot water and lava would have poured directly into the oceans.

This would have warmed the oceans, increasing evaporation. At the same time, much volcanic ash in the air after the Flood would have blocked out much sunlight, cooling the land.

Yes.  Volcanic ash during rain. It's so obvious.  How could I have missed this before?  Wait, what was that bit about evaporation? 

[Nam]

I just want to know if they had the Platypus.



-Nam

[Nick]

They can buy all this as perfectly reasonable yet climate change is a hoax.

[Graybeard]

Mammoths became extinct 700 years after the flood (c. 3,300 years ago)

Anserweringenesis has all the answers:

Not long ago, Russian television reported an exciting find of large fossil tetrapods (pareiasaurs) in the Upper Permian strata of the western Russian platform.1

[Professor] Coffa, from Monash University, Australia, described the strata in detail.3,4 He determined five horizons when deposition ceased and erosion surfaces developed in the sedimentary sequence (up to 50 m thick). According to their timescale, uniformitarians say the strata are 260 million years old.

To me these conclusions are very questionable:5

Conclusion
This new find of fossil tetrapods from the Russian platform, buried in standing position with head erect, indicates catastrophic sedimentation conditions. This fossil graveyard is consistent with the Biblical Flood and a contradiction to the slow-and-gradual uniformitarian doctrine.

[sun_king]

I just want to know if they had the Platypus.



-Nam

Noah's flood leaves to doubt the validity of god's promise or the possibility that there is another creator.

... and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made

There is no mention of Noah building tanks inside the Ark to keep 2 (7?) pairs of whales, sharks, dolphins and swordfish etc. safe from extinction. So it can be assumed that the aquatic species survived the flood (The flood is not the best way to wipe out the fish, cephlapods, crustaceans etc.) Either god didnt keep his promise of wiping out every living creature he made or there is another creator who handled the aquatic species.

Platypus is semiaquatic, so there is a fair chance that they survived the flood on their own.

[Nick]

Anyone with an IQ above 70 should start questioning the validity of the Noah story at about the same time you start questioning Santa.

[ParkingPlaces]

Anyone with an IQ above 70 should start questioning the validity of the Noah story at about the same time you start questioning Santa.

As it happens, I am proof of that hypothesis. I questioned both at about the same time. Though my IQ is probably a lot lower than that.

Note the lack of smiley's.

[screwtape]

Either god didnt keep his promise of wiping out every living creature he made or there is another creator who handled the aquatic species.

I would guess they woud say sea creatures were not technically on the face of the earth.  That would only refer to land animals.

I don't understand why they try to devote so much time and energy to explain this stuff "scientifically" and not just say "miracle". 

[Graybeard]

Either god didnt keep his promise of wiping out every living creature he made or there is another creator who handled the aquatic species.

I would guess they would say sea creatures were not technically on the face of the earth.  That would only refer to land animals.

And that's the problem -

1. God thought that Whales were fish and so could be safely ignored.
2. Because they were fish, they were exempt from the ark and drowning but all cetaceans breathe through their nostrils: Ge:7:22: All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.[1]
2. God thought fish were fish but there are salt and freshwater fish and only a few manage to live in both - the vast majority die if the salinity alters and this is what would happen in a universal flood.

1.	(In fairness, this verse can mean "All (i) in whose nostrils was the breath of life, [plus] (ii) of all that was in the dry land, died." or  "All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, [i.e.] of all that was in the dry land, died.")

[Nick]

God, sure as hell, did not plan this very well.

[Jag]

^^^What else is new? Apparently he can only spread his message via humans, who spectacularly fail to agree on the actual meaning of the message, but are still willing to kill in defense of their own pet theory. Failing to foresee the consequences of the flawed flood story is insignificant in comparison to that failure.

(Good Darwin, some people are completely f***ing blind to their relative privilege. I'm theist-saturated at the moment, due to school. I may be far more abrupt and snarly than usual, please forgive any rudeness, and bring it to my attention if feeling unfairly attacked or if I'm being dismissive.)

[Bereft_of_Faith]

Do they not explain such things by insisting that Noah took aboard 'kinds' of animals, and that from them, the divergent species emerged?  Would they not consider the African and Indian elephants, mastodons and mammoths to be the same kind?

If they ignore the geological strata in which fossils are found (as they would have to in order to stick to the 6k year time line,) all snakes, ovine, bovine, equine etc could each be said to be one kind from which all others changed in detail, but not substance.

The subscription to the fantasies of YEC, Noah, and anti-evolution are all closely tied together in support of such arguments.

[nogodsforme]

That means that they do "believe" in evolution, but a far more spectacular and speedier variety than any scientist has ever described. These animals changed from one elephant "kind"including mammoths and mastodons, into Indian, African, and pygmy in a few thousand years?  You would have been able to practically see the ears enlarging, the tusks shrinking and the hair falling out from one generation to the next.

And nobody doing animal husbandry at the time bothered to notice any of that, write about it or draw any images?

"Abdul, this baby elephant has hecka big ears. And it's hella onery!"
"Oh, well, you see, Achmed, the elephant species is evolving from Indian to African before our very eyes. No biggie."

Besides the fact that there are at least ten different species of woolly mammoth that we know of. And all of them drowned at the same time. Damn, that was a crowded planet before the flood. 

[screwtape]

That means that they do "believe" in evolution, but a far more spectacular and speedier variety than any scientist has ever described. These animals changed from one elephant "kind"including mammoths and mastodons, into Indian, African, and pygmy in a few thousand years?

yeah.  Not only that, but it stopped around 2000 - 2500years ago.  So all the evolving of kinds happened in  a narrow little 1500-2000 year span.

[nogodsforme]

That means that they do "believe" in evolution, but a far more spectacular and speedier variety than any scientist has ever described. These animals changed from one elephant "kind"including mammoths and mastodons, into Indian, African, and pygmy in a few thousand years?

yeah.  Not only that, but it stopped around 2000 - 2500years ago.  So all the evolving of kinds happened in  a narrow little 1500-2000 year span.

Once again, all this incredibly rapid change in species, practically a completely different animal with each generation, without anyone taking notice. It's like how my fundy home-schooled students try to argue against a 4.6 billion year old earth, while still taking into account the reality of plate tectonics. Continental drift is real, but in the past it was just waaaay faster than scientists think. So, the continents were whipping across the oceans like surfboards, causing tidal waves and people toppling backward off the coasts into crevasses carved out by the movement, and nobody noticed?

Right. But the real science is too far-fetched to believe.

[Mrjason]

Clearly Noah must have kept detailed records of where the animals were collected from in order to return them to the right habitats where they are still found to this day.
A special trip to Australia was required to return the marsupials although once they were back in situ he decided not to tell anyone about this vast subcontinent he had visited.

The only explanation I can think of about why the Mammoths and Sabre-toothed Tigers became extinct is that the inventory of animals was either wrong or perhaps rain damaged and Noah disembarked the Mammoths et al in the wrong habitat where they thrived for a while (explaining why there has been more than 2 found) but eventually succumbed to an environment that was hostile to them.

[Tonus]

The story of the great flood is an irredeemable mess from more than just a logistical standpoint.  Consider the question "why didn't god also kill Satan and the demons?"  I don't think that there's any way to consider that issue that doesn't leave some gaping logical holes with serious ramifications down the line.

[sun_king]

Clearly Noah must have kept detailed records of where the animals were collected from in order to return them to the right habitats where they are still found to this day.
A special trip to Australia was required to return the marsupials although once they were back in situ he decided not to tell anyone about this vast subcontinent he had visited.

Its more intricate than that. Noah also made a trip to the Americas to drop the rattlesnakes, cougar and skunks, then to Madagascar to release the ancestors of King Julian, to Asia for the peacocks, tigers and pandas. Now this is spectacular navigation for an unpowered crate that was designed just to float. Remember, this is the guy who sent out a raven to see if the flood is over...

[Aceluffy]

Please allow me to contribute by showing you this simple comparison

[nogodsforme]

Clearly Noah must have kept detailed records of where the animals were collected from in order to return them to the right habitats where they are still found to this day.
A special trip to Australia was required to return the marsupials although once they were back in situ he decided not to tell anyone about this vast subcontinent he had visited.

Its more intricate than that. Noah also made a trip to the Americas to drop the rattlesnakes, cougar and skunks, then to Madagascar to release the ancestors of King Julian, to Asia for the peacocks, tigers and pandas. Now this is spectacular navigation for an unpowered crate that was designed just to float. Remember, this is the guy who sent out a raven to see if the flood is over...

Well, if the continents were all together as Pangaea, Noah could have just released all the animals from the ark and said, "Fly my pretties, fly, fly!" or run, hop, squirm, crawl, slither, as the case may be. And then the continents all slid quickly apart like big wooden puzzle pieces, with the correct species on the right spices, spieces, I mean pieces.

And there would be no problem keeping the carnivores from eating all the herbivores before the continents separated them. How fast can a cougar run, anyway? [1]

1.	Between 35-55 mph, so not too fast, right? Faster than a peacock or koala, anyway.

[Nick]

If I remember right the reason for Noah and zoo was because the Earth was wicked.  Did flooding it change anything?  Seems like we have been just as wicked if not more so since then.  Kind of like Jesus dying for our sins.  What changed?  Nothing.

[Graybeard]

Oxford English Dictionary (OED) (2008),

Ark n. Etymology: …Gothic and Germanic arka , probably < Latin arca chest, box, coffer; whence Old French arche , also adopted in senses 2, 3, alongside of the native word: see arche n.

1. A chest, box, coffer, close basket, or similar receptacle; esp.

a. in north. dial. a large wooden bin or hutch for storing meal, bread, fruit, etc.

?c1200 Ormulum (Burchfield transcript) - l. 18823 "Þatt arrke þatt iss wrohht off tre." [Edit: = The ark that is made (wrought) of wood (tree)."]

2.a. spec. in Jewish Hist. The wooden coffer containing the tables of the law, kept in the Holiest Place of the Tabernacle. Also called Ark of the Covenant, Ark of Testimony.

3. The large covered floating vessel in which Noah was saved at the Deluge; hence fig. a place of refuge. (In 13–14th c. commonly arche n.)

c950 Lindisf. Gosp. Matt. xxiv. 38 "Inneode in ærce Noë" [Rushw. arkæ, Ags. & Hatt. earce].

So an ark was originally a largish wooden box that held something. The word was then used for Noah's construction because it contained all life.

The Holbein (1497 - 1543) sketch



is a quite remarkable source: You will see that it is a box/chest/coffer - as per the first meaning in OED.

Seeing that picture in conjunction with the OED’s description, it is clear that Holbein's ark is not simplified - this is the ark as understood in Holbein's day.

Subsequent pictures of a boat with a house on it have been made erroneously more complex so that they look like a ship. We can probably blame John Wycliffe for this, who in his 1382 translation of the Latin Vulgate Bible, simply assumed it was a ship:

1382 Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) Gen. vi. 14 Make to thee an ark [v.r. schip] of planed trees. And the authors of KJV1611 followed suit.

Whereas, an earlier example (below) did not feel it useful to describe the ark as a ship.

?c1200 Ormulum (Burchfield transcript) l. 14542 "Drihhtin badd noe gan till & wirrkenn himm an arrke." = Thirdly (He) instructed Noah to start and build an ark [for himself].

We are so used to thinking of the Ark as a ship that the correct version - an ark as in the first and second OED meaning of box or wooden coffer containing the tables of the law - has been lost to us when referring to Noah, and we are left with idiots who build boats with houses on the top so as to perpetuate something that has been misunderstood because it would be too embarrassing to tell the truth at this late stage.

In the Genesis description, God tells Noah to build an ark - Ge:6:13: And God said unto Noah,  … Ge:6:14: Make thee an ark…

But as there had never been an ark that was a boat before, and Noah never asked "What's an ark?" therefore, both God and Noah understood what an ark was: and it could only be a box/coffer / chest

At this stage, the Israelites knew about boxes, and ark was merely something to keep something else inside. The ark of the covenant/testimony was not introduced until

Ex:25:10: And they shall make an ark of shittim wood: two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof.
Ex:25:14: And thou shalt put the staves into the rings by the sides of the ark, that the ark may be borne with them.
Ex:25:16: And thou shalt put into the ark the testimony which I shall give thee.

If God had told Noah to build a boat, it would not have been necessary to tell him to waterproof it: Ge:6:14: Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.

And why would God think that a large boat would have no windows or doors? And why only one of each?
Ge:6:16: A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.

Far more sensible to the early Yahwist, is the idea of a box/chest would be the very place to be inside and it is just the sort of thing that God would command as is later seen in other verses. God has Moses placed in an ark of bulrushes (Ex:2:3), He has the ark for the covenant/testimony made (Ex:25:10) This also explains what Noah understood by ark and why Noah was told to make his Ark with only three dimensions, and no references to curvature, a deck or a roof. Ge:6:15: And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: “The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.” - it is a box.

Psalms:132:8: Arise, O LORD, into thy rest; thou, and the ark of thy strength.

The use of “ark” dies out in the OT and does not appear in the NT until:

Heb:11:7: By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.

Here, you can see that it is “an ark” that Noah built – not “the ark”

[Noman Peopled]

Continental drift is real, but in the past it was just waaaay faster than scientists think. So, the continents were whipping across the oceans like surfboards, causing tidal waves and people toppling backward off the coasts into crevasses carved out by the movement, and nobody noticed?

Right. But the real science is too far-fetched to believe.

Heh. I wonder how much heat should still be left from friction alone if entire continents were bouncing around in mere centuries. Never mind where that energy came from and that the flood would pale into insignificance next to this planetary squirming.
And as with animal kinds morphing right before humanity's eyes, nobody seems to have noticed. Man, people must've been very lethargic back then ...

But yeah, the main thing is having a story that sounds good. 'cause that's what scientists do too, right?