How did all the animals fit into Noah's ark?

Question

During the great flood Noah was ordered by God to fetch two animals of each species and put them into his ark.

19 And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female.

20 Of the birds after their kind, and of the animals after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive.

21 As for you, take for yourself some of all afood which is edible, and gather it to yourself; and it shall be for food for you and for them.

_{Genesis 6:19-21}

There are more than 1 million different species of animals in existence (that we know of), many of them are quite large or dangerous. How can all of those animals even fit into the ark, together with the vast amounts of food that would be needed?

Answer 1

I suppose there is one other possible answer:

It was a miracle.

That would put it in the "how did Jesus walk on water?" and "how did Jesus feed thousands of people with a few fish sandwiches?" category.

Answer 2

This source provides some excellent detail on the subject. In regard specifically to how all the animals fit, however, we look at the same verse that you quoted, Genesis 6:19-21:

¹⁹ And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female. ²⁰ Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground, according to its kind, two of every sort shall come in to you to keep them alive. ²¹ Also take with you every sort of food that is eaten, and store it up. It shall serve as food for you and for them.

And let us not forget Genesis 7:2-3:

² Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, ³ and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth.

So Noah was required to take seven pairs (male and female) of every clean species of animal and only one pair of every other species of animal—every species of animal, that is, that lived on land. This rules out all sea creatures, which Noah could have benefited greatly from.

Also consider how far back this all took place—a lot of today's species didn't even exist, as many of them are results of cross breeding across generations. This once again lowers the amount of animals Noah was required to take.

The ark itself was 300x50x30 cubits (Genesis 6:15), which is approximately 459x75x44 feet (140x23x13.5 metres) (considering a cubit is about 18 inches). Assuming Noah actually used these measurements, there was more than enough room on the ark to hold the animals.

For more information, see here (not a Biblical reference).

Answer 3

There are several factors that allows this. One of this, is the sheer size of the ark. According to the dimensions that the Bible gives, the Ark will have

Thus, the ark could have been up to 550 feet long, 91.7 feet wide and 55 feet high. These are not unreasonable dimensions. But how much storage space does this amount to? Well, 550 x 91.7 x 55 = 2,773,925 cubic feet.

That's the amount of space available. That's approximately, 522 railroad cars, each carrying 240 sheep.

But what about all those large animals, the elephants, mammoths, dinosaurs?

The answer is, Noah could easily have taken the infants of these large animals. Even if he didn't, a proffessor estimated that:

John Woodmorappe, author of the definitive Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study, estimated that only about 15% of the animals on the ark would have been larger than a sheep. This figure does not take into account the possibility that God may have brought Noah “infant” animals, which can be significantly smaller than adult animals.

Even with all those large animals, there would still have been ample space:

...it has been calculated that a little more than half (54.75%) of the 2,773,925 cubic feet could store 125,000 sheep-sized animals, leaving over 1.5 million cubic feet of free space (see - http://www.icr.org/bible/bhta42.html).

Now concerning the sheer number of species, there is quite a simple explanation. Purmou has already taken that into consideration, and I would like to use an example:

In today's world, there are about 400 different types of dogs. But, they all have one common ancestor, the wolf. The way these dogs have been bred, is through the elucidation of certain DNA, so that only desired characteristics remained, and the DNA that isn't needed is not in these dogs. Basically, a loss of DNA.

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Links : http://www.gotquestions.org/Noahs-ark-animals.html

Answer 4

The group "Answers in Genesis" will point out that the scripture is not bound by our understanding of species, but rather states the he should bring every "kind" or "sort" of animal. That is, rather than bring a cheetah, jaguar, lion, tiger, panther, leopard, puma, etc., he could have brought some sort of cat, and further speciation would have taken place after the fact. This understanding would vastly cut down on the number of animals required from millions to thousands.

Answer 5

The other possible answer, one that most Christians would likely not accept is that the flood was not as global as assumed. The events of the flood predate the Tower of Babel, which is when humanity is said to have been scattered across the globe. So one could assume that the human population was very localized.

God would not need to flood the entire planet to wipe out humanity. It would be more logical to just flood the region where humans resided and not have to worry about getting every species onto a wooden ship.

So then Noah could focus on getting local wildlife that shared the region with humans onto the ship.

Someone in another answer mentioned the stability of a wooden vessel of this size. I don't see that as being a tremendous problem as:

1. it was a one-time use vessel
2. God probably wouldn't let it sink.

Answer 6

Yes, biologists have identified about 1.4 million species. There are surely other species not yet identified and cataloged, but estimates vary widely on how many. I've seen estimates for total number of species ranging from less than 2 million to over 100 million.

But the majority of species are microscopic. By definition, microscopic creatures would not take up any measurable amount of space on the ark. They would have just been carried along in or on the larger creatures.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature -- no indication they're a Christian or creationist group, they're environmentalists -- estimates there are 1.3 million non-microscopic creatures in the world. You can get similar numbers in many places. Anyway, 1.3 million, still a lot. But 1,000,000 of those are insects and another 102,000 are arachnids, which don't take much space. 31,000 are fish. The salt-water fish, at least, would not have had to be carried on the ark: Noah didn't need to build fish tanks. Another 85,000 are mollusks, most of which are sea creatures. The only creatures Noah would have had to worry about are what's left: 5,490 species of mammals, 9,998 birds, 9,084 reptiles, and 6,433 amphibians. That makes 31,005 species. (See International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List, Gland, Switzerland, 2010, Table 1.) (And by the way, I'm just using them as a convenient source. You can find similar numbers from other sources.)

As others have noted, Genesis says Noah brought 2 of each "kind", not 2 of each "species". A baramin (kind) is usually broader than a species. So 31,000 is pretty much the upper limit.

So Noah would have had to bring 31,005 x 2 = 62,010 animals. (Okay, a little more for the creatures that he brought 7 pairs.) There are and were certainly some large animals in the world --hippos and elephants and allosauruses and so forth -- but most species are much smaller than this. The average animal weighs about 100 grams, about the size of a large rat.

John Woodmorape wrote a book called "Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study" in which he devotes considerable space to calculations on how much space would be required. He comes up with a total of 15,754 animals. (i.e. he's counting baramin and not species.) He then estimates space requirements by using the amount of space given to animals in laboratories and factory farms. He makes the argument -- a valid one, I think -- that this is a good "middle number". Using the space given when transporting animals in trucks, train, or plains would be too small: such trips tend to be short, so the animals don't need a lot of room. But using space given in zoos would be too large: Zoos are meant to be comforable, and the environments are as much to entertain the visitors as to be pleasant for the animals. The Ark voyage was not a pleasure cruise. So anyway, using figures for space in labs and factory farms, he came up with a total space requirement of 4,300 square meters. That is less than half the floor space on the ark if built to the dimensions in Genesis. That's a high number, because it assumes all cages sit on the floor, but surely Noah could have stacked the cages of the smaller animals.

Woodmorape goes on to calculate that food for the voyage would have taken another 6 to 12% of the available space. If they had to bring along enough water for the entire voyage, that's another 9%. (In real life they could likely have captured rain water to meet at least some of their needs.)

So, as I say in my book, all the animals plus the food and water would have taken up about 2 of the ark's 3 decks. That leaves the other deck for quarters for Noah and his family, room for extinct animals unknown to us today, the dance floor, casino, and karaoke bar.

Answer 7

There are assumptions that everybody makes when hearing about this story, so let's take another look at this specific verse in order to drop those assumptions.

Genesis 6 NKJV

19 And of every living thing of all flesh you shall bring two of every sort into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female.

This passage says take two of every SORT, the NIV says take two of every KIND. It's clear that there were not 4 dogs on the ark, but only two dogs. We assume today that all dogs evolved from wolves. It's possible that only wolves had been taken onto the ark.

Also keep in mind that a logical person is not going to take two full size elephants onto the ark. Instead, they'll take babies. Babies are healthier, they will live longer and more of an opportunity to breed more of their kind.

There are only 2000 different TYPES of animal species on this planet. Let's be safe and double that number because some (dinosaurs) could have gone extinct. So 4000 species, and then double that number again because we're taking two of each. So we're at 8,0000 different kinds of animals on the ark.

According to the sizes given the ark would have been over 100,000 square feet. Enough room to house 16,000 animals plus food and water supplies for twelve months.