Colin, how did your response answer my query?

You didn't spot the importance of Noah's true history from my comments??! Then I can't help you much more:...sorry, I prefer not to patronise you.

Colin, I guess you did not notice that Noah's ark was not built to rescue anyone else but Noah and his family. Read the story again.

No, it was also built to rescue the animals.

Gen. 6
13 And God said to Noah, "I have determined to make an end of all flesh; for the earth is filled with violence through them; behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
14 Make yourself an ark of gopher wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch.
15 This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits.
16 Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above; and set the door of the ark in its side; make it with lower, second, and third decks.
17 For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall die.
18 But I will establish my covenant with you; and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.
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; and it shall serve as food for you and for them."

Which brings us back to the original question. Could the ark literally house all those animals?

Does anyone have a link to a study that calculates the mass and volume of all those animals. Of course, the fact that speciation has probably happened since then should be taken into account.

Do you only take the text itself as the full meaning of the passage???! Isn't that fundamentalism/literalism in the strictest sense? That is being most unhelpful when dealing with the full meaning of whether Noah's history is true or mythical!

Noah was instructed to SAVE HIS FAMILY!!...he wasn't to fail to provide for them: did God forbid anyone else from entering, or did God make salvation from the flood and his judgement on the day's wickedness available to anyone who wanted it? The rest of the Bible dictates such a meaning for the text of Gen 6 and Noah's work for God.

If that was patronising to your further thoughts, you asked for it, because my first response implied this obvious point to someone of your qualifications.

Sorry Colin, but you were patronizing to your own self. Did Noah decide how much food to place on the ark after everyone had made their reservations? Could the ark accomodate everybody who could have booked passage? Those are simple questions to deal with.

Colin,

If we are not to take these passage's literally, then how should we take them? Should we interpet them ourselves? Or should we have you interpet them for us? Are you the only one capable of figuring out what it all "really" meant?

If we don't take them literally, then ALL things are open to interpetation aren't they? That opens up a whole host of other problems. We have to take them literally, that's the way the story is presented in the Bible.

Is there really some other way to look at the Bible, other than to read "literally" into what it says? I just don't understand how you can adjust the meaning to fit "your" viewpoint.

So, the question still remains, is it even possible, for ALL types of creatures, insects, mammels, invertabrates, ALL animals to enter a boat that was built with the craftmanship and tools available at that time? A boat large enough to house all the food and water, and space to turn around and stretch out (large animals need quite a bit of room to move and stretch).

Which brings up another question. Since there were so many carnivore's on board the ark, how many extra animals were on board to feed those animals? How much room was needed for extra gazella's and rabbit's to feed the lion's and tiger's? Those animals eat a LOT of pounds per day of meat, and they are just the tip of the iceberg in that line of questioning.

I feel that until I'm shown, with modern number's and language, and rules of physics, that the ark was able to house these animals and food stores to feed them, that the story MUST be a parabell. Show me, PROVE to me that they can fit. I'm not saying that God couldn't do it, I just don't think it happened in the "literal" sense.

Here's a site which discusses the question, "How did all the animals fit on Noah's Ark?"

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v19/i2/animals.asp

Tom,

Wow, that is truely a piece of work there. Some great calculations, and neat ideas. However, when reading this page of info, I came to several things that need further questioning before they can be taken "as gospel".

1. What is the original Hebrew term for "nostril"? That page stated <<<"The Flood wiped out all land animals which breathed through nostrils except those on the Ark (Genesis 7:22). Insects do not breathe through nostrils but through tiny tubes in their exterior skeleton.>>> They tell me what the other words mean, but I don't know what the term "nostril" is in hebrew, so thus, this may NOT be what was meant, but I've currently no way to distinguish, I'd love some clarity on this.

2. It's stated <<<"The word for ‘creeping things’ is remes, which has a number of different meanings in Scripture, but here it probably refers to reptiles.">>> It probably means that? It either does or it does not, it can't "probably" mean anything. So there's something that's not cleared up either.

3. It's also stated <<<"Noah did not need to take plants either—many could have survived as seeds, and others could have survived on floating mats of vegetation. Many insects and other invertebrates were small enough to have survived on these mats as well.">>> Now, there's some hard and fast proof for you, seeds "could" have survived on floating rafts of vegetation? Really, 40 days and nights of storms, rain, raging water; and seeds for ALL plants on earth survived on floating rafts of vegetation? Not all plants reproduce by seeds, some are by spore's. How would they survive 960 hours of continual wetness? How many of your houseplants do well for 40 days of continual watering?

4. Here's another good one <<<"But germs were probably more robust in the past, and have only fairly recently lost the ability to survive in different hosts or independently of a host.">>> Now, I'm all for scientific research, things reproduceable in a lab, time after time, results that other people can reproduce in a lab somewhere else, FACTS. To state "germs were probably more robust in the past" is as far from FACT as you can get. There's nothing factual about that statemnt. There's no reference for that statement, no data to prove this, it's quite an outlandish statement. In fact, "germs" are becoming MORE ROBUST right now, even as we speak. MRSA, have you heard of it? There's PROOF that they are getting MORE robust, not less.

5. And then there's the easiest question of all. How can you say that some did not survive <<<"However, if God in His wisdom had decided not to preserve some ocean creatures, this was none of Noah’s business.">>> Now we KNOW that the Bible say's

<<<"‘And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.’">>>

Now, that sounds pretty "inclusive" to me. When the term used is "every living thing of all flesh", it makes me think it means just that, EVERY SINGLE TYPE OF LIFE ON EARTH. It does not say, some types, or just those that fit, or those who couldn't swim, or those that could float around on rafts of vegetation. It says, quite literally I'll remind you, every living thing of flesh. I just don't know how you can rationalize that.

So, why can't the flood just be a parable? There were SO many other parable's in the Bible, why not the flood. And if you make a bunch of arguments about, God could have made them hibernate, or seeds could have floated around on vegetation mats, you could also just say it was a parable. Or, God could have just sent a boat(spaceship), and taken all the animals and plants off the planet until the water receeded. Sounds silly huh!

God has shown us the way to His love, through the use of truth and tale, sometimes using "stories" to help us understand. Not in every instance is the Bible tell actual facts, and it says as much.

And just because something in the Bible might be fable, not fact, does not diminish His love for us. It does not mean that I don't take God as my personal saviour. We can look at the same picture and see two different things, but we can still appreciate the picture can't we?