Just an interesting study I wanted to do.
I am using The New Oxford Annotated Bible.
In order to set some ground rules for the following discussion, I propose the following:
According to Panda.org, which is part of the WWF, there are two types of elephants: the Asian and the African. Obviously if we believe the Bible, there would have to be four elephants on the ark.
The Asian elephant eats around 300kg of fodder per day (see Panda.org), while fully grown African elephants eat up to 200kg of food/day (WWF). Now, we know from Gen 6:21 that Noah was commanded to take food for all the animals and his family, thus nullifying a possible miracle explanation for not needing to bring food. Now, if Noah took 4 fully grown elephants he would have needed 1,000 kg of food/day just for the elephants. However, in the interest of being conservative, lets assume that Noah had younger elephants and thus needed less food than a full grown adult. So lets assume that the elephants needed half of their adult counterparts.
Therefore, collectively, the Asian and African elephants would need approximately 500 kg of food/day. Thats 1,102.31 pounds a day!! In the interest of simplicity and being conservative in our estimates lets just say 1,000 pounds of food/day. For the year that they were on the ark, that would mean Noah and family would have needed 365,000 pounds of food for the elephants. This is 1,825 tons, which will be important later.
Next step, calculating how much space was in the ark. This has been done repeatedly so I hope there is little contention here. Gen. 6:15 says, "The length of the ark shall be 300 cubits (aprx. 450 feet), the breadth of it 50 cubits (aprx. 75 feet), and the height of it 30 cubits (aprx. 45 feet)." This is 1,518,750 cubic feet. Lets also assume for the sake of simplicity and being conservative that the ark was a perfect box with these dimensions (i.e., no space lost at the front or back due to needing to actually float, no need for going through sea/waves, no keel, etc). Also for the sake of simplicity and conservatism, lets assume by some miracle that there was no need for floors, which would take up even more space (this caveat contradicts Gen 6:16 in which God instructs Noah to build 3 decks--but that would take away more space and seeing as there is no mention in the Bible as to how thick the floors were, we cannot calculate their volume). Thus the area of the ground floor would have been 33,750 sq. feet and that the total interior cubic feet are as stated above.
Next we need to know approximately how much space the food for the elephants would have taken up (and ignoring the fact that most of it would have gone bad eventually in a hot damp environment--remember there was only one door and a small window). Just for a side-note, I am also ignoring the fact that many animals are carnivores. That would mean that many more than just a pair of many types of animals were brought aboard that also would have to be fed during the year until the "chosen pair" could eat them. Of course the fact that these "feed" animals also needed to be kept alive, many of which were carnivores also, would have meant that even more animals would have bee needed. Its a geometrically unsolvable problem for such a situation.
Given that, Elephants are vegetarians; so lets assume that they were fed hay for the entire year (again ignore the monumental task of growing, harvesting, and storing of such an immense amount of hay by one family). According to the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food, "Regardless of bale size and stacking method, any building with 16' sidewalls will accommodate at least 1 ton of hay in every 20 square feet of floor area." This means one ton of hay needs 320 cubic feet of storage. But it does say 'at least', and of course this is assuming ideal conditions. So again for simplicity and conservatism, lets assume one ton of hay needs 300 cubic feet of storage. That means the 1,825 tons of hay needed for just the 4 elephants alone would have take up 547,500 cubic feet!! Thats about 36% of the space available on the ark, again assuming ridiculously conservative (and sometimes impossible, i.e., no floors) conditions. If we have adult elephants that eat twice as much (again at a very conservative estimate) thats 72% of the space in the ark for the food for just 4 animals!!!! Not to mention that I haven't added the space that the actual elephants would have needed, which would have been more than just the space they physically occupy, due to the need to exercise, for instance.
When one considers that there are 1.4-1.6 million known species of animals (Online Textbook), and some estimates of up to 100 million existing species, there is no physical possibility that Noah's ark ever happened. Think about how much staff and energy go into running even a small zoo. Of course, if one assumes that dinosaurs were alive at that time, then Noah would have had to deal with those rather large critters as well.
Let's discuss.
I am using The New Oxford Annotated Bible.
In order to set some ground rules for the following discussion, I propose the following:
- Arguments shall be based upon scripture from known and acknowledged versions of the Bible. Such arguments should be referred to by the translation, book, chapters and verse(s). Religious arguments based outside known translations of the Bible shall not be valid. (e.g., God spiritually feeding the animals, or shrinking them to fit into the ark shall not be accepted.) I will make arguments outside scriptures, but only in favor of the creationists' arguments.
- OR, arguments shall be based upon documented sources within the scientific community, verifiable by any person who wishes to pursue the issue.
- Mathematics, geometry, and physics shall be considered to be the same in Noahs time as they are today.
- Evolution shall be a moot point. It shall be assumed that all animals existing today existed in Noahs time and that he was responsible for bringing them on the ark.
- Water species shall be ignored. This is just to make the whole argument easier for the creationists. Even though salinity problems alone would have killed off tons of water species.
- Genesis 7:2-3, in which God instructs Noah to take 7 pairs of birds and clean animals and one pair of unclean animals, shall be ignored. This is to make the creationists argument easier.
According to Panda.org, which is part of the WWF, there are two types of elephants: the Asian and the African. Obviously if we believe the Bible, there would have to be four elephants on the ark.
The Asian elephant eats around 300kg of fodder per day (see Panda.org), while fully grown African elephants eat up to 200kg of food/day (WWF). Now, we know from Gen 6:21 that Noah was commanded to take food for all the animals and his family, thus nullifying a possible miracle explanation for not needing to bring food. Now, if Noah took 4 fully grown elephants he would have needed 1,000 kg of food/day just for the elephants. However, in the interest of being conservative, lets assume that Noah had younger elephants and thus needed less food than a full grown adult. So lets assume that the elephants needed half of their adult counterparts.
Therefore, collectively, the Asian and African elephants would need approximately 500 kg of food/day. Thats 1,102.31 pounds a day!! In the interest of simplicity and being conservative in our estimates lets just say 1,000 pounds of food/day. For the year that they were on the ark, that would mean Noah and family would have needed 365,000 pounds of food for the elephants. This is 1,825 tons, which will be important later.
Next step, calculating how much space was in the ark. This has been done repeatedly so I hope there is little contention here. Gen. 6:15 says, "The length of the ark shall be 300 cubits (aprx. 450 feet), the breadth of it 50 cubits (aprx. 75 feet), and the height of it 30 cubits (aprx. 45 feet)." This is 1,518,750 cubic feet. Lets also assume for the sake of simplicity and being conservative that the ark was a perfect box with these dimensions (i.e., no space lost at the front or back due to needing to actually float, no need for going through sea/waves, no keel, etc). Also for the sake of simplicity and conservatism, lets assume by some miracle that there was no need for floors, which would take up even more space (this caveat contradicts Gen 6:16 in which God instructs Noah to build 3 decks--but that would take away more space and seeing as there is no mention in the Bible as to how thick the floors were, we cannot calculate their volume). Thus the area of the ground floor would have been 33,750 sq. feet and that the total interior cubic feet are as stated above.
Next we need to know approximately how much space the food for the elephants would have taken up (and ignoring the fact that most of it would have gone bad eventually in a hot damp environment--remember there was only one door and a small window). Just for a side-note, I am also ignoring the fact that many animals are carnivores. That would mean that many more than just a pair of many types of animals were brought aboard that also would have to be fed during the year until the "chosen pair" could eat them. Of course the fact that these "feed" animals also needed to be kept alive, many of which were carnivores also, would have meant that even more animals would have bee needed. Its a geometrically unsolvable problem for such a situation.
Given that, Elephants are vegetarians; so lets assume that they were fed hay for the entire year (again ignore the monumental task of growing, harvesting, and storing of such an immense amount of hay by one family). According to the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food, "Regardless of bale size and stacking method, any building with 16' sidewalls will accommodate at least 1 ton of hay in every 20 square feet of floor area." This means one ton of hay needs 320 cubic feet of storage. But it does say 'at least', and of course this is assuming ideal conditions. So again for simplicity and conservatism, lets assume one ton of hay needs 300 cubic feet of storage. That means the 1,825 tons of hay needed for just the 4 elephants alone would have take up 547,500 cubic feet!! Thats about 36% of the space available on the ark, again assuming ridiculously conservative (and sometimes impossible, i.e., no floors) conditions. If we have adult elephants that eat twice as much (again at a very conservative estimate) thats 72% of the space in the ark for the food for just 4 animals!!!! Not to mention that I haven't added the space that the actual elephants would have needed, which would have been more than just the space they physically occupy, due to the need to exercise, for instance.
When one considers that there are 1.4-1.6 million known species of animals (Online Textbook), and some estimates of up to 100 million existing species, there is no physical possibility that Noah's ark ever happened. Think about how much staff and energy go into running even a small zoo. Of course, if one assumes that dinosaurs were alive at that time, then Noah would have had to deal with those rather large critters as well.
Let's discuss.