After the flood: How did kangaroos get to Australia?

[Chris V++]

It doesn't amaze me when people don't believe it, but it does amaze me when people consider the old testament a bunch of fables, but believe the new testament.

Jesus seemed to believe the Old Testament, so I guess He was guilty of 'blindly misinterpreting' the OT. Or maybe He was just really committed to the tall tales we now call literary devices.

I can hear the historians now:

"There was no Titanic. It was an allegory about how the rich and proud think they are invincible but they are reminded they are not."

How could such a massive vessel be sunk by a floating ice cube? Preposterous!

 

[Anto9us]

Noah took the young in several pairs and the old in one pair.

I was under the impression it was one pair of unclean animals and 7 pairs of clean animals
NLT
Gen 7:2
Take with you seven pairs—male and female—of each animal I have approved for eating and for sacrifice,
Gen 7:3
Also take seven pairs of every kind of bird. There must be a male and a female in each pair to ensure that all life will survive on the earth after the flood.

 

[Anto9us]

Gen 6:19
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.

lol - I love that cartoon!

Anyway, it looks like all the pairs of animals that were in the Ark were to be KEPT ALIVE; I had thought maybe so many pairs of clean animals were brought so that some could be eaten by Noah's family as well as the carnivore pairs that were aboard; which leads me to think -- what did lions and tigers eat for forty days?

 

[Anto9us]

Gen 6:21
And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.

 

[Anto9us]

Did man and and our now-carnivore animals eat meat before the Flood?

Reading further, it was a lot longer than 40 days that the Ark was filled and afloat with 8 people and who knows how many animals; 40 days was just the period the rain fell, 150 days for water to go down some then Noah sent out birds another handful of days -- a long time for tigers and wolves and lions to live off just what food was brought aboard

Did RAIN as we know it now even exist before the Flood?

It seemed like a post-Flood declaration by God that meat-eating began:

Gen 9:3
Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
Gen 9:4
But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.

 

[Anto9us]

I think a lot of things CHANGED after the flood -- veggy diets to meat-eating; did life-spans shorten? Had there been any fermentation before the Flood? Noah may be the first to get drunk.

 

[The Times]

I was under the impression it was one pair of unclean animals and 7 pairs of clean animals
NLT
Gen 7:2
Take with you seven pairs—male and female—of each animal I have approved for eating and for sacrifice,
Gen 7:3
Also take seven pairs of every kind of bird. There must be a male and a female in each pair to ensure that all life will survive on the earth after the flood.

Yep.

 

[Zoii]

The flood was just a story - I do not believe it to be taken literally that all human and animal species were brought back to just a single pair. That would not be sustainable ecologically.

 

[Anto9us]

The same 'story' was part of Epic of Gilgamesh -- the "Noah" in that version was Utnapishtim...

 

[Bible Highlighter]

there are faunal boundary lines that separate Australia with the rest of the mainland thought to be at one connected such as the wallace line. These boundaries show different ecological environments where on one side certain animals, plants/vegetation and even people groups exist and on the other side a completely different set exists. The water simply was too deep to allow species to freely cross over including man. This indicates that disconnected land masses were once connected that share the same environments but also indicates other land masses that do not share common environments, like Australia, were not connected.

This would shoot down the "hopped" over theory as it would require the kangaroo to swim over. However since they only exist in Australia to suggest their journey started anywhere else but Australia would demand the question why isn't the kangaroo anywhere else?

The boat answer seems a little ill-thought out because of course it's just not kangaroos we are talking about but hundreds of other species that are unique to Australia and there simply is no way a mass relocation to isolate the area could have been accomplished not to mention you must ask what was the motivation to do something like that? Australia isn't the biggest problem but the Americas or "new world" species would be which would be far greater of accomplishment to relocate that many unique animals that far.

There would have to be several groups of arks each with various sorted species that were not mixed and each would be carried by the flood waters to different areas of the world in order to support this wide global distribution of animals, but this is not supported by scripture in the least bit. Sure God could do it after the flood event and send a bunch of animals to different areas of the world but no one thought these acts great enough to write them down? This doesn't suggest a divinely ordained highly organized event but in order to accomplish such a task it demands it. This also begs the question why would God do this so that thousands of years later it could be used to support evolution? It would make more sense to say this was the work of the enemy not of God, but again this mass conspiracy theory would be left uncomment in scripture.

The most probable answer is the flood was not a global event but rather a localised event and this leaves out this enormous and extremely skilled task to relocate all these animals without any motivation at all.

First, the flood was definitely global because the high hills were under the whole of heaven were covered.

"And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered." (Genesis 7:19).

There is just no way in getting around this verse above. The only way a person would not believe this verse in what it plainly says if they try to cram secular science into the Bible.

It's the only reason.

Second, I believe Genesis 11 alludes to how the kangaroos got there because man scattered upon ALL of the face of the Earth.

"So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city." (Genesis 11:8).

"Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth." (Genesis 11:9).

For me, it seems highly likely that Noah's ancestors would have imitated what Noah did and created their own large boats (not as big as the Ark) but so as to take a bunch of animals with them to start a new life far away from those they could not understand anymore. To me, it fits the facts and makes perfect sense.

Three, Pangaea seems highly unlikely because the seismic activity involved in something like that would have been too crazy of an event that would not have been ignored in history. Also, it would be mathematically impossible, too. See this thread here:

https://www.christianforums.com/threads/debunking-pangaea-continental-drift-theory.7966893/

 

[Bible Highlighter]

Did somebody just say the story of Noah was not a literal story?

 

[Abraxos]

With many such cases of underwater "anomalies," like the Baltic sea anomaly, Doggerland, the Cuban underwater city or Yonaguni city, there is tangible reason to assume that ancient man once built cities that later became submerged and lost. It wouldn't be a stretch to say Australia was once connected with the Islands above it before parts of it became submerged isolating these countries. Even New Zealand according to geologists are the remains of what once was a much larger continent known as Zealandia. So it doesn't necessarily have to be a Pangaea hypothesis but segments of it were connected.

Just brainstorming probabilities.

 

[BobRyan]

I believe they got their by boat (after the language was confounded at the tower of Babyl). Others believe it was because the Earth was all one interconnected land mass (at one point in time).

What do you say?

The Bible says "in the days of Peleg the Earth was divided".

I believe the one land mass split up a few hundred years after the flood and that animals that had traveled to various areas were then isolated.

 

[BobRyan]

Did somebody just say the story of Noah was not a literal story?

All stories are literal stories.

But are they about literal events or pure fiction/myth and-or paganism?

Turns out -- the Bible is true... not myth.

==================

Or there were a lot more "land bridges" in earlier times because so much of Earth's water was locked up in massive amounts of ice at North and South hemispheres.

"Archaeological evidence indicates human habitation at the upper Swan River, Western Australia by about 40,000 years ago. Tasmania, which was connected to the continent by a land bridge, was inhabited at least 30,000 years ago"

 

[Bible Highlighter]

The Bible says "in the days of Peleg the Earth was divided".

I believe the one land mass split up a few hundred years after the flood and that animals that had traveled to various areas were then isolated.

The New Living Translation says,

"Eber had two sons. The first was named Peleg (which means "division"), for during his lifetime the people of the world were divided into different language groups. His brother's name was Joktan." (Genesis 10:25) (NLT).

This also fits the context when reading the chapter (even in the KJV).

 

[Bible Highlighter]

All stories are literal stories.

But are they about literal events or pure fiction/myth and-or paganism?

Turns out -- the Bible is true... not myth.

==================

Or there were a lot more "land bridges" in earlier times because so much of Earth's water was locked up in massive amounts of ice at North and South hemispheres.

"Archaeological evidence indicates human habitation at the upper Swan River, Western Australia by about 40,000 years ago. Tasmania, which was connected to the continent by a land bridge, was inhabited at least 30,000 years ago"

Not all stories are literal stories.

Literal definition:
Taking words in their usual or most basic sense without metaphor or allegory.

Source:
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/literal

They are reading the stories in the Bible as if they are metaphor or allegory and therefore they are not reading it as a literal story that actually happened.

 

[gideon123]

clearly ...

there are a lot of people here who have never tried to catch a kangaroo ... on foot. I tried that a few times when I was a kid.

good luck with that idea.

so unless you believe that Noah was a WHOLE LOT faster than Usain Bolt, there was not much chance of him running them down.

 

[Bible Highlighter]

clearly ...

there are a lot of people here who have never tried to catch a kangaroo ... on foot. I tried that a few times when I was a kid.

good luck with that idea.

so unless you believe that Noah was a WHOLE LOT faster than Usain Bolt, there was not much chance of him running them down.

There are plenty of times humans have made contact with kangaroos. There are parks and zoos that have kangaroos, too.

 

[BobRyan]

clearly ...

there are a lot of people here who have never tried to catch a kangaroo ... on foot. I tried that a few times when I was a kid.

good luck with that idea.

so unless you believe that Noah was a WHOLE LOT faster than Usain Bolt, there was not much chance of him running them down.

Genesis says nothing about "running down birds, lions and kangaroos"

God caused the animals to enter the ark -- clean animals by sevens and unclean by two's. It says nothing about "Noah chasing them down".

But maybe you were just practicing creative writing -- not actually reading the text .. in which case... carry on.

 

[BobRyan]

The New Living Translation says,

"Eber had two sons. The first was named Peleg (which means "division"), for during his lifetime the people of the world were divided into different language groups. His brother's name was Joktan." (Genesis 10:25) (NLT).

This also fits the context when reading the chapter (even in the KJV).

You are using the most interpolated/paraphrased/words-inserted text of all.


King James
25 And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided; and his brother's name was Joktan.

NASB
25 Two sons were born to Eber; the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided; and his brother’s name was Joktan.

NIV
25 Two sons were born to Eber:
One was named Peleg, because in his time the earth was divided; his brother was named Joktan.

NKJV
25 To Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided; and his brother’s name was Joktan.

ESV
25 To Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided, and his brother's name was Joktan.