The following is a post by Google+ user Rick Rab in which he goes over what it might take if the biblical flood was be found in the nonfiction section. I didn't check the math, nor did I proofread. I barely practice journalism in any sense of the word.
Was it really possible to put the animals in the biblical ark?
Let’s start with a horse, say 1000lbs weight. It requires 17.5lb of hay and 10lb of grain per day per 1000lb of its weight. So for 40 days it requires 700lb of hay and 400lb of grain. Baled hay occupies about 10lb per cu ft. Oats (whole) occupy iro 26lb per cu ft. So its food alone required 85 cu ft. Modern rules require 350 cu ft space per horse, let’s say Noah gave it ½ that, 175 cu ft, so per horse he needed 260 cu ft. Let’s add a token 10 cu ft for its water. Total 270 cu ft per horse.
Now the big sums... Ok, not all animals are horse sized so let’s half that just to be nice…13.5 cu ft per animal, Oh sod it, let's be really nice, let’s half it again…. 7 cu ft per animal, inc its food & water.
There are (at present knowledge) about 8.7 million known types of animal. God of course would know the exact amount but let’s work on 8.7 million. Before you suggest there were less in those days, creationists don’t believe in evolution, so where could any extra have come from?? But ok, let’s be really nice, to please them, let’s half that figure too… 4.3million types. So if Noah packed in 2 of every animal, real tight, with no passageways and nowhere for humans to live, he would’ve needed 60,200,000 cu ft.
God spelt out to Noah the dimensions of the ark; 300 cubits by 50 by 30, approximately 137 x 23 x 14 metres (440 feet long, 73 ft wide, and 43 ft high). That’s 1,281,160 cu ft. Oh dear, even with all those massive concessions, Noah would've still needed to have built 47 of those Arks! God’s not very good at maths, is he?
The ark has 1,281,160 cu ft. of space
There are 8,700,000 species.
So each specie (and remember some were more than the '2 by 2') would have had 0.147 cu ft of space.
So what about the flood itself? Was that possible?
The world was flooded by god, to a depth at least permitting the Ark to settle on top of Mt Ararat. That Mountain is 5,137 m in elevation. The surface area of the world is 510,072,000 km² (510,072,000, 000 m x 1m) so the water had to fill 2,620,239,864,000,000 m3. Wait, didn’t account for existing mountains etc I hear you say. OK, let’s ½ that to allow for everything; 1,310,119,932,000,000 m3 of water.
Let’s convert that to ice (so we can stack it, say on Africa). To convert to ice, divide by 0.92… that makes 1,424,043,404,347,826 m3 of ice. The surface area of Africa is 30,221,532 km² (30,221,532,000 m2).
So to fit all that ice on Africa, we would have to stack it 47,120.16 m high. Mt Everest is 8,848 m, so the ice would be stacked, over the area of all of Africa, 5.3 times the height of Mt Everest!
Hmmmm.
- Where was that Ice before it thawed?
- Where did it go when it ‘ebbed away’?
Gen 7:11–12 & 7:17–20; Rain fell for 40 days, water covered the earth’s highest places by over 20 ft (15 cubits) .
The first 40 days and nights (3rd month, 27th day of month)
Gen 7:24–8:5; water rose to its highest level (covering the whole earth), and the Ark rested on Ararat. On the 150th day, the springs of the great deep were shut off, and the rain from above ceased, and the water began continually receding.
150 days (inc. the initial 40 days total so far) (7th month, 17th day of month)
Gen 8:5; tops of the mountains became visible on the 10th month, 1st day.
That’s 74 days more (= 224 so far) (10th month, 1st day of month)
Gen 8:6; After 40 more days, Noah sent out a raven.
That's 40 days more (= 264 so far) (11th month, 11th day of month)
Gen 8:6–12; The dove was sent out 7 days after the raven. It had no resting place and returned to Noah.
That's 7 days more (=271 so far) (11th month, 18th day of month)
Gen 8:10–11; After 7 more days, Noah sent out the dove again. It returned again, with an olive leaf in its beak.
That' 7 days mor e (= 278 so far) (11th month, 25th day of month)
Gen 8:12; After 7 more days, Noah sent out the dove again, and it did not return.
That's 7 days more (= 285 so far) (12th month, 2nd day of month)
Gen 8:13; Noah removed the cover of the Ark on the 1st day of the 1st month. The surface of the earth was dried up, and Noah could verify this to the extent of what he could see.
That’s 29 days more (=314 so far) (, 1st month, 1st day of month. NB; 601st year of Noah’s life)
Gen 8:14–17 & 7:11; the earth was dry, God commanded Noah’s family and the animals to come out of the Ark. From the 1st day of the year during the daylight portion there were 29.5 more days left in the month plus 26.5 more days left in the 2nd month until the exit, so that’s 56 days more (= 370 (371 if counting 1st day and last day as full days) (2nd month, 27th day of month).
So the flood was actually over a period of 370 days. The animals were in the ark all that time. The maths in PART 1 only gave food for 40 days. But now we know it was in fact 370. Let’s see how that affects the ark...
Horse…..for 370 days it requires 6475 lb of hay and 3700 lb of grain..…food alone required 786 cu ft…..Total 961 cu ft per horse.…half that… 480.5 cu ft….half it again…. 240.25 cu ft per animal, inc its food & water.
8.7 million known types of animal ….half that…. 4.3million .....So Noah...would’ve needed 1033,075,000 cu ft.…..
Noah would've needed to have built at least
807 of those Arks!
