Noah: Man of God

by Tim Chaffey

  If you are wondering why we did not include mockers during the Ark’s construction, it is because the Bible never mentions them. People are often quite surprised, and sometimes upset, when I point this out, but it is true. The Bible never states that people made fun of Noah while he worked on the Ark. We stated this in the “Dear Reader” section at the beginning of the first book, Noah: Man of Destiny. However, it may very well have happened. Noah was a godly man living in an exceedingly ungodly world, and based on how skeptics often mock believers today, it is easy to believe that Noah would have been mocked if others were around. To account for this, we included plenty of people mocking Noah in the final chapters of the second book before he escaped Iri Geshem.

  In the scene where the animals gather outside the Ark, why did you include more than two keluks (giraffe kind)?

  At the Ark Encounter, we needed to answer some tough questions about the animals. One of the reasons this task was difficult is that we do not possess enough information about every type of land-dependent animal that has ever lived. With that limited information, we needed to ascertain what the animal kinds were and whether there would be a single pair of them on the Ark (unclean and non-flying animals) or if there would be seven pairs (clean animals and flying creatures). We cannot be sure that Noah’s system of clean and unclean creatures matched the specifications described as part of the Mosaic Covenant in Leviticus 11, but since we had nothing else to go on, this is the system we used both at the Ark and for this story.

  The animals that the Israelites were permitted to eat included those that had cloven hooves and chewed the cud. Popular animals like cows and sheep fit this description, but it also includes an animal that most of us would never consider as belonging in that category: the giraffe. If the giraffes are clean animals, then there would have been seven pairs of this kind on the Ark instead of just two, as is commonly depicted (see the question below about how Noah fit the animals on the Ark for the answer to why the Ark Encounter used seven pairs instead of just seven for the clean and flying creatures). Interestingly enough, in 2008, Jewish rabbis and vets determined that giraffes are considered clean animals and can be eaten as kosher, although they did not anticipate anyone doing it since they are endangered.

  How did Noah find all the animals?

  If you have already read the story, you know that Noah did not travel the world to find and catch all the animals. However, this is the impression many people have about the Ark’s animals, and skeptics frequently pose this question. The simple answer is that Noah did not need to find the creatures. God told him that the animals would come to him (Genesis 6:20).

  This fact also relates to the previous question. Noah did not really need to know the difference between all the clean and unclean animals, at least initially, because God sent the correct number of creatures to him. However, he probably did possess such knowledge, given that he offered a sacrifice of each kind of clean animal and flying creature after the Flood.

  How did Noah’s family know how to care for so many different animals?

  Feeding and caring for over 1,000 kinds of animals would not be an easy task when one considers all their different needs. In his thorough study on the Ark, John Woodmorappe proposed the possibility of Noah having a menagerie prior to the Flood so that he could learn all about the animals. This would require God to bring the animals several months or years earlier so that Noah and his family could observe them and then grow or purchase the proper supplies and food for each creature.

  While such a scenario is plausible, it seems unlikely. Noah surely had enough work to do in building the Ark and procuring enough food. If thousands of animals arrived months in advance, it would drastically increase the workload for Noah and his family and would require them to have even more food on hand to care for so many animals for an even longer period of time.

  In our story, we answered this question in a different way. Rather than assuming that Noah needed to be the expert in every area, we made Emzara the animal expert by giving her a love for animals from an early age. Throughout the series she learns about various creatures and keeps records of them. Just as we had God prepare Noah to build the Ark, we had Him prepare Noah’s wife with the knowledge and ability to care for thousands of animals. We hinted at the menagerie idea when we described about two dozen animals arriving several weeks earlier than the rest. These were the ones that Emzara had never studied before, so this gave her time to complete that task before the Flood began.

  How did Noah fit all the animals on the Ark?

  To answer this question, we need to know two major details: the size of the Ark and the number/size of the animals. The first issue is easier to deal with since the Bible gives us the Ark’s dimensions. However, it uses cubits as the unit of measurement, so unless we know the length of the cubit Noah used, we cannot be completely certain of the Ark’s size. A cubit is the distance between one’s elbow and longest finger. Since many ancient structures were based on a royal cubit (a cubit plus a handbreadth), it is possible that the Ark was as well. The Ark Encounter used a royal cubit of 20.4 inches (one of the shortest of the royal cubits from ancient cultures). If this was the proper length of the cubit Noah used, then the Ark would have been 510 feet long by 85 feet wide by 51 feet tall.

  Determining the number of animals to put in the Ark is more difficult since we do not have enough knowledge of every kind of land-dependent animal that has ever lived. We cannot always be sure which animals are members of the same kind. For example, we know that lions, tigers, leopards, bobcats, and the common house cat all belong to the same kind. So, Noah did not need to bring two of each of these types of cats on the Ark, he just needed two members of the cat kind that would become the ancestors of all the cats in the world today. But there are scores of animals for which we do not have information about whether they can interbreed (which means they would be the same kind). So researchers conducted an extensive study to reach a conservative estimate of the number of kinds that would be on the Ark. Whenever they lacked data about whether certain animals belonged to the same kind, the animals would be separated into different kinds, even if it seemed likely that they were the same. As a result of this study, it was determined that nearly 1,400 land-dependent animal kinds needed to be represented on the Ark, and it is very possible that this number is much too high.

  Next, we needed to determine how many of each kind were needed. We know there were two of every unclean, non-flying, land-dependent animal. Obviously, Noah did not need to worry about bringing fish, whales, lobsters, etc. Some Bibles mention that Noah brought seven of each clean animal and flying creature, while other Bibles state that he brought seven pairs. The Hebrew text states that he was to bring “seven seven, a male and his female.” It seems that a stronger case can be made for the “seven pairs” position. However, even if one favors the other view, the Ark Encounter always went with the higher number whenever there was uncertainty. So it included seven pairs of all flying creatures and all clean animals.

  Using this approach, the total number of animals would have been fewer than 6,800 with 85 percent of them being smaller than 10 kilograms (22 pounds). Taking into account all of the food and water requirements for the animals and eight people, the Ark Encounter team demonstrated that all of the animals and supplies would fit nicely in the Ark. Skeptics often think the Ark was too small, but what is often left unspoken is that they typically include every species of land animal (not every kind, which is often more like the family level in our modern taxonomy), along with marine creatures, insects, bacteria, and plants in their estimates. Some Christians think the Ark was way bigger than it needed to be, presumably so that other people could go on board if they decided to. However, the Ark researchers discovered this was not the case. Everything fit rather well, without much space left over. If you think about it, this makes perfect sense. God knew how big the Ark needed to be. Why would He tell Noah to waste time making something that was too small or much bigger than it needed to
be?

  The Ark Encounter goes into these points in much more detail, and the team has also produced a number of resources that explain this issue, such as How Many Animals Were on the Ark? and Inside Noah’s Ark: Why it Worked, both available at www.answersingenesis.org.

  Didn’t Noah’s family board the Ark and wait for seven days before the Flood started?

  This idea is somewhat common among Christians, but it is based on a misunderstanding of Genesis 7. In verses 1–4, God told Noah to enter the Ark along with his family and the animals because in seven days the Flood would begin. Since verse 5 states that Noah did everything God commanded, those who hold this view assume that they boarded the Ark on the day God spoke to Noah and then waited seven more days for the Flood to start.

  The problem with the above scenario is that it forces a contradiction into the text because it does not take into account the rest of the passage. In verses 7–9 we read about Noah and the animals going into the Ark, and in verses 10–12 we read about that seven-day period and then the start of the Flood. Up until this point, it might seem reasonable to interpret the passage as described in the question; however, verse 13 rules out such a view. Referring back to the day that the Flood started when the fountains of the great deep broke open (v. 11), verse 13 states, “On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark.”

  So Noah and his family entered the Ark on the very same day that the Flood started? How is this possible since previous verses in Genesis 7 seem to indicate that they entered the Ark seven days earlier? The solution is that it took Noah and his family seven days to board the animals and whatever other supplies they may have needed to load. Yes, they did enter on the day God commanded, but they also entered seven days later. Verse 7 states that they entered “to escape the waters of the flood.” The phrase in Hebrew seems to indicate that Noah could see the waters as he entered the Ark, so this would not have occurred on the day God told him to enter. It is only after they spent seven days loading the Ark that God shut the door (v. 16).

  Why did you have God tell Noah to “enter” the Ark instead of to “come into” the Ark?

  In Genesis 7:1, the New King James Version states that God told Noah to “come into the ark,” and some other Bibles have similar wording. Based on this reading, some people have claimed that God was in the Ark with Noah and his family during the Flood. After all, how could He tell Noah to “come into” a place if He were not in it?

  The ESV does the opposite. It has God telling Noah to “go into” the Ark. Does this mean that God was outside of the Ark when this command was spoken?

  The solution to this problem is rather quite simple, but it occasionally upsets people who have grown attached to the idea that God’s presence was in the Ark with Noah and his family. The Hebrew word translated as “come” or “go” actually gives no indication about the location of the speaker. Perhaps the best way to translate the word in Genesis 7:1 is to have God tell them to “enter” the Ark, as is found in the NASB and HCSB. This rendering does not tell us whether God was inside or outside the Ark at the time.

  In one sense, since God is omnipresent, He was in the Ark with Noah. But the idea that God’s special presence was in the Ark is not supported by the Hebrew language of Genesis 7:1, and such an idea is very difficult to support in light of Genesis 8:1. In that verse, some 150 days after the Flood started, we are told that “God remembered Noah” and all the animals. This does not mean that God had forgotten about Noah, but it means that He turned His attention back to Noah with an eye of fulfilling His promise to preserve him and his family through the Flood.

  Where did you come up with the names of the women on the Ark?

  The Bible does not mention the name of Noah’s wife or of his daughters-in-law. At the Ark Encounter, we decided to name them to enhance the guest experience at the themed attraction. They were real people who had real names. We just do not know what they were. By giving them names we were able to make them seem more like real people. We included multiple signs throughout the Ark to inform visitors that we used artistic license in naming the women.

  As content manager for the Ark Encounter, I (Tim) had the opportunity to decide what names we would use, although I asked our team members to submit their choices for a couple of the names (Rayneh and Ar’yel). Kezia was taken from Job 42:14. After his trials, Job named one of his daughters Keziah. We dropped the last letter and assigned this name to Ham’s wife. As mentioned in the non-fiction section of Noah: Man of Resolve, Emzara’s name comes from the Book of Jubilees, an extra-biblical, Jewish writing popular during New Testament times.

  Encounter This

  Since we worked on the Ark Encounter project, we had the unique opportunity to include details in our story that can be seen in various exhibits. We were also able to influence the design of certain elements so that they connected with our story. If you visit the Ark Encounter in Williamstown, Kentucky, you will be able to see the following items that were included in the story.

  Chapter 14: As Noah’s group traveled across the Western lands toward their eventual destination, they started using a different type of beast to pull their wagons. The large-eared tuskers are palaeomastodons, an extinct creature belonging to the same order as modern elephants, although they were quite a bit smaller than elephants, standing seven feet tall at the shoulders. In a piece of art in the Ancient Man exhibit on Deck Two, a palaeomastodon can be seen pulling a loaded wagon toward a waiting ship.

  Chapter 17: A highlight of this chapter and the next are the small paintings on the walls of Greatfather’s house. The use of small images to tell the story of the world before the Flood can be seen on the large monument stones in the East Village (outside the Ark) and on a tapestry in the Library on Deck Two.

  Chapter 18: After centuries of waiting, Noah and Emzara finally had children. This chapter tells about the birth of Japheth and ends with Noah carrying Japheth out to show him to their friends. In the Who Was Noah? exhibit on Deck Two, guests can see a similar scene, although in this one Emzara, along with Japheth and Shem as young boys, are standing nearby as Noah holds Ham in the air.

  Chapter 22: The cherubim at the edge of the garden play a significant role in our story (also appearing in chapter 35). To get a glimpse of these beings and the flaming sword, be sure to visit the Pre-Flood World exhibit on Deck Two. There is an illustration of Adam and Eve being banished from the garden. Standing at the entrance of the garden are two giant cherubim.

  Chapter 24: Noah enters his tent to find Emzara working on her scrolls filled with information about the animals. Visitors to the Library on Deck Two can see two of her studies, complete with illustrations, of two animals that appear in this series. In the first book, a large strange-looking animal called an anisodon crossed the path in front of Noah and Aterre. The other creature, a thylacosmilus (called a pithoct in the series) made an appearance in the arena in the second book and another one attacked Ham in this book. In fact, Ham wrote a warning about this animal for his family members in the Ark’s “Noah language,” and if you look closely at his face, you can see a scar on his cheek.

  Chapter 25: Emzara and Kezia discuss the small animal cages that Ham designed. Numerous racks full of these cages can be seen in the First Floor Show. Later in that chapter, Ham demonstrates how a portion of the Ark’s water collection system will work. In the next chapter, Noah mentions that Ham is likely working with Garun on the Ark’s waste-removal system. Both of these systems are shown in the Animal Care exhibit on Deck Two of the Ark.

  Chapter 25: When Purlek announces that he and Evet are going to leave Noah’s group, there is discussion about the small forge that had been installed in the Ark. He mentions that Noah and Ham know how to use it. On Deck Two of the Ark, visitors can see Ham working in the forge.

  Chapter 28: The scene where Noah and company come across a herd of slaughtered “horn faces” (ceratopsian dinosaurs) is portray
ed in the Pre-Flood World exhibit on Deck Two. To demonstrate an aspect of man’s wickedness prior to the Flood, a vivid illustration in this space shows a group of poachers killing these creatures for their large horns. In the novel we learn that these are Ar’yel’s people and that her first husband was killed during this hunt.

  Chapter 32: This chapter opens with Emzara, Japheth, and Rayneh working on the Ark’s living spaces. On the third deck of the Ark Encounter, guests can walk through the family’s Living Quarters and see plenty of items that interact with our story. Each family member has a sign telling of their background and interests. When not taken straight from Scripture, these details come from this series.

  Chapter 34: There are a couple of references in this chapter to Kezia making bean brew. At the Ark Encounter, the coffee shop is called Kezia’s Coffee, so visitors can enjoy some of her caffeinated beverages.

  Chapter 34: As Noah walks among the thousands of animals that God sent to him, he pauses and watches a tiny buzzbird hover in front of him for a few seconds. In Noah’s Study on Deck Two, guests can ask Noah what his favorite animal is and he describes the tiny buzzbird, stating that it can hover and fly in all directions, even backward. Obviously, the buzzbird is a hummingbird. He also describes Emzara’s favorite animal, and readers of this series need no explanation about what those are.

  Chapter 36: At the opening of this chapter, Noah stands at the top of the ramp and looks toward the hill in the distance. He thinks back to the previous evening when the family gathered outside the Ark. In the Who Was Noah? exhibit on Deck Two, guests can see a picture titled “The Calm Before the Storm,” where Noah and his family are looking at the Ark on the evening before the Flood starts.

  Chapter 36: The animals that pull the chariots and end up being the last pair of creatures in the Ark are called entelodonts, which are now extinct. They have been given the nickname “terminator pigs,” because they look like a cross between a wolf and a pig. You can see a pair of these interesting creatures on Deck Two of the Ark, although these two represent juveniles, whereas those in the book would have been adults, standing about six feet tall at the shoulders.