Many people are under the mistaken impression that the ark would have been overloaded. This is based on some common misconceptions. In reality the animals loaded in the ark would have been land-based, air breathing animals sorted by kind (not species). The picture above with its caging systems shows the ark containing the animals outlined in the Biblical record (Genesis 6:17-20). The ark carried a wide variety of the animals that inhabited the earth. This was necessary because the flood was GLOBAL and not local to where Noah lived. All air breathing land animals would have been exterminated. We can think of the ark as a huge ocean going vessel that easily did what God required of it. Most Biblical scholars estimate between 2,000 to 35,000 animals travelled on the ark. When manpower studies were done to determine the work needed to care for ALL the animals, it became clear that eight people working sixty hours a week could easily have cared for the ark's animals. There would also have been enough time to observe the weekly Sabbath day's rest mentioned in Genesis 2:1-3. |
