What did the animals on Noah's Ark look like?

An article published by Answers in Genesis complains about illustrations of the animals on Noah's Ark, often found in children's books, and elsewhere. (It complains about other things, but I'll try to stick to a discussion of what the animals on the ark looked like.)

Here is a quotation from the article:

Zebras, Clydesdales, and donkeys are all part of the horse kind and came to look like they do today since the Flood as part of the one horse kind. Species and the biblical kind are not necessarily the same things. The original horse kind likely had features resembling each of these. They diversified into what we have today through natural selection in the wild and artificial selection for man’s benefit. The same is true with the cat kind. Domestic cats, lions, bobcats, tigers, and so on, are all varieties in the one cat kind that have developed through variation since the Flood. It is better to draw generic representatives of each kind ...

Let's re-state that section of the article. The author, speaking for Answers in Genesis (AiG), claims that the animals on the Ark did not look a lot like the animals of today. Why is that claim made? The main reasons are that AiG believes that there was a world-wide flood, about 2348 BC, and that all land animals descended from creatures that were rescued on the Ark. AiG also believes that there would not have been room for each species of animal (and food needed to keep them alive) on that vessel, so that there were, instead, founders of each kind, which, since the Flood, diversified rapidly into the multitude of species that live on earth now. (Apparently this sort of belief has not been around for very long in AiG circles, but it is strongly held now.) In other words, the quotation says, there were no tigers or lions, etc., on the Ark, just a pair of cat family ancestors - generic representatives. So how did approximately 40 living species of cats come about? (And some additional extinct ones -- AiG belief is that extinct animals became extinct after the Flood.) AiG's answer is that there was rapid evolution (although they seldom use that word) after the Flood, and that all of these, living and extinct, are descendants of the pair of cat ancestors that were on the Ark. AiG thinks that distinguishing features didn't arise until after the animals came off of the ark -- the cat ancestors probably didn't have stripes, a mane, spots, cheetah-like speed, the ability to climb trees, and other features now found in one or a few species of the cat family, but not the entire family.

Another AiG source says this: "Recent studies estimate the total number of living and extinct kinds of land animals and flying creatures to be about 1,500. With our “worst-case” scenario approach to calculating the number of animals on the Ark, this would mean that Noah cared for approximately 7,000 animals." [pairs or sevens of each kind]

That seems like a lot, but according to my calculations, there are over 31,000 species of animals alive on earth today, to say nothing of extinct ones. That would mean that each of the kinds on the Ark would, on average, have diversified into about 20 species each, all within less than 4600 years.

That's preposterous, of course. Such rapid and extensive speciation, in vertebrates, has not been observed. Biologists generally believe that new species can't develop unless isolated from others in the same line in some way, either by being geographically separated, by mating at different times, or other behavioral differences, or by hybrid sterility. Cave art does not seem to indicate that early humans saw animals that were substantially different than those we see today. Although the Bible does not describe vertebrate animals in any detail, the behavior described (lions as predators, for example) does not suggest that lions, in Bible times, were much, if any, different from those that live today. Samson and David had interactions with lions. Jacob's blessing on his son Judah includes this: Genesis 49:9 "Judah is a lion’s cub. From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down, he crouched as a lion, as a lioness. Who will rouse him up?" Jacob died in about 2000 BC. Samson lived at about 100 years before David, who lived at about 1000 BC. (For my post, indicating all the mentions of lions in the Bible, see here.) As I indicated, the Bible does not describe animals definitively, but it sounds like, by the time of Jacob, as well as Samson and David, lions were like those alive today. If they hyperevolved somehow, from an ancestral cat type, this would have happened in less than 400 years, using AiG's timeline.

It seems to me that it makes a lot more sense to suppose that the Flood was not world-wide, and that cats, and other animals, diverged over a much longer period of time.

For an expanded discussion of these ideas, see my post here.

It seems to me that it's OK to put lions, tigers, bears, donkeys, giraffes, etc., in illustrations of Noah's Ark. We don't really know if there was a world-wide Flood, and the proposal that children's Bible story art be based on unproven, even false, ideas is dangerous.

Sidelight 1: By the time of Zechariah, about 500 BC, horses, mules and donkeys must have diverged, although, even today, they haven't completely diverged, as mules are the offspring of a donkey-horse mating. According to AiG, that divergence took place after the ark. According to all sorts of other evidence, it took place over a much longer time.

Zechariah 14:15 "So will be the plague of the horse, of the mule, of the camel, and of the donkey, and of all the animals that will be in those camps, as that plague." The Masoretic Text uses three different names for the members of the horse family named in this verse, indicating that there were three different animals, all horse-like. (The King James uses "ass" instead of donkey.) The use of these words goes back way before Zachariah -- for example, Pharaoh's army included horse-drawn chariots.

Sidelight 2: The author of the quotation at the beginning of this post, and AiG, should be commended for at least one thing. The author says that artists often portray Adam and Eve as white, or white, blue-eyed blondes, and states that this is most likely not the way that they really looked.

Thanks for reading.

*Added November 6, 2023: The article from AiG also includes this complaint (and over a dozen others): "Not including dinosaurs and pterodactyls (e.g., dragons) on the Ark"

Answers in Genesis believes in evolution, although it's reluctant to use that word

Lest there be any doubt, Answers in Genesis (AiG) believes in evolution, although it is reluctant to use that word: A museum exhibit about the processes associated with “natural selection” and “speciation” throws much light on such questions. Noah actually only needed about 16,000 animals on the Ark to represent all the distinct kinds of land-dwelling animals. The above quote was taken from an AiG source, and is part of the explanation as to how the ark could have held enough animals to become so many species. How? because natural selection after the flood led to abundant speciation!

If natural selection and speciation aren't part of evolution, in fact most of it, I'm not sure what evolution means. Darwin's book title began like this: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection... See here for more on AiG's proposals on how so many animal types came to be.

See here for unrelated problems with the AiG source, which is an attempt to portray the scope of human history.

Added May 19, 2020:
For more on proposed rapid speciation, from AiG and other Young-Earth Creationists, see here.

Added July 18: 2022: Todd C. Wood, a young-earth creationist with solid scientific credentials, discusses this matter briefly, and objects to calling Ken Ham, head of AiG, an evolutionist.

Were land-dwelling vertebrates the only organisms preserved on the Ark?

Genesis gives the impression that the animals preserved from the Flood of Noah's time were mostly, or entirely, land vertebrates -- mammals, birds, and land-living reptiles and amphibians, although it doesn't explicitly say this:
Genesis 7:1 Yahweh said to Noah, “Come with all of your household into the ship, for I have seen your righteousness before me in this generation. 7:2 You shall take seven pairs of every clean animal with you, the male and his female. Of the animals that are not clean, take two, the male and his female. 7:3 Also of the birds of the sky, seven and seven, male and female, to keep seed alive on the surface of all the earth. 7:4 In seven days, I will cause it to rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights. Every living thing that I have made, I will destroy from the surface of the ground.” (World English Bible, public domain)

Leviticus 11:20 “‘All flying insects that walk on all fours are an abomination to you. 21 Yet you may eat these: of all winged creeping things that go on all fours, which have legs above their feet, with which to hop on the earth. 22 Even of these you may eat: any kind of locust, any kind of katydid, any kind of cricket, and any kind of grasshopper. 23 But all winged creeping things which have four feet, are an abomination to you.
This passage from Leviticus may indicate that Arthropods (insects, spiders, and more) were classified, by God, as clean or unclean, just as mammals and birds are. That doesn't prove that, say, butterflies and centipedes were on the Ark, but it is possible.

Some questions come to mind. (In 2007, I posted a series of questions about Noah's Flood. There is some repetition with the previous post in the current one, but the two are significantly different.) The questions here are related to the variety and care of the animals on the Ark.

1) Does the Bible really describe a world-wide flood? Others have considered this, and there are plenty of opinions available, so I won't attempt to answer this, except to say that there seem to be these possibilities:
a) there was a world-wide flood.
b) there was a localized flood, but it was experienced by ancestral humans, who thought it was world-wide, or described it as if it were. (perhaps they were living in a large basin, which became the Mediterranean Sea after the flood.) See here for a discussion by theologians who believe that there was an important flood, but that it was not actually world-wide. Here is a discussion of the literary genre of Genesis 1-11. At least some important early theologians did not take Genesis 1-11 to be strictly historical.
c) The entire story of Noah and the Flood is a parable, or just a story, in the Bible to emphasize the dangers of evil living, and God's care for His creation.

Added May 19, 2020:
Here's a post from a Christian geologist who believes that there really was a flood in Noah's time, but does not believe that the Bible really teaches that it was world-wide. He also does not believe that that flood was responsible for as many geological phenomena as many Young-Earth creationists claim that it was.

2) If there was a world-wide flood, how did animals from, say, New Guinea, get to the Middle East, in order to get in the Ark, and, if they did, how did they get back to their origin, without leaving evidence of their passing through, including offspring and fossils, behind them? Joel Duff has considered this question in depth for armadillos and their relatives.
3) How were pairs of unclean animals selected? I have done some bird sexing, and, although, in many cases, it is easy to distinguish males from females, in some cases, it isn't, and the same would be true of many reptiles and amphibians, and even some mammals. Did the animals come marching, or slithering, or hopping, or flying, into the Ark in pairs by Divine impulse of some kind? Genesis seems to indicate that Noah was to do the selecting. {"you shall take with you")
4) Some mammals, such as anteaters, have insects as their diet. Was it necessary to have not just a pair, but, say, an entire termite nest, on the Ark, for the feeding of such mammals? That would be far more than a pair, or seven, of termites.
5) Some bees, ants, some wasps, termites, mole rats, and other animals are eusocial. Would a pair, or seven of these, be able to survive? For example, honeybees would presumably need a queen, a drone, and workers of more than one type.
6) Many animals eat living, fresh plant material, such as pollen, nectar, leaves, or fruit. Would the Ark have needed a bamboo grove for giant pandas, or a field of flowering plants for bees and butterflies? Living plants require sunlight for photosynthesis, leading to growth. Would the ark have had provision for lighted plants? The diets of some animals (like pandas) is restricted to a single type, or very few plants, and it is difficult to see how conditions on the ark could have been able to support all of the different types of plants needed by the variety of animals. Answers in Genesis has considered these questions. Basically, their claim is that the animals on the ark were not specialized as to diet.
7) Many salt-water organisms don't do well if suddenly immersed in fresh water, or are unable to survive in fresh water at all. The reverse is also true. (See here.) Presumably the flood, if there was a world-wide one, was of fresh water. Either the oceans of Noah's day were fresh, or marine organisms of that time were much better able to survive sudden immersion in fresh water than most current organisms.
8) How could there have been room for all the types of animals? Answers in Genesis has considered that question, and their belief is that there were less than 150 types of animals on the Ark, and that all of the variety of land animals now in existence evolved (although they don't use that word much) from these. I find such a proposal impossible to believe. (So do others!) There's no fossil, traditional or artistic evidence for such rapid changes and diversification in animal form and behavior -- lions seem to have been lions for at least the past few thousand years for example. If this rapid evolution occurred after the Ark landed, why didn't it occur between Adam's time and Noah's, so that there would have been much more than 150 kinds by Noah's time? See here for a fuller discussion.
9) If there was a world-wide flood, how were land-living invertebrates, such as snails, insects, centipedes, spiders, annelid worms, and more, stored, fed, and protected? (See question 6, above.)
10) If there was a world-wide flood, why is there little or no geological evidence for this?

Thanks for reading.

Young-earth creationism and the kinds of animals

Genesis 1:20 God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of sky.” 1:21 God created the large sea creatures, and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind. God saw that it was good. 1:22 God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 1:23 There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.
1:24 God said, “Let the earth produce living creatures after their kind, livestock, creeping things, and animals of the earth after their kind”; and it was so. 1:25 God made the animals of the earth after their kind, and the livestock after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind. God saw that it was good. 

7:1 Yahweh said to Noah, “Come with all of your household into the ship, for I have seen your righteousness before me in this generation. 7:2 You shall take seven pairs of every clean animal with you, the male and his female. Of the animals that are not clean, take two, the male and his female. 7:3 Also of the birds of the sky, seven and seven, male and female, to keep seed alive on the surface of all the earth. 7:4 In seven days, I will cause it to rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights. Every living thing that I have made, I will destroy from the surface of the ground.”
7:5 Noah did everything that Yahweh commanded him. (World English Bible, public domain.)

Young-earth creationists, of which Answers in Genesis is the most prominent organization, believe that there was a world-wide flood, occurring about 2348 BC, and that the land animals, including land-based birds, have all descended from the animals that Noah and his family had in the ark with them.

Saving all of the animals causes what seems to be an insurmountable problem for young-earth creationists. How did all of these creatures fit on the ark, and how was it possible to feed them? The answer, from Answers in Genesis, is that there were about 137 kinds of animals, and all of the types we have today descended from them. (This doesn't include insects -- at least some young-earth creationists believe that they weren't taken on the ark. Another estimate from Answers in Genesis is that there were about 1500 kinds of animals on the ark. I'm not clear on why the difference, although the larger estimate is said to have included "flying creatures." Perhaps the lower estimate doesn't include them.) It is doubtful that the Genesis word usually translated "kind" corresponds to any of the categories used by today's taxonomists. Young-earth creationists do not claim that it does.

How many species of animals are there now?
This source, citing an authoritative textbook, says that there are currently 5,416 species of mammals on earth. (This presumably includes water-living mammals, which, according to young-earth creationists, were mostly or entirely not found on the ark. The Answers in Genesis belief is that extinct animals from ancient times, such as the saber-toothed tiger, would have descended from animals on the ark, too.)

This source indicates that, until recently, it was thought that there were 9,000-10,000 species of birds, but that this number is an underestimate, and that there are perhaps twice that many. This source indicates that there are about 7,000 species of amphibians. This source indicates that there are about 10,793 species of reptiles. (This research article proposes that there were 11 kinds of turtle on the ark, which have given rise to 313 living species, and 3 kinds of alligator/crocodile, giving rise to 25 current species.) Using 9,000 as the number of species of birds, and 4,800 as the number of species of land mammals, there are about 31,500 species of birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles now on earth. There have been some extinctions within recorded history -- dodos, moas, the marsupial tiger, dinosaurs -- yes, Answers in Genesis proposes that dinosaur kinds were on the ark -- and others, which would add to the number of species that must be accounted for. Young-earth creationists believe that no more than about 1,500 kinds of animals became 31,500, or more, species, within the last 4,366 years. That means that, on average, each of those 1,500 kinds evolved into 21 species over that period, and that number is probably an underestimate. That's an astounding claim!

Here's a brief statement of the Answers in Genesis position, with a diagram of part of the "cat kind." The diagram indicates that the cat kind of animals, on the ark, evolved into lions, house cats, jaguars and cheetahs. (And, presumably, servals, ocelots, leopards, tigers, including saber tooth tigers, and more.)

R. Joel Duff has written about these beliefs of young-earth creationists, and finds them wanting, for a number of reasons. Some of my criticisms, listed below, are derived from his article:

1) Answers in Genesis, which rejects evolutionary mechanisms for the origin of large groups of organisms, over long periods of time, wants us to believe that evolutionary mechanisms are responsible for an astounding unfolding of many species, over a few thousand years. Answers in Genesis does not say "evolutionary mechanisms" much, or at all, but they are really relying on natural selection for the unfolding of species from ancestral kinds.
2) One criticism of main-stream evolutionary thought, by young-earth creationists, is that some fossil links are missing. But there are no known fossils, from the last 4,366 years, of any of the proposed species explosions after the Ark landed. Furthermore, cave art doesn't show such transitional forms. They are missing!
3) The Bible seems to describe lions, and other animals of Bible times, as if they looked and acted as they do today. Samson encountered a lion in about 1,100 BC, so the cat kind, according to Answers in Genesis, would have diversified to about what it is today in a mere 1,300 years or so. Is that possible? If it is, why haven't animals continued to expand the number of species up until the present day, or why did evolution stop at lions, 3,000 or so years ago, and not continue cat diversification?
4) There is no observational evidence from ancient literature for this explosive diversification.
5) Duff points out that scientific reasoning persuaded Answers in Genesis that there was not room in the Ark for all of the species we now have. The idea of rapid speciation after the flood is a new idea, not one that ancient Biblical scholars got from the text of Genesis. It has come about mostly, or entirely, because of the realization, by young-earth creationists, that it would have been impossible for Noah's family to house, feed, and clean up after 30,000 or so animal species within the dimensions of the Ark. In other words, young-earth creationists, who often accuse Christians of other persuasions about origins, that they are putting science ahead of a plain reading of the Bible, are in fact doing exactly that. See here.
6) This is a matter of culture and esthetics, I guess, rather than a logical objection, but what would Answers in Genesis have us do with all the Bible story picture books that show giraffes, zebras, lions, tigers and other animals, either with Adam and Eve in Eden, or on the Ark with Noah? Do they want us to replace these with pictures of their own inventions, the ancestors of the kinds? (Added June 8, 2022: The answer is "yes." see here for an AiG statement on this subject.)
7) Are we to believe that the names Adam gave to the animals would shortly be outdated, because of rapid evolutionary processes? (In most of the Old Testament, including Genesis, the names of people were chosen carefully, and matched the person's perceived character. Adam may have done that in naming the animals.)
8) Dogs have been artificially selected for thousands of years, but they are still dogs. Why, then, should we believe that natural selection would bring about an explosion of many species from an ancestral dog kind, in a few thousand years?
9) If hyperevolution was responsible for turning 137, 1500, or some other relatively small number of species (or kinds) into over 30,000 after the Ark landed, wouldn't it also have been responsible for rapid diversification before the Flood? If that had happened, wouldn't it have multiplied the kinds considerably?

Thanks for reading. For a chart showing many of the strengths and weaknesses of several views of origins held by Christians, see here. (All views of origins have weaknesses -- young-earth creationism isn't the only one that does!) For "What's wrong with young-earth creationism?" see here. For evidence that at least one of the important Bible scholars of the past, St. Augustine, did not necessarily believe that the earth is only a few thousand years old, see here.

Addendum, September 5, 2018: the Naturalis Historia blog discusses the idea that dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time, and points out several problems with that idea. 

October 26, 2018: I recently saw a post on the Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham debate, held in 2014, on the Gospel and Evolution blog. The reaction to the debate is of considerable interest, but this statement is especially pertinent to the subject of the post you are reading: "Ken Ham didn’t seem to have a problem at all with a 1,000 or so 'kinds' undergoing speciation since his alleged global flood 4,000 years ago to become the millions of species alive on the earth today, not to mention the billions that have lived and become extinct."

Thanks for reading.

Added November 30, 2018: A post by Naturalist Historia (R. Joel Duff's blog) discusses the adoption of evolutionary mechanisms in the explanations given by Answers in Genesis. 

Added December 31, 2018: David Heddle, of "He Lives" also writes about the problem that the large number of species raises for Mr. Ham and his followers. 

Added January 18, 2019: Naturalis Historia discusses horses, and related species, and examines what the Bible says about horses, and concludes that it's not possible for all horse types (including extinct ones) to have come from a single pair. 

Added March 5, 2019: R. Joel Duff has analyzed articles by adherents of Answers in Genesis, and, again, finds the hyper-evolution thesis to be spectacularly unbelievable. (In fact, Duff quotes one AiG author, who states that ordinary evolutionary processes could not have been responsible for the amazing number of bird species of the finch kind, if they all descended from one kind, after the Flood.) Here's one of Duff's articles. It has links to an AiG related publication.

July 18, 2019. This blog post was edited somewhat, including the addition of criticism 9.

August 20, 2019. See this post for more on the subject.

May 19, 2020. For more on proposed rapid speciation, from AiG and other Young-Earth Creationists, see here.

May 26, 2020. An article, published in Answers Research Journal, an organ of Answers in Genesis, and authored by important YEC scientists, says this: "In short, the YEC model proposes significant amounts of morphological change in a window of time that, by comparison with evolution, is extremely short."

July 18, 2022: Todd C. Wood, a young-earth creationist with solid science credentials, reacts to some who are calling Ken Ham, head of Answers in Genesis, an evolutionist. He is sometimes called that because of his belief in hyperevolution.

Ken Ham's view of the origin of species is impossible

A little over two years ago, Bill Nye and Ken Ham had a debate on their views of origins, with Ham arguing that the earth is but a few thousand years old, and Nye that it is much older than that.

In a recent post, Natural Historian, (Joel Duff) takes a close look at Ham's views, and finds that they are not compatible with the Bible, or with the way things are now.

Natural Historian uses a slide from the debate, which slide shows Ham's view on the origin of the species of animals now living on earth. That view is that there were a few kinds of animals (dog-like, cat-like, etc.) on the ark, in pairs, but that since the Flood, about 4500 years ago, these kinds gave rise to all the dog-like and cat-like species we have today, plus any that are now extinct, but known from their fossils. See here for a discussion of this, from a young-earth creationist viewpoint.

Natural Historian says that this is impossible, because there are so many species of animals today, that, if they all arose from a much smaller number of ancestral types, the new species would have had to evolve at a very rapid rate, so rapid that we would find it easy to observe new species arising during recent time. We haven't seen any such thing. Also, Natural Historian says that there is no indication, in the Bible, but that dogs were dogs, camels were camels, etc., way back in Biblical times, even in Job, which was supposedly written soon after the Flood. The Bible, says Natural Historian, describes about 100 species of animals, with no indication that any of them were different, in Bible times, from those in existence today. Illustrations of animals, by ancient peoples, show no differences between those animals and those now alive.

There are, for example, about 80 known species of cats, currently living and extinct, and well over 100 species of living and extinct species of dogs.

Interesting, to be sure. Thanks for reading. For further reading on my own views of origins, see here. See also my post on "What's wrong with young-earth creationism."

Noah's ark - attempts to build replicas

National Public radio has posted a report on several attempts, some completed, some ongoing, to construct full-scale, or scale models, of Noah's ark. These are in at least three continents, and there is, or has been, more than one attempt in the U. S. I find the report fascinating. There are photos, and links to related matters.

One thing especially caught my eye. It is this, quoting one of the persons leading a replica attempt: "Not only are we thinking through the different kinds of animals represented onboard and how you deal with 12 million tons of waste every day . . ." Twelve million tons? A day? I have trouble imagining how and where that figure came from, if, indeed, the quotation is accurate.

The persons building the ark say that, according to the Bible, the ark was 300 by 50 by 30 cubits. (See Genesis 6) Let's say that a cubit is two feet, which is almost certainly an overestimate, and assume that the shape of the ark was a rectangular prism, that is, that it wasn't pointed on one end, and that the bottom was the same size as the top. Using those assumptions, the volume of the ark would be 300 x 2 x 50 x 2 x 30 x 2 = 3,600,000 cubic feet. If one-quarter of that volume was animals (which would mean that they were very closely packed -- don't forget that there would have had to have been food enough to be turned into waste, and that amount of food would have taken up a lot of room, plus air to breathe, cages, etc.), then there would have been 900,000 cubic feet of animals on the ark. I take that to be generous, for sure. But anyway. A cubic foot contains about 7.5 gallons, so I'll say 8. A gallon of water, and animals are about as dense as water -- most float, or at least don't sink easily -- weighs about 8 pounds. 900,000 x 8 x 8 = somewhat less than 58,000,000 pounds of animals. That's 29,000 tons. There's no way that 29,000 tons of animals could generate twelve million tons of waste per day. Either NPR has misquoted the individual, or the individual hasn't been thinking very carefully.

Here's information on claims that Noah's ark has been found. Here's a post on some questions about the flood.

Thanks for reading.

Has Noah's Ark been found?

The Bible tells us about Noah's Ark, a giant structure which, according to the Biblical narrative, carried a few of each of many kinds of animals, while the earth was flooded. Every few years, there are claims that the remains of the ark have been located. I have heard such stories for at least a few decades.

Answers in Genesis is an organization that is fully convinced that the earth is only a few thousand years old, that there was a world-wide flood, and that God did, indeed, cause a large variety of creatures to escape this flood on the ark that was built by Noah and his family. The organization would be very pleased if Noah's ark were to be found. Members of that organization have examined a recent claim that the ark has been found, and are not convinced of the validity of such claims.

Here is a technical article published by Answers in Genesis, in November, 2011. The article, by Andrew Snelling, who seems to have considerable expertise in radioactive dating (I have no such expertise). He concludes that wood samples taken, supposedly, from a structure found in Turkey by a team from Hong Kong are not ancient, but modern. The wood tested was living during the 20th century, according to Snelling. Snelling was, he says, given access to the actual wood testing data, and he presents it in the article. I don't claim to understand the technical details in Snelling's discussion, but the conclusion he reaches is plain: "Given the present C-14 evidence, despite the tantalizing wooden remains the Chinese-Turkish team claims to have discovered on Mt. Ararat, such artifacts CANNOT have come from the Ark. So whatever they have found, they are NOT the remains of the Ark." (Emphasis in original.)

Here is a less technical news article, published by Answers in Genesis in May, 2010, about the same supposed discovery, which indicates that the organization doubts the claim, and questions whether the Ark would be expected to ever be found. The reasons given for such doubts include volcanic activity in the region where the ark is believed to have landed, and the likelihood that Noah and his family would have used the wood from the ark for other purposes.

Answers in Genesis takes the position that what the Bible says about the flood, and the ark, is sufficient. If the ark were to actually be discovered, that would be great, but we don't need such a discovery to believe in the Bible. As far as I can determine, the organization hasn't evaluated any claims of finding the ark since the claim made by the group from Hong Kong in 2010, discussed in this post. I am sure that if any important claims of finding the ark had been made since that time, they would have discussed them in short order.

The organization also points out that the Bible is vague about the location where the ark came to rest, saying, in Genesis 8:4, "the mountains of Ararat," rather than on a specific mountain. See here for that verse, in several versions of the Bible, which are unanimous on that point. The Wikipedia article on those mountains says: "The 'Mountains of Ararat' in Genesis clearly refer to a general region, not a specific mountain . . ."

Tomorrow, I expect, God willing, to post about another alleged finding of Noah's Ark.

In a previous post, I have set forth a number of questions about the story of the flood, which I can't answer satisfactorily. 

In the next post, I consider an older claim that the ark has been found.

Thanks for reading.