href="#ulink_6c6781c3-530d-5404-a0d5-f8c58a7da12c">2 Morris and Whitcomb, The Genesis Flood (Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1961).
3 Genesis 6:20, “. . . will come to you to keep them alive.”
4 After the Flood, per Genesis 9:2–3, man was given permission to kill animals to eat. However, animals (and man) would answer to God for killing people. See www.christiananswers.net/dinosaurs/j-lost3.html as viewed online February 2017.
5 The created “kind” was roughly equal to the category we call “family” today in most instances.
6 Ark food storage estimate — regarding weight, it is common for a small adult elephant to eat about 125 pounds of hay per day; 373 days on board x 125 pounds per day x 2 elephants = 93,250 pounds (46.625 tons). However, the average size of an Ark animal is estimated to have been that of an adult sheep, which eats only about 4 pounds of hay per day; 373 days x 4 pounds of hay per animal x 2 animals per pair = 2,984 pounds; 1.492 tons x 3,500 pairs = 5,222 tons of hay. Regarding food volume, at 300 cubic feet per ton for dry chopped hay, a formula for determining how much space 5,222 tons would require is as follows: if 3,500 pairs of animals, then 300 cubic feet per ton x 5,222 tons = 1,566,600 cubic feet. Volume of ark 510 x 85 x 51 = 2,210,850 cubic feet. 1,566,600 / 2,210,850 = .71 or 71% of ark. Plenty of room for animals, food, humans, and a warehouse of goods.) Alternatively, a grain concentrate, such as corn, would require less than half the volume of hay. Further, animals which are severely restricted in terms of physical activity tend to sleep more and consume less.
7 Such as crocodiles and turtles.
8 Such as kangaroos and elephants.
9 Genesis 6:20 (“will come to you”), 7:9 (“two by two they went in to the ark to Noah”), 7:15 (“they went into the ark to Noah, two by two”).
10 Two of every unclean land animal, and seven of every clean land animal (of which there were few), and seven of every bird of the air (Gen. 7:2–3).
11 Somewhere between about 50 and 90 different kinds of dinosaurs have been discovered in the fossil record. Sexually mature juveniles would have been easily facilitated on the Ark. Since dinosaurs were land-dwellers themselves, representatives of each of the dinosaur kinds clearly were included with the other land animals that God saved during the Flood.
12 Genesis 5:1. “… the Hebrew Bible says in Genesis 5:1 that the history of Adam was written! The word for “book” used here, sefer, always means the account is written.” per archaeologist Dr. David Livingston at http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v3/n2/cave-dwellers.
13 After the animals arrived at the Ark, they may have entered on their own — without the need to be led, carried, or coaxed by humans. See Genesis 7:9 and 7:15. Also see Genesis 6:20 in the ESV and YLT. The more literal English translations indicate that the animals did not simply arrive. At the proper time, they went “in” to the Ark to Noah by themselves to be kept alive by Noah’s family. YLT says “two of every [sort] they come in unto thee, to keep them alive,” Likewise, the ESV says “two of every kind shall come in to you to keep them alive.” Such miraculous choosing, calling, and direction straight from God to the animals would undoubtedly have made loading much easier and faster.
14 The popular perspective as to when God closed the door and sealed Noah and his family inside the Ark is seven days prior to the beginning of the Flood. However, this “sit-and-wait-a-week” view does not appear to be necessary, based upon the Hebrew text itself (Gen. 7:1–16). See Dr. Steven W. Boyd’s Answers Research Journal article, “The Last Week Before the Flood,” in which he argues that the animals came aboard during the seven days immediately before the Flood began. https://answersingenesis.org/the-flood/last-week-before-the-flood/ This view — where the animals began to come through the door of their own volition (Gen. 7:15) immediately after God’s Genesis 7:1–10 statement, and were all on board by the time He initiated the Flood seven days later , in keeping with both the text and a multi-day “caging/situating” timetable based on about 3,500 pairs of animals. What is clear from Genesis 7:7–10 is that God told Noah that the Flood would come in 7 days, Noah and family went in, the animals came, God closed the door, and the Flood overwhelmed the earth. Consider this estimate of the time required for the animals to enter. If there were roughly 1,400 biblical “kinds” yielding a combined total of 3,500 clean and unclean pairs of animals and an average of one minute between each of 3,500 pairs (3,500 pairs/7,000 animals from 1,400 “kinds” estimated by researchers for Ark Encounter/Answers in Genesis in May 2016), the procession would have required over 58 straight hours (2 days and 10 hours) with no breaks for Noah’s family to eat or sleep. If the animals came in only during 10 hours per day and there was still an average of 60 seconds between animal kinds to situate each pair, the procession would have lasted just under 6 days: 3500 pairs x 1.0 min = 3500 min / 60 min = 58.33 hours / 10 hours per day = 5.83 days. Alternatively, if there were 1,400 kinds with a total of 3,500 pairs and an average of only 10 seconds between each pair, the cavalcade would have lasted less than 10 hours — 3500 x .1666 min = 583 min / 60 min = 9.72 hours.) Regardless, sometime after the last animal pair entered the ark, God closed the door (Gen. 7:16). The eerie and awesome supernatural closing of the large and heavy Ark door may have been soon after the last animal, or it may have occurred sometime on the seventh day (Gen. 7:4 and 7:10). Exactly when the door was closed is not precisely revealed. However, at some point on the seventh day, the Creator and Savior of humanity unleashed all the fountains of the great deep and opened the floodgates of the heavens (Gen. 7:11). The greatest judgment ever to visit planet earth began, and “the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water.” (2 Pet. 3:6; NKJV).
15 Romans 8:29.
16 Genesis 6:20, 7:15–16.
17 Genesis 6:20 — animals will come to you to keep them alive.
18 “Caring for the Animals on the Ark,” by John Woodmorappe, Answers magazine vol 2.2 (published by Answers in Genesis), and online at http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v2/n2/caring-for-the-animals. Many animals have a latent ability to hibernate or for their bodily functions to nearly stop for a time. The Bible does not reference such created capabilities, but if employed by God during the Flood, the daily workload of Noah’s family would have been even less.
19 Genesis 6:3. Also consider that there were other righteous people living during the 120 years leading up to the Flood, at the very least Methuselah and his son Lamech. Lamech died about 5 years prior to the Flood, and his father Methuselah — whose life spanned from about 240 years prior to Adam’s death, to the 600th year of Noah — died the same year as the start of the Flood. Methuselah’s death may have even occurred just prior to the start of the Flood.