Bible Questions?

Q: Did Noah need oxygen on the Ark?

A: Why would someone ask this question? Let’s back up and look at this from a big picture. Consider what the Bible says about the voyage of the Ark:

The water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered. The water prevailed fifteen cubits higher, and the mountains were covered. (Genesis 7:19–20)

People then look at the earth today and note that the highest mountain is Mt. Everest, which stands just over 29,000 feet above sea level. Then they put two and two together and say that Noah’s Ark floated at least 15 cubits above Mt. Everest—and at such high altitude, people need oxygen!

It sounds like a straightforward argument, doesn’t it? But did you notice that I emphasized the word today? In light of this, the solution is quite simple: the Flood did not happen on today’s earth, but rather on the earth of nearly 4,300 years ago (according to Ussher).

The world today is not the same as it was before the Flood, or even during the Flood. For instance, if the mountains, continents, and oceans basins of today’s earth were more leveled out (as would be expected in a global Flood), the planet’s surface water alone would cover the earth an estimated 1.66 miles deep—about 8,000 feet. Yet when I visited Cusco, Peru, which is around 11,000 feet above sea level, I didn’t need an oxygen tank.

Furthermore, atmospheric air pressure is relative to sea level. So as rising sea levels pushed the air column higher, the air pressure at sea level would stay the same.

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Continue reading as Bodie Hodge answers the question Did Noah Need Oxygen on the Ark?

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Website: www.answersingenesis.org

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After Noah's Flood

Post Flood Migration

Q. I have 2 questions that I have been wondering about for some time and would like to know if you have any thoughts on the subject.

During the flood, God destroyed all human and animal life. I am assuming that the sea creatures were not destroyed. If not, why were they spared the judgment? My second question is after the flood civilization would have again started somewhere in the middle east and the people and animals would have migrated from there to fill the earth. The people and animals that inhabited North and South America presumably got here by crossing the bearing straight when it was frozen and migrated south. How did all of the tropical animals of the south American jungles such as the snakes, frogs, lizards etc migrate through all of the cold regions to reach that area. If the regions weren’t cold yet, How did they cross the Bearing Straight?

I have heard arguments that the global flood was global only to the extent that it killed all of the humans and animals associated with them, but that it didn’t kill the animals the God had placed in other locations on the planet, Then after the flood, humans would have been the only ones who needed to migrate throughout the earth. Any thoughts on this?

A. Genesis 7:21-23 is the passage that explains all of this. A literal reading shows that other than Noah and his family, only fish were left alive, and even the survival of fish can only be surmised by the fact that they weren’t mentioned. It’s likely that they did survive and if so it’s because their gene pool had not been molested, and man’s and animal’s were.

The Bible also hints that the size and location of land masses could have been much different then. For example Genesis 10:25 tells us that the land was divided well after the flood, giving animals plenty of migration time. And though seasons are mentioned in Genesis 1:14, the first mention of summer and winter comes in Gen. 8:22 after the flood. Some believe that pre-flood weather was uniformly sub-tropical but began changing with the collapse of the water vapor canopy that surrounded the Earth at the time of the flood.

Other catastrophic events changed both the Earth’s orbit and inclination on its axis causing further climate changes. These changes are what makes many parts of the world uninhabitable today and they took place long after the flood, some as late as 700 BC when something happened that eventually caused all the calendars of Earth to be lengthened by 5 1/4 days.

In short, the situation on Earth back then was so much different than it is now that we can only speculate as to how things were.

Website: www.gracethrufaith.com

Noah's Time

Did Noah’s Sons Have Multiple Wives?

Q. Noah took his sons and their wives with them. Did each husband have multiple wives of different races? The only reason I ask is because it’s confusing that all life was destroyed on earth, leaving Noah and his family to repopulate the earth. Now, if Noah and his sons and their wives were all from the same region, then it seems everyone on earth that resulted from all those years of re-populating would all generally have the same skin color, bone structures, features, etc.

A. According to 1 Peter 3:20, there were only 8 humans on the Ark. They were Noah, his 3 sons and their four wives. Genesis 10 lists a total of 70 sons and grandsons of the three sons of Noah, and from these all the peoples of the Earth have descended. Japeth became the Patriarch of the European and Asian races, Ham was the original ancestor of the African people, and Shem fathered the Jewish and Arabic tribes.

Because God gave each tribe a different language when He dispersed them from Mesopotamia in Genesis 11, they became isolated from one another and very little inter marriage took place. Because of this, the dominant characteristics of each group actually grew to be more pronounced over time. Experts say that within a few generations the major differences in physical appearance were pretty well established.

Website: www.gracethrufaith.com