The Bible as Science: God's Ark-itecture

You might have a few Bibles lying around your house that you never open, but somewhere else in the world a family is praying for a single New Testament they can call their own. We start there, with a simple challenge: don’t let God’s Word collect dust when it could be read, shared, and treasured overseas. If you’ve ever wondered whether small acts of giving matter, this conversation makes it tangible and urgent.

Then we pivot into a bold claim that gets argued, not just asserted: the Bible holds up when people attack it as “not scientific.” The focus is Noah’s Ark, and we take the objections head-on. How big was the Ark really? How many animals would be required if the command is “of each kind,” not every modern breed? What about clean and unclean animals? We walk through the logistics with plain reasoning, touching the difference between species and varieties, and why mutation within a kind is not the same as evolution across kinds.

We also tackle the questions people love to throw out in passing: food storage, the possibility of taking young animals instead of fully grown ones, the pre-flood diet described in Genesis, and even ventilation. Finally, we connect Ark proportions to principles modern naval vessels use, making the case that the design shows intelligence far beyond ancient shipbuilding norms.

If you care about Christian apologetics, Bible teaching, Noah’s Ark details, creation vs evolution claims, and practical ways to spread Scripture, press play. Subscribe, share this with a friend who loves tough questions, and leave a review that tells us what part of the Ark discussion you want us to tackle next.

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Transcript

Welcome And Ministry Purpose

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Welcome to the Preaching the Cross Radio Podcast, featuring the radio ministry of Pastor James W. Knox of the Bible Baptist Church of the Land, Florida. Our prayer is that these half-hour Bible study programs bring the lost to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and enable the saved to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Savior. Now here's your host, Pastor James W. Knox. All right, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, thank you so much for that kind word of introduction. I greet each and every one of you in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. And I welcome you to the Preaching of the Cross Radio Broadcast. This is a ministry of the Bible Baptist Church of Deland, Florida. And by God's grace and the prayerful support of his people, it's heard

Send Unused Bibles Overseas

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over this radio station. And we're so very thankful that you've tuned in to the program today and believe that you be will be as well. Now, as I'm sitting at the uh desk here to prepare this broadcast, right in front of me is a stack of books, which it's not real pretty. They are not brand spanking new, they don't have beautiful uh shining covers on them. Uh I have four Bibles. I just picked them up. I have four Bibles in my hand. These are New Testaments, and they're they're not in bad condition, but they are worn, they are used, they have they have seen better days. You couldn't sell them in a store for brand new New Testament. Someone walking in wanting to buy a new Bible wouldn't pick these up. But there are people that write to us by the thousands every year. That's not an exaggeration. By the thousands every year, there are people that write to us and ought to know if there is any possible way that we could send them a copy of the Bible that they might have one for the very own, because either they do not have Bibles in their country to buy, or if they do have Bibles in their country to buy, they have no money to buy them. They are so poor that it takes all of their uh money just to buy their daily bread, just to live and survive. And so these four Bibles that I have in my hand, they may not be very pretty, they may not be something that you and the wealth and affluence of America would walk into a store and purchase, and yet we can put these in a box and mail them overseas, and there will be four families somewhere in a third world country that will have a copy of the Word of God for their very own that never could have had one otherwise. Now, why do I tell you that? Because I believe in our listening audience, especially those of you listening in America, I believe that you probably have Bibles laying around the house that you don't use. You probably have copies of the New Testament lying about that someone gave you or came into your possession as a child or something like that, and you you have no intention of ever using them. If you could get those Bibles to us, we would get them to someone overseas that has no Bible. If you have a large quantity of them and you would write to us, we would send you the name and address of someone overseas, a pastor or a missionary, to whom you could send those Bibles yourself, and by so doing we could get them out of closets and off of shelves and out of boxes in a back room somewhere, and we could get them into the hands of people that would love to have them because they have no copy of the Word of God for their very own. I'd encourage you to do that. I would encourage you to gather up those old Bibles, and either you uh send them overseas yourself or send them to us and let us uh use our uh capabilities to send them overseas, but let's let's get God's word into the hands of people who want to have it. I believe there are more ways to do that than

Bible As Science Meets Noah’s Ark

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just one or two, and one of the ways we can do it is by sending these old Bibles that are not being used to people that will use them. Alright, we're in the middle of a series in which we are discussing the Bible as science. The Bible as science. The Word of God is attacked on many hands and on many fronts, but primarily through those that claim it's not scientific. And we have talked about modern science. We have talked about the harmony of the relationship between science and the scriptures. We have compared ancient wisdom to true God given revelation. We have discussed the fact that modern science is indeed to be found in this ancient book, the Bible. We have discussed modern science as it relates to the story of Jonah and the whale and prove that story conclusively. And we are now discussing modern science and the Ark of Noah. Modern science and the Ark of Noah. We talked last time about the fact that most people who claim that all two of all those animals could never fit into the Ark have two outstanding problems in supporting their argument. Number one, they don't know how many kinds of animals there were in Noah's day to put on the Ark. And number two, they have no idea how big the Ark was. And so basically they're saying, I don't believe that a number of animals which I do not know could get onto the Ark, the size of which I do not know, and therefore I base what I know on what I don't know. That's called modern science. It may sound stupid to you, it probably sounds stupid to God, but people would rather go to hell clinging to something they don't know than go to heaven standing upon the truth of something they could know for sure. That's just the deception and the delusion of Satan in these last days. Now we want to continue on the program today our discussion of the Ark of Noah. Now without question, the Ark was the largest vessel that ever floated prior to the building of the giant liners of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Because of its square construction, it could carry a third more cargo than any modern vessel that equaled it in size and dimensions. And when modern engine rooms, cruise quarters, control stations, lifeboats, and safety belts, cabins, gymnasia, knife edged bows, and rounded sterns are all deducted. An arc of the size set forth in the Bible, five hundred and sixty two feet by ninety-three feet by fifty six feet, let's say, would carry a much larger load than any ship of these approximate dimensions sailing on the seas today. The second factor in the problem is found in the size of the load. This factor is as variable as the factor of capacity. The exact number of animals which were carried in the ark can never be determined by science. There may have been more kinds of animals

Ark Size And Animal Capacity

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living then. Certainly there could not have been less than are extant now. Birds, cattle, creeping things are the only orders mentioned. The others are all grouped under the head of every living thing of all flesh. Of the animals classified as clean, there were to be fourteen. I know all the storybook pictures show two of every kind of animal, but the Bible said there were to be to be seven pairs of each clean animal, and one pair of each unclean animal. Seven male, seven female, of those that are clean, of the other unclean animals, there were to be one pair, a male and female of each. Noah was not under the necessity of finding room in his ark for every variety and every specimen of animal and bird alive today. Now as soon as we see this, the problem of the ark is simplified tremendously. The specific command is of each kind. Now kind is a species, and may generally be described as those which can crossbreed with fertility. Between any two kinds there is a line of demarcation closely drawn, and none may cross that line. The living things which can crossbreed or hybridize with fertility are all related to that genus or kind, and undoubtedly arose from the same parent ancestral stalk. The myriad varieties of each kind we see about us today have come by the process of mutation. Now, I know what some of you are thinking right now that follow that line of reasoning, you're saying, isn't this evolution? Do you really believe in evolution? No, it's it's not evolution. Evolution is transmutation. As long as the mutant or variant or variety under discussion does not cross that line of demarcation and become some other kind, it is just development and growth. It's not evolution. There is a tendency to variation within the boundary of every species. The law of Mendel, and you remember that, you studied it, the two the yellow peas and the green peas and all that stuff. The law of Mendel is based upon observations of this process of variation. That's what the whole thing, that whole thing was about. Now, as a very common example of this process, we can cite the dahlia. The dahlia reproduces from a root clump, which is erroneously called a bulb, it's not that at all. This root clump of the dahlia reproduces true to its type. For instance, if you have red dahlias in your garden this year, and you save the root clumps to plant the following season, from the root clumps of the red dahlia, you will get red dahlias of that type and variety. But the dahlia also produces seeds. When you plant the seeds from a red dahlia, you may get a dozen different colors of dahlia, none of which will be red. Of these mutants or variants, about two percent will fix themselves as a new type and develop a root clump that is established. Thus, new varieties of dahlia are added to the market from year to year. You will note, however, that these new dahlias remain dahlias. They do not become onions

What “Kind” Means Without Evolution

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or potatoes or tomatoes. As long as the dahlia produces new varieties of dahlia and not something else, we are dealing with mutation. When the dahlia by an infinite number of changes produces something which is not a dahlia, we will then have a case of transmutation. That would be evolution. So far as the records of science go, this process of transmutation has never occurred one time, one place in history. The whole theory of evolution is just that it's a theory with absolutely no facts to back it up. Now, if Noah took into his arc a pair of a pure strain of every available creature, the varieties would have arisen by the process of mutation. A typical case in point may be the bee. That's may B B E the B B E E. English is an amazing language, isn't it? Now there are many, many different varieties of bees. But Noah would have to take only a fertile queen into the ark. That's all. For her progeny could turn, in turn, give rise to all the other varieties. This statement has been objected to on the ground that the queen bee does not care for or raise her own brood, but that this work is done by the workers of the hive. Now this is unquestionably their present condition, but how did the first pair of bees raise their young? You see, if we admit that the bees were created like all other creatures, there was a male and a queen, and from them came all the bees. If you insist that the bees evolved out of some other lower insect, the problem remains the same. There was a first true bee, and it had to perpetuate its kind. So certainly it's capable. It may not have the necessity in this day and time because of the workers, but it's certainly capable, were there no workers, of raising its own young. There's a species of bees known as Ata, of whom BB has written in his book The Edge of the Jungle. I'm sorry, species of ant, I'm still thinking about bee. Let's talk about ant for a minute, atta ATTA ant. These ants have a queen who lays the eggs from which the workers hatch and rear the young, but when starting a new colony, the queen begins all by herself, laying the eggs and rearing the young unaided, until she has enough workers reared to take over the task, after which she degenerates to a mere egg laying machine. Now it's evident that the first bees must have had some such method of procedure like this. Another case may be the dogs. If Noah took the original strain into the ark, a male and a female, they would give rise to the other varieties of dogs. From one pair of canines, the process of mutation would soon produce all the many different breeds of dog, so familiar now, and it is not too much to say that the present varieties of man and each other kind of living creatures could have arisen, and undoubtedly did arise from an original pair of each kind. So in the case of Noah, he need not crowd his ark with a pair of every known variety, but just take two of the pure strain of each species. Now, true species are few. Varieties are many. But even of the true species there are some which would not have had to enter the ark. Why would ducks not survive in the rain unless certain geological cataclysms that probably attended the deluge would make it impossible? Certainly the rain would not drive them in. The alligators and crocodiles can live in salt water or fresh, or they prefer a mixture of both. They prefer their diet well ripened, so they would farewell outside the ark. The fish would all be safe outside, and the barnacles could find a home on the bottom of the ark. In other words, a little analysis of the text shows that ignorance loses its battle against revelation.

Bees Dogs And Limits Of Variation

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Reason reason will drive out these doubts, these arguments of skeptics. If you just take the time to think the thing through, it's not as big a problem as the so-called scientists would suggest. Now, if half the ark had been filled with food and fourteen individuals of every true species now inhabiting that world were stored in the other half of the ark, there would have been an average. Now listen, listen, there would have been an average of 175 cubic feet of space for every individual. Now, a 200-pound man requires only fifteen cubic space of living quarters. Only 15 cubic feet of space required for a living man. There were 175 cubic feet for every individual animal and person on the Ark. Now the problem is further simplified when we consider that Noah may not have had to provide space for animals, not uh uh on on their own. There are, as we mentioned earlier in our last lesson, there are insects. There are insects which could have lived on the very backs of some of the larger animals that were there. Isn't that something? Now it's it's incredible when you start thinking about these things. How many true species were there? Well, the only comprehensive natural history survey which was made uh by someone who tried his very, very best to study out, trace back the various mutations and so forth, and come up with a conservative estimate of the number of kinds of animals that would be living in Noah's day, was done by Dr. Howard Osgood. He found that there were just five hundred and seventy-five varieties of mammals and birds between the size of a mouse and the size of a sheep, and two hundred and ninety varieties between the size of a sheep and the size of a camel. Now, food they had in plenty. No question about that. Let me say something else, too. You always see these pictures that uh these photographs that were taken as the animals went on the ark. You know what I mean. Well, I saw it in a picture book. Wait a minute. Who told you that that Noah took fully grown animals on the Ark? I know it makes for an exciting picture. But in in one year's time, the larger mammals, yes, I'll grant you they grow. But if you took, for example, if you took a baby, a a brand newborn baby uh calf, a pair of calves, in one year they would still be far from full grown. Same with the elephant, same with the camel, same with the horse, and so forth.

Space Food And Taking Young Animals

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Now, food they had in plenty, it is evident that they would have uh no meat diet, as in Genesis the diet of all is given as the same, a vegetarian fare exclusively. Genesis 129 and 30, God said, Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for food, and to every or for meat, and to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth wherein there is life. I have given him every green herb for meat, and it was so. Now, after the flood, this law was changed, and flesh was eaten. But up to the time of the flood, this law is not violated, as far as the biblical record is concerned. Now, you say, Brother James, I don't believe that you could take an animal like a lion, and it could be eating grass, and then all of a sudden it could change and begin to eat meat, and then when Jesus comes again, as the Bible prophesies regarding his millennial kingdom, that it would go back to eating straw again. Well, if you if you don't believe that, you certainly have never been in a church where people get truly saved and born again. Well, I've known men to feed on liquor all their lives, and then get saved and suddenly begin to drink water. How about that? I've known people that have lived on cocaine and heroin, and get saved and born again, suddenly begin to live on decent food. You see, God can can change the appetite. He certainly can. Now, in The Canopied Earth by Kellogg, he writes about a physical and scientific reason for the change to meat. But Noah's problem in provision in the Ark was a simple one. That he had plenty of food we can readily see. And when we remembered that he had a hundred and twenty years in which to prepare this food, by most estimates, uh there's no problem there at all. Now a very wise and learned woman once said, How was the Ark ventilated? I've always worried about that. There were all those animals and men, and only one little window way up in the roof, how did they breathe? Now that's a good question. Skepticism has often used this apparent weakness in the structure of the ark as an opportunity to point the finger of derision and raise the cry of improbability whenever the ark is mentioned. In a debate on the scientific infallibility of Genesis, Dr. Cantrell ignorantly stated that the Ark was hermetically sealed. The Bible doesn't say

Diet Before The Flood And Changed Appetites

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that. If you read the Bible text carefully, you'll see two lines of thought that we ought to consider. Of course, the exact method of ventilation is not given in detail. This is a record of tremendous events, and as such does not deal with small details. It's strange, the Ark of Noah wasn't as important to God as the Ark of the Covenant. This vessel in which all of humanity and all living breathing things dwelt was not as important as the tabernacle. It's funny what God considers important, isn't it? But um this uh history of great battles in the Bible, they don't bother themselves with the fit of the soldier's clothes or whether their shoes fasten with laces or buttons, such variety of minor detail. Only the main facts are given, and that's true in the case of Noah's Ark. We have the dimensions of the Ark and the shape. But let's look at the simple details of the actual construction. It contains a direction. A window shalt thou make in the ark, and to a cubit thou shalt finish it upward. Finish what? The window of the ark. Now, if the window is to be finished up to a cubit, that probably means it ran the length of the ark to within a cubit of the end. That would be quite some ventilation. If the words finish it refer to the ark itself, we have somewhat the same result. If the walls of the ark are finished up to a cubit, that will lead to the An open ventilator all the way around the arc, twenty two and a half inches wide. In either case, we have an open ventilator providing two thousand four hundred and sixty square feet of airspace, which is certainly ample. The overhanging eaves would keep the dripping rain out. There is no wind mentioned until the rain stopped. So no rain would drive in. You've got to read your Bible. That would be more than sufficient for comfort and plenty for sanitation. Now don't think that the modern sanitary engineer could add to the structure of the Ark, for while the builder was Noah, the architect and designer was God. The scientific accuracy of the Ark is finally attested by its modern dimensions. The ancients did not build ships like this. The Ark was exactly six times as long as it was wide. Upon these identical proportions, our naval vessels

Ventilation And Why The Dimensions Work

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are built today. In the days of the Second World War, the prior to the US Navy was the USS New Mexico. And you know something? That great ship was built on the scientific dimensions of Noah's Ark. Same is true of our modern aircraft carriers today. It's remarkable. Now you look at the floating palaces that swim the waters today, and you see how nearly they conform to this pattern, six times as long as they are wide. The ancients didn't follow this plan. Their rules seemed to be their fancy. The ancient Phoenicians were the parents of navigation and shipcraft, and according to scanty records, they built a boat about twice as long as its width. When Rome entered the first Punic Wars, she had a fleet of three hundred and thirty vessels, biomes, tyremes, and quadromes. These were built after a plan which varied from a length of one hundred and ten feet with a width of eleven feet, to a maximum of one hundred and thirty feet long by twelve feet wide, or a general plan of ten times the width for the length. None of the ancients seemed to have constructed on the proportions of the Ark. And yet modern science figured out, in time for World War II, that the dimensions for shipbuilding given by God to Noah were the best. How did Noah know that? Divine revelation, my friend. Where is it found? Not in any science book on the face of the earth except the one the greatest book of science ever known to man. The Holy Bible. The Ark of Noah is strike two. The skeptics swung at Jonah and the whale and missed strike one. They swung at the Ark of Noah, strike two. We're going to yet deal with the flood. We'll strike them out on that one. And then just for good measure, we'll let them stand in there and take one more pitch. We'll give them four strikes just like in a kickball game. And we're going to throw the long day of Joshua right past them, and they'll miss it every time.

Where To Listen And Learn More

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Thanks for tuning in today. Join us every weekday for another episode of the Preaching of the Cross Radio Podcast. For hundreds of hours of in-depth expository Bible teaching, please visit our YouTube channel, James W. Knox Sermons, our sermon audio page, Bible Baptistland, or our website, Bible BaptistLand.com. Until next time and throughout eternity, may Jesus Christ be praised.