As it was in the days of Noah, even so will it be also in the days of the Son of Man. They ate, they drank, they married, and they were given in marriage until the day that Noah entered into the ship, and the flood came and destroyed them all.
A 137-meter wooden boat once housed breeding pairs of every land animal species for a year.
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The cited passage
What current science says
There are approximately 6.5 million known land animal species on Earth. Even taking only breeding pairs, that's 13 million animals on a boat smaller than a modern cruise ship. You'd need food for a year — herbivores alone would require thousands of tons of vegetation. Carnivores would need fresh meat. Specialized habitats (arctic, tropical, desert species) would need climate control. The daily manure output from 13 million animals would be roughly 5,000 tons — requiring a dedicated poop crew working around the clock. And after landing, Australian marsupials would need to somehow cross oceans to reach Australia without leaving any fossils along the way.
What the text says
This comes from Luke 17:26-27, which references the flood narrative as a historical event. The ark described in Genesis was approximately 300 cubits (~137 m) long and supposedly carried every kind of land animal through a worldwide deluge.
Three honest ways to read this passage
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As history
The text records how its authors understood the world with the knowledge they had. Read this way, a difference from modern science is a window into the ancient mind, not a failure.
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As accommodation
The text speaks to its first audience in their own terms, to make a point that isn't mainly about physics or biology. Read this way, the scientific detail is the vehicle, not the cargo.
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As contradiction
The text makes a claim about the physical world that modern findings dispute. Read this way, the difference is a genuine factual disagreement worth naming.
GEBible doesn't pick one of these for you. Each entry shows the passage, what it says, and what current science says — nothing more.