Creation Science Issues
The Ark Encounter
Noah's Ark and the Food Problem
By Greg Neyman
© Old Earth Ministries
The Ark Encounter proudly proclaims that there was plenty of room on the ark for the animals, Noah's family, and their provisions (food). Given the young earth understanding of the ark, that there were only "kinds" of animals, it is true that Noah would have room for a year's worth of food. Unfortunately, young earth theory rarely considers all the ramifications of one theory upon the myriad of others that they have to believe in. Case in point...food on the ark.
While it is true that the Ark Encounter claims that they had plenty of food for the voyage, the important thing to consider is the post-flood world. All the land of the earth is stripped bare by the flood, and redeposited as sedimentary layers. Hence, there are no trees or vegetation of any kind when Noah opened the doors and let the animals out. There also would not have been an olive tree for the raven to bring back an olive leaf, but that's for another article. Because there would have been no plants growing anywhere, Noah would have to feed the herbivorous animals for months after they departed from the ark, so the ark would have to carry this food as well.
In addition to the herbivores, the young earth ark would carry many carnivorous animals...cats, dogs, bears, wolverines, birds of prey, etc. According to the Ark Encounter, there were also dinosaurs on the ark, so there was also raptors and a pair of tyrannosaurs. Once these animals were freed from the ark, they had nothing to eat, as the flood killed and buried all animals not in the ark. The carnivorous animals would probably make the herbivores extinct in a matter of weeks…so then why do we have cows today? (Come to think of it, the Ark Encounter portrays unicorns...my guess is that they were eaten by the raptors, thus we don't have unicorns today).
If we assume cows came from a common cow-kind, and there were seven pairs on the ark, then there were 14 cows, along with 14 of the other clean animals, such as sheep, deer, and several others. Thats a total of 56+ animals, but for the sake of fairness, there were probably some others on the ark, so there were probably 100 animals who would serve as the food source for the carnivores. That's not much food for all the carnivores coming off the ark. The raptors and T-rex's alone would probably make the cow-kind extinct after a month (or, right after they made the herbivorous dinosaurs extinct).
If we apply what YEC theory predicts the world was like after the flood, then Noah had a problem...there was no food for those animals when they got off the ark. It would have only been a short time, less than a year, before Noah and his family would have been eaten by carnivores.
However, if it was a local flood, as old earth creationists say, the animals simply migrated to areas that were not touched by the flood, and there would be food aplenty for them. In addition, it would have been no problem for the raven to have flown to an area not affected by the flood, and retreive the olive leaf.
If you are not a Christian, and you have been holding out on making a decision for Christ because the Church always preached a message that was contrary to what you saw in the scientific world, then rest assured that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, and you can believe in Christ and receive salvation, while still believing in an old earth. Click here for more.
Are you a Christian who believes in young earth creationism? Now that we have shown the many difficulties of the young earth creation science model in this and many other articles, how does this impact your Christian life? If you are a young earth creationism believer, click here.
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