"By making the flood local, it means that tens of thousands of animals
don't have to be cared for by Noah et al, and this then avoids some of the
really silly problems, and even sillier solutions that some YECs have
proposed, for an overcrowded ark would have. If all animals were on the
ark, the manure and urine problems would be so great as to flood the ark
itself. Woodmorrappe says that urine could drain overboard, but this would
be impossible from the lowest deck. He even says that the animals were
trained to defecate on command into buckets held by Noah and the others. An
ark with several thousand animals would use up the oxygen quite rapidly, the
heat given off by the animals would over heat the ark (ever been in a
crowded room and felt hot? The ark would be worse). Such problems and the
silly solutions YECs have proposed make the Bible a laughing stock among
reasonable peoples."
This reminds me of a story Rimmer used to tell, about a debate on biblical
inerrancy that he had with a self-styled "atheist" in Denver, ca. 1930. The
following is taken from the tape I've asked ASAers to help me locate, the
one I no longer have:
Rimmer tells the story with great relish, setting up the audience for the
best possible response as he tells how his opponent insisted that nothing
not explicitly mentioned in the biblical text could be affirmed by either
man. When Rimmer agreed to this, his opponent claimed immediate victory.
The ark, he said, had no manure chute, since none is mentioned in the text.
Thus within thirty days, the ark would have been filled with methane gas,
and the animals would have died. There was, Rimmer recalled, "a very fine
lady seated behind me, the wife of a public official. She reached over and
pulled my coat-tail, and said, `That's a dirty argument; don't let him get
away with it.' I sat there, `Don't worry, I'll clean him up and the
argument at the same time.'" Punctuated with raucous laughter from the
hall, Rimmer went on to relate how he had conceded that the colonel was
right -- there was no manure chute. "But according to his rule we don't
need one. There could be nothing in the ark not specifically mentioned in
the text. And when I read the text it says the ark had two sides and two
ends and a top -- but no bottom is mentioned!"
Thought readers might enjoy this,
Ted Davis