Transcription

Connor:
You’re listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun and practical ways.

Chris:
Hey, welcome to the Bible Guys. What? Oops. I am Chris.

Jeff:
And I’m Jeff.

Chris:
Yes. And so today we realized that on yesterday’s podcast, we didn’t actually do the segment.

Jeff:
Yeah, we totally blew it off.

Chris:
Because what I was trying to do is I was trying to fill in the gaps of the chapter that we skipped over.

Jeff:
Yeah. And we talked about people living for a long time.

Chris:
And then it got us right into the story. It got so exciting. Yeah.

Jeff:
We just got pulled away. And so, yeah, you want to do both segments? Yeah.

Chris:
Let’s do it really fast. Okay. Very fast. So social media minute. There’s three of them. I’m going to read the first one. This is yesterday’s segment. Beth V wrote in and said, I just want to tell you both that I really enjoy watching you guys. Your friendship is so genuine and it’s fun to watch you guys laugh together and everything else you do to bless us listeners.

Jeff:
Thank you, Beth. That’s nice. It’s all a show. We don’t like each other. That’s right. That’s exactly correct. Number two. I wanted to thank you. This is from Zach B. Hi Zach. Hey Zach. I wanted to thank you for taking the extra time to share your wonderful insight and stories with us. Your explanations have certainly helped me to understand some of the more confusing concepts in the Bible. That’s awesome. That’s the whole goal.

Chris:
That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. Number three comes from Aaron, who says, love my daily dose of Chris and of course, Jeff. Of course. Of course, Jeff.

Jeff:
Of course, Jeff. Yes. Of Chris. And of course, Jeff. Yes. Thank you, Aaron.

Chris:
I love that you guys can make learning the Bible so cool and relatable. Thank you, Aaron. Cool.

Jeff:
Yeah. Boy, it’s been a long time since I’ve been called cool.

Chris:
No, no, she didn’t say that. She said the Bible is cool.

Jeff:
Learning about the Bibles. We make the Bible cool and relatable.

Chris:
Cool and relatable. Yeah, she said absolutely nothing. Let me get this.

Jeff:
About me being cool? I want you to hear this clearly.

Chris:
Yes. She said nothing about you being cool.

Jeff:
Okay. Well, thank you, Aaron, saying that we help the Bible be more. That’s right. That’s right. And by the way, nothing about me being cool. No, no. Her daily dose of Chris and of course, Jeff. Yes. That’s really the emphasis.

Chris:
Well, it’s the emphasis. It is the daily dose of Chris. It could be a period there, but it’s a comma, parentheses, and you know, also Jeff too. Of course. Of course.

Jeff:
Yeah, that’s awesome. Okay. So thank you guys. So there you go. That’s Beth, Zach and Aaron. Thank you guys for writing. And that’s awesome.

Chris:
So we’re going to squeeze in two segments since we skipped yesterday. And so this is a very quick segment and it is a simple question called story time. And the question is this, this is funny. If you were in Noah’s place and you had to take two of every kind of animal onto the arc, would there be any animals that you would say no to?

Jeff:
Oh, absolutely.

Chris:
How about you? First of all, Noah didn’t have a choice. Let’s be clear about that.

Jeff:
Right, right. God told him all of them. But if you could, like, hey, could I suggest just… Yes.

Chris:
If Noah were to, you know, compromise and say, do I have a say in this? Right. Who would I say no to? Well, definitely mosquitoes.

Jeff:
That’s my top.

Chris:
Yes. Top of my list is mosquitoes. Mosquitoes. And then I think some animals, uh, like, you know, like I know spiders are important, but are they really that important?

Jeff:
They’re scary. They’re scary. Yeah.

Chris:
Yeah. And that like the brown recluse spider, like, can we just do without that one?

Jeff:
That’d be bad. All the poisonous ones?

Chris:
Yes. Yeah. Or the poisonous frogs, although they don’t affect me.

Jeff:
Ooh, anacondas. Anacondas. You get rid of anacondas. They affect you. So you said, you said, you said poisonous frogs. Well, they don’t affect me. Ooh, anacondas. Like you just thought of a thing that affects you.

Chris:
Well, I’m thinking of everybody else in the world, Jeff.

Jeff:
All the people who get eaten by anacondas.

Chris:
I’m thinking of people who try to go to the river and they try to get a drink or the animals, the poor animals. And then here comes this anaconda coming up and just wrapping around everybody.

Jeff:
You’ve watched too many movies.

Chris:
Well, have you ever seen the movie Anaconda? No. With John Voight and Jennifer Lopez?

Jeff:
I don’t believe I have.

Chris:
It’s so bad that it’s good.

Jeff:
Okay. Yes. I have not seen it. Yeah. Well, so I was going to say mosquitoes. Yes. Mosquitoes drive me nuts. And I know that, you know, bats feed on mosquitoes. Yeah. So there’s an issue there, but I don’t know. Well, then I have no other animals that I wouldn’t bring. I like them all. Really? Yeah, yeah. I’m not a big fan of the poisonous snakes, but I think they’re necessary.

Chris:
Okay. Yeah. Why are they necessary?

Jeff:
Because they get rid of rodents. Okay. Yeah, and you can’t have too many rodents because rodents carry so much disease. Man, let’s just get rid of them all. Let’s get rid of the rodents, the poisonous snakes. And the mosquitoes. And bats, oh well. How about that?

Chris:
Oh well. You know, it’d be interesting to see how our ecosystem would break down if that many things were removed from it.

Jeff:
Yeah, yeah. We’re literally playing God here on this one, aren’t we? Yeah. Because everything’s so interconnected.

Chris:
So the answer ultimately to that question, Desiree, is no, I would not say no to anything. Cause, cause we don’t have.

Jeff:
Well, if I could pick one, if I could pick one, I would still make mosquitoes. And then you would kill us all. I would, I would risk it off.

Chris:
You would kill us all because who knows how this world would be affected.

Jeff:
That’s right. That’s right.

Chris:
But all of a sudden bats would die down. And then all of a sudden you’d have these bigger animals and little, you know, it would lead all like the lions and bees would die. It’s probably it. You’d kill the planet.

Jeff:
Okay. All right, then no. No, I don’t want to kill everybody on the planet.

Chris:
No, that’s not what you said.

Jeff:
Okay, you’re right. Yeah. Hey, well, they’re starting over at this point, dude. That is true.

Chris:
But they’re starting over with God’s creation safe in the boat.

Jeff:
Yeah, but maybe God could figure out how to do it a different way next time.

Chris:
God, do your job better. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no

Jeff:
Yeah, no, he’s doing fine without my input. Okay. Okay.

Chris:
That was a good segment. We squeezed two in, in the same amount of time that we would have normally done one.

Jeff:
Hey, two for the price of one. Yeah.

Chris:
Sorry about yesterday, segment lovers. Yes, that’s right.

Jeff:
Okay, well today we’re continuing on, as we mentioned, almost everything in the Bible is established in some form in the first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis. So we’re kind of moving slowly through these first several chapters. And that’s fine. Yeah, absolutely. Genesis chapter 7 verse 1 says, when everything was ready, the Lord said to Noah, go into the boat with all your family, for among all the people of the earth, I can see that you alone are righteous. Take with you seven pairs, male and female, of each animal I’ve approved for eating and for sacrifice. And take one pair of each of the others. Also take seven pairs of every kind of bird. There must be a male and a female in each pair to ensure that all life will survive on the earth after the flood. Seven days from now, I will make the rains pour down on the earth and it will rain for 40 days and 40 nights until I’ve wiped from the earth all the living things I’ve created.” So Noah did everything as the Lord commanded him. And Noah was 600 years old when the flood covered the earth. He went on board the boat to escape the flood, he and his wife and his sons and their wives. With them were all the various kinds of animals, those approved for eating and for sacrifice and those that were not, along with all the birds and the small animals that scurry along the ground. They entered the boat in pairs, male and female, just as God had commanded Noah. After seven days, the waters of the flood came and covered the earth. When Noah was 600 years old, on the 17th day of the second month, all the underground waters erupted from the earth and the rain fell in mighty torrents from the sky. The rain continued to fall for 40 days and 40 nights. That very day, Noah had gone into the boat with his wife and his sons, Shem, Hem, and Japheth and their wives. Do I stop there?

Chris:
No, because tomorrow we’re picking up in verse number 17. So you can go to 17. I go to 17.

Jeff:
Yes. With them in the boat were pairs of every kind of animal, domestic and wild, large and small, along with birds of every kind. Two by two, they came into the boat, representing every living thing that breathes. A male and a female of each kind entered just as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord closed the door behind them. There you go. We got some bonus verses.

Chris:
Yeah, we did. And so with them, with them in the boat were pairs of every kind of animal, domestic and large, wild and small, two by two, they came into the boat. So they, so the animals came by themselves. That’s correct. Which means God brought the animals to know, which means he wasn’t some sort of like, uh, do you ever like see a dog catcher with a big net on the cartoons and they run around.

Jeff:
They’re trying to, what was that crocodile guy? What was that crocodile guy? Uh, Oh, uh, Steve Irwin, Steve Irwin. Yeah. Going out there catching, catching animals out there. That’s not, that’s not what Noah was doing. God sent them.

Chris:
Yeah. And so it’s interesting that he talked about seven pairs of the ones for sacrifice.

Jeff:
So here’s what this means. And seven pairs of every bird.

Chris:
Every kind of bird. Every kind of bird, yes. And anyway, I just wanted to not pass over the fact that for those 40 days, Noah still was not, what’s the word I’m looking for? He was not exempt from his sacrifice and his worship to God. Oh, that’s correct. Right? So here he’s going through the storm, and yet he continues to worship God. Well, you know, there’s a sermon in there somewhere where, you know, during the storms in our lives, we’re not exempt from worshiping God. So Noah’s experiencing, quite honestly, the most horrific event physically in human history in terms of, you know, weather and tragedy and destruction, cataclysm, the whole thing. And yet he is still required to worship God and practice sacrifice And so it’s a good reminder for all of us that in the worst times of our lives, when tragedy strikes and when things are hectic around us and there’s a storm going on, that, you know, one of the best things that we can make a priority for is to continue to lean on and trust in and worship the God of the storm.

Jeff:
Yeah. Wow. That’s good.

Chris:
Yeah.

Jeff:
Well, let’s just wrap up right there. That was a great one.

Chris:
Yeah, there you go. And then it says seven days from now, and then it goes on to say that he was 600 years old. Well, here’s what most scholars believe is that it says before that he was 500 years old when he had his kids, and then he was given instruction. And so now it says he’s 600 years old, which means that most scholars believe that it took him 100 years to build this boat. So if it was just him and his family building the boat, that would actually make sense, wouldn’t it?

Jeff:
Makes sense to me. Yeah.

Chris:
Yeah. Like we’re talking like pulleys and levers.

Jeff:
Well, it’s all wood. So they got to go do the logging. Yeah. They got to build this structure, support the structure. They got to make the, you know, it’s not like they had nails and all those kinds of things. So they would have had to make everything that held it all together. They’d have to make the tar, just everything. It would have taken so long. I mean, it’s, it’s mammoth. It’s, what did it say? It’s 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, 45 feet high.

Chris:
So for those of us who try to measure something that big, the only thing that we can probably get our minds around is a football field. Yeah. Which is 300 feet. So it’s a football field and a half. Yes. Which is pretty crazy.

Jeff:
Yes. With the width of a football field and then three stories high.

Chris:
Three stories high.

Jeff:
But it’s, it’s higher than three stories, but there’s three levels. Right, so a story typically is figured out at 10 feet. This is four and a half stories high, but there’s only three levels, so God gave high ceilings in each of those, probably for draft and for breathability.

Chris:
breathability and not to mention, you know, we don’t know what it was like birds flying around. Yeah. Right. So, so yeah. So, so this idea that, you know, let’s answer this question. Okay. Could all the animals physically, is it, is it possible for all the kinds of animals to fit in an arc?

Jeff:
Yeah, so estimates, and this is in Life Application Study Bible too, but I’ve read this before, the estimates are that almost 45,000 animals could fit in the ark comfortably, right? You’d have to be able to feed them during that time. So if you had juvenile animals specifically, you could easily contain 40 to 50,000 animals in there. Then the Bible says it’s animals of every kind, which is a differentiation from every species. So you and I, right before this show started, it dawned on me that the Bible keeps talking about kind, but we asked, we asked Chat GPT, how many… Well, you asked Siri, didn’t you? I asked Siri first. Yeah, you asked Siri, I asked Chat GPT, and they said between seven and eight million species are on the planet. Right. Right. But then I was trying to get it to differentiate between, because I asked, how many kinds of animals are on the planet? And ChetGBT responded back to me, there are eight million species. And I said, well, differentiate between species and kind. And it wanted to give me this technical answer, scientific answer for species, but then said the term kind is unscientific. and I said, clarify it. So then it clarifies kind and gave kind of a scientific answer. Species being, you can have multiple types within a species. You know, one bird has a bigger beak, the other bird has a smaller beak. Those are two different species. They can breed

Chris:
Yeah, and a lot of it adjusting to their environment that they’re in.

Jeff:
One has, you know, brown feathers on its shoulders and others have white feathers on their shoulders. Same kind of bird, it’s just two different species. They’re subspecies. So when it talked about 8 million species, it’s talking about all the kinds and then all the subspecies of those kinds. But the reality is, Hey, let’s go down to dogs. There are lots of species, we would call them breeds now, lots of species of dogs, but ultimately it would only take a few. Maybe some wild African dogs and some wolves could create virtually all of the dogs through interbreeding, through breeding, through creating all the species. So the idea of kind in the Bible is those animals that can breed with each other. Dogs and cats can’t breed with each other. right? So those would be two different kinds. So I wouldn’t need a pug dog and a poodle and a wolf and a Rottweiler, and I wouldn’t need millions of these subspecies. I would just need the dogs that would be necessary to make all those subspecies. It’d be the same thing with birds. It’d be the same thing with, right? So then it’s fewer animals that you would need. You don’t need all 8 million species on the planet. Or if you go back then with all of the extinctions, there’s probably 10, 15, 20 million species on the planet.

Chris:
Yeah, so it says there’s six types of animals, which would fall into those kinds. There’s mammals, there’s reptiles, amphibians, birds, fish, and insects. So the ones that can fly and survive, you know, they could fly above and land on the top of the ark, or maybe they’re flying inside the ark. Now, keep in mind, the good news is all the fish could live in the sea. So Noah didn’t have to have any fish in the sea. So that’s one of the six kinds completely exempt from the ark. There’s about 5,500 types of species of mammals is what it says. So it’s interesting if the ark can hold, would you say 45,000 animals? So that would give you 22,500 couples.

Jeff:
Yes.

Chris:
Yes. Yeah. So, so it’s, it’s, it is definitely feasible. And I think also, uh, I remember this actually as a kid that actually, uh, we have this Genesis, um, and this is way before the ARC experience, right? Like those experts. But back then we had this Genesis expert and actually he came to answer the question where dinosaurs on the ARC and then, you know, all these, all these different types of things. But because he was a Genesis expert, he actually said not only were all the animals able to fit inside the ark capable of reproducing all the animals that exist today, but actually there’s extra room. He said, believe it or not, there’s actually extra room, which is crazy. But if you really do the math, that’s what you come out with.

Jeff:
Well, if you take all the different species, all the different kinds of cows on the planet, and then understand the reality is we only need two cows, can make all the rest of those through breeding, right? You just do that with all the different kinds of animals. So, you know, I told you I was arguing with ChatGPT about this back and forth about kinds, and it didn’t want to acknowledge kinds, it wanted to argue species. So then I finally asked it, is it true to say that while there are millions of species, there are only thousands of kinds of animals? And finally I said yes, that statement can be considered generally true if kind is interpreted as a broader category than species. There is. Which is exactly what I was trying to say. And kind then being a more general similarity such as basic morphology, ecological roles or other broader characteristics. It’s plausible to conclude that there are thousands of kinds of as opposed to millions of species. And it reflects a less granular, more generalized way of classifying living organisms, which naturally leads to a smaller number of groups or categories. And so this is exactly what’s happening here. This makes total sense to me. And I believe, you know, again, answers in Genesis would say that there was plenty of room on the ark, plenty of room for living space, plenty of room for all of the animals. People would say, well, you know, one barn of animals, it creates a tremendous amount of waste. Sure, but you also had a door, you had windows, right? That would be your whole job, is feeding the animals and cleaning the stalls for the whole year or so, a little longer that you were in the Ark. And I think that there was enough food, there was enough space for food. If you look at how huge is this, millions of square feet of space, right? Thousands, tens of thousands of square feet of space. make it very plausible that there was plenty of room for the food, for the living space, and for being able to haul all of these animals in at a time. So I read this as a totally plausible thing. Again, I believe in a Creator, and so I don’t think that this is an impossible thing. And then the Bible says that literally the rain came from above and below.

Chris:
And below, which we don’t really often think about. Right. But it said all the waters from the depths of the earth. What does it say? It exactly says all the underground waters erupted from the earth. Right. And the rain fell in a mighty and mighty torrents from the sky. So that’s pretty crazy. It came from below and above. Yeah. So.

Jeff:
So estimates show when you melt the polarized caps completely and that there is enough water in the oceans that depending on, you know, if you level out some of the depths through earthquakes and cracks and things like that, there’s enough water in the oceans to flood all of the land. on the planet. So you gotta remember, through earthquakes, through tectonic shifts, the trenches get deeper, the mountains get taller, right? That’s what’s happening. But if you level those out a little bit, there’s enough water to cover the entire planet. And so the Bible talks about it coming from underneath, and from above. And when you combine those two pieces, now that’s why we have to have the ice caps, right? It would be because of that. And so it’s, I think, very plausible. The math works. So while the Bible is not a science book, I can’t find anything that is contrary to a plausible scientific response in the Bible.

Chris:
Not only that, but the world can’t find, right? The world can’t find.

Jeff:
They just have to disagree, but they can’t show proof opposite.

Chris:
That’s right. Because if if it could have been disproven scientifically, like contradictory to science or physics or laws of nature or gravity or impossibilities, outside of the miracles, right, in the Bible, outside of the miracles, because obviously miracles are miracles, right? But if it could have been disproven, it would have been. Why? Because thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people have, you know, spent, you know, maybe even up to their very lives trying to disprove the Bible, and none have succeeded. Right, right.

Jeff:
Which is crazy. So again, while it’s not a scientific book, I’ve never found it to be inconsistent with anything it says about science. From the six days of creation, in exactly the right order for life to exist, on a planet, to even this, it’s plausible that the entire planet could be covered in water. It’s not implausible. And then it’s amazing, after this flood, life shortens. Life longer when all that water was in the atmosphere before, life less now, shorter. So in every area, it makes sense to me. It’s not a big leap, especially when you believe that there’s a creator. So I think you can look at these accounts and with confidence go, yeah, I totally believe it. The world will beat down on these stories because they can’t disprove them. So they’re just trying to make you feel bad about them. And I’m like, nope, I wear it like a badge of honor. I totally believe it.

Chris:
So during the hundred years that Noah built the boat, you would have to assume, it doesn’t talk about it, but you would have to assume that people would be asking questions. What are you doing? And he’s saying, oh, there’s going to be this great rain that comes down. Yeah. Now, some people say this is the first rain mentioned in the Bible. Some people would say maybe it was the first rain ever.

Jeff:
Yeah. Well, it said that in the garden there was no rain. It literally says that at the beginning. It said it had not rained yet. Rain had not yet come. Right. And that it was watered from the dew. Yeah. Right?

Chris:
So that’s the assumption. If it is a first rain, then imagine that crazy story. Water is going to fall from the sky. So Noah doesn’t have a single convert. There’s not a single family that said, I believe, let me jump into the arc with you. So, I mean, they believed I’m sure when it started happening. I can’t even imagine that, you know, scenario or scene of people wanting to get into the ark. Right. Let’s not even go there with our brains. But the idea though is that not a single person, you know, believed enough apparently, because 100 years of building an ark is a long time for questions.

Jeff:
Yeah, Hebrews 11 says that Noah warned the people.

Chris:
There it is. I knew there was a no convert clause.

Jeff:
It says, it was by faith that Noah built a large boat to save his family from the flood. He obeyed God who warned him about things that had never happened before. By his faith, Noah condemned the rest of the world and he received the righteousness that comes by faith.

Chris:
That’s the hall of faith. Yep. There you go. That’s great. Well, hey, that looks like our time. So we will continue this epic flood story next time on the Bible guys.