Animals on the Ark

A Reply to Warren H. Johns’ Paper

Sean D. Pitman, MD

DetectingDesign.com

June, 2004

I found Warren Johns’ paper to be very interesting, especially coming from a Seventh-day Adventist theologian. However, perhaps because of my rather limited experience, I did not find Johns’ arguments all that convincing. He argues that the author of the Genesis flood story was actually talking about a local flood and that, according to the author of this account, only herbivores (mostly domesticated) and not carnivore-type animals were taken on the ark.  This obviously required various carnivores and many types of non-domesticated animals to survive outside of the protection of the ark since many such animals are still alive today.

Clearly this point of is quite contrary to the more traditional SDA interpretation that all land-dwelling air-breathing creatures outside the safety of Noah’s ark were killed by a worldwide watery catastrophe.  Although by no means an expert in Hebrew language or interpretation, I was confused by many of the arguments used by Johns since, in my opinion, several of the key Hebrew words and phrases defined by Johns do not seem to me to necessarily or even usually mean what Johns claims they mean nor do they seem, in some important cases, limited to the situations that Johns suggests in relation to the Genesis flood story.

Remes and Sherets

Take, for instance, Johns’ declaration that the Hebrew word “remes” refers to “small domestic animals” and that the word “sherets” refers to “moles, mice, lizards, geckos, and snakes, or whatever crawls upon its belly without the use of legs.”  With the use of these definitions Johns argues that only remes went on and came off the ark leaving “reptiles, amphibians, moles, mice . . . etc” outside of the ark to face the flood and actually survive the flood – since it was only a local flood anyway. Of course this begs the question as to why an ark was needed at all. The obvious survival of such land-dwelling creatures outside the ark doesn’t seem to cause Johns to even wonder why an ark was needed to “save” certain types of land-dwelling animals or even Noah and his family at all.

In any case, in light of the argument that Johns does make, consider that in Hebrew the word for “creeping things” (Hebrew, remes), can in fact refer to reptiles, insects, and other small creatures (Strong, 1996). Davidson, in his Analytical Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon, defined remes as “a reptile; that which moves on the earth; …any land animal, in opposition to fowls” (1970, p. 685b). Remes is used in a variety of ways in the Bible. In Genesis 9:3, it refers to the realm of living, moving creatures—in contrast to plants. In not a single instance in which the word remes is used is a specific creature described. T.C. Mitchell of the British Museum of Natural History noted that remes “is unlikely to correspond exactly to any modern scientific category, referring rather to all creatures which appear to the observer to move close to the ground” (1974, p. 274). Certainly the word “remes” is not limited to the idea of “small domestic animals” as Johns suggests. This assertion seems to me to be pretty much baseless. The New Brown-Driver-Briggs-Gesenius Hebrew and English Lexicon suggests that the word remes conveys the idea of anything that has the motion of creeping, crawling, etc. (Brown, et al., 1979, pp. 942b-943a). H.C. Leupold, in his Exposition of Genesis, defined remes as:

…from the root meaning “to move about lightly” or to “glide about.” “Creepers” almost covers the term, however, “creeping things” is too narrow, for it does not seem to allow for bigger creatures like reptiles. “Reptiles” again is too narrow, for it does not allow for the smaller types of life. Everything, therefore, large or small, that moves upon the earth or close to the earth, having but short legs, may be said to be included (1942, 1:83-84).

Remes, used in reference to land creatures, is different from the Hebrew sherets, which apparently includes a broader spectrum of creatures. In Leviticus 11:20, for example, sherets is used to describe certain animals. The word describes “teeming, swarming, creeping things” (see Harris, et al., 1980, 1:957). The word remes is used to describe the movement of those animals under the category of sherets. So, God said: “Let there be moving creatures [sherets],” and He created creatures that moved by creeping (remes). Remes (a noun) includes reptiles and most insects (sherets) because they remes (a verb). As it is employed in Genesis 6:20, the term remes clearly excludes water-living creatures. 

(http://www.apologeticspress.org/rr/rr2001/r&r0107b.htm)

Behemah and Chay (Chayyah)

Johns then goes on to argue that “of the large mammals, only the domestic varieties (behemah) were on the ark” and that “the original Hebrew with its emphasis on the behemah” is evidence that other types of land animals were not included.  He argues that the Hebrew word, “behemah” refers to domestic animals or grazing hoofed animals and that the Hebrew word “chayyah” refers particularly to carnivores.  The main problem with this argument is that the author of the Genesis account of the flood uses both words to describe animals that were on the ark.

“All the animals (chay) and all the creatures that move along (remes) the ground and all the birds – everything that moves on the earth – came out of the ark, one kind after another.  Then Noah built an alter to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals (behemah) and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it.” (Gen 8:19,20). 

Several other places in the Genesis account also use the word “chay” to describe certain animals on the ark (Gen 6:7; 7:1-3,8,9).  Even so, Johns goes on to argue that the lack of the qualifier expression “’beasts of the field’ is “strikingly absent from the Flood Narrative.”  Since Johns concludes that this phrase, “beasts of the field” must refer to “herbivores and carnivores” and that the lack of the qualifying portion of this phrase “of the field” in the Flood Narrative must obviously mean that such wild beasts were not included in the animals taken on the ark.  This seems to me to be quite a strained argument especially considering the use of both behemah and chay to refer to the animals taken on the ark, even within the same passage – as well as the word for creeping things or “remes” which most certainly are not limited to just “domesticated” animals.  

Also, the author of Genesis does not refer to the animals that were not taken on the ark as “behemah of the field”, but simply as “behemah”.  By Johns’ logic, one might easily argue that since no qualifier was used to describe the beast left off the ark that all the wild animals were in fact on the ark – which is of course, ridiculous.

At the very least, the lack of a particular statement or phraseology (i.e., the presence of a negative) certainly does not carry the same weight, as compared to a positive statement or finding.  To base one’s case largely on the lack of something, in light of all the other very positive statements made by the author of Genesis, seems to me to be a bit of an overreaching argument if not downright desperate.

Other Arguments

I find the other aspects of Johns’ paper equally unconvincing and strained as those already discussed.  I especially fail to see how Johns can seemingly attempt to preserve the validity of the flood story in any sort of intact form while arguing that it was not a global catastrophe.  A local catastrophe simply makes no sense at all in light of the complete Genesis narrative, which is clearly written in a rather literal (vs. figurative) style. 

Johns doesn’t seem to address the issue of why an ark would even need to be built and why animals would even need to be preserved on such an ark if the flood was nothing more than a local calamity?  Why didn’t God just tell Noah to move somewhere else?  Also, why use a local flood to kill all the wicked people?  If many of the wild land-dwelling animals lived through the flood, as they obviously did since lions and tigers and bears are still here, why didn’t any of the people outside of the ark survive – according to the author of Genesis?  Were they all clustered together in this one local area for the 120 years that Noah preached a coming flood?  When the flood came, why didn’t they simply climb up to higher and higher ground to escape the flood?  One would think that at least a few people could have escaped a local flood in this manner or that at least a few people were actually outside the boundaries of this local flood at the time of its occurrence.

And why did the author of Genesis take such care to describe the feelings of God Himself as being greatly pained by the devastation of the flood?  God is even depicted as promising never to bring such a flood on the earth ever again and never to destroy all living creatures off the face of the earth with a flood.  The author then claims that God used the rainbow as a symbol of His promise that “Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life” (Gen 9:15).

Clearly then, if the author had been thinking to describe a local flood, this part of the flood story would be meaningless because there have been many local floods of magnificent proportions that have in fact destroyed a great deal of life and property.  But, none of these have ever come close to destroying “all life” from the surface of the earth.  Clearly the author, having written Genesis much later than the actual events described in the flood account, would be well aware of this fact.  Why then would this author make such a statement that never again would “all life” be destroyed by a flood in light of his knowledge that local floods and tremendous loss of life do in fact occur all the time on this planet?  This alone seems to indicate strongly that the author of the Genesis account was in fact intending to describe a truly worldwide catastrophe.

This is in fact how Isaiah, Peter, Paul and Jesus Himself read and understood the meaning of the author of the Genesis flood story.  Isaiah quotes God as repeating his promise made to Noah by saying, “To me this is like the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth” (Isa 54:9). Obviously Isaiah knew of local floods covering the earth.  How could he not?  What then is his understanding of Noah’s flood when he quotes God in this passage? Jesus also describes the second coming as being like it was in Noah’s day, which is certainly not thought to be a “local” event  (Lk 17:26).  Peter is even more explicit when he says, “But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the Day of Judgment and destruction of ungodly men.” (2Peter 3:5-7).  Clearly Peter is comparing Noah’s flood to the fired used to cleanse the earth during the Day of Judgment, which is most certainly not thought to be a “local” event. Even Ellen G. White, if one believes that she was an inspired prophet of God, goes as far as describing the Satan himself, who was forced to be amidst the roaring elements, as being in a state of fear during the flood – fearful that the calamity was so great that God might even include he and his angels in the general destruction of this planet. Certainly this doesn’t sound like some localized catastrophe or Satan would be constantly in fear of present annihilation.

It seems overwhelmingly clear to me that the author of Genesis to very special care to describe Noah’s flood in a very non-local way, affecting the entire planet and all people and animals that lived on the surface of the earth.  It seems to me that this description goes well beyond the more limited passages used by Johns’ where other local events, understood in context, are also described as affected the “face of all the earth”.  The author of Genesis takes special care several times to explain how everything that lived on the land that breathed air, including all mankind no matter where they lived on the earth, died in the waters of the flood.  It does not seem at all reasonable to me, as some have in fact suggested to me, that all the people living on the earth were somehow clustered together in one little valley to be wiped out by a local flood.  Perhaps the ark was nothing more than an sensational attraction to get all the people clustered together?  Certainly the ark makes no sense otherwise in light of such a local flood.  Again, given a local flood scenario, why did God tell Noah to build an ark instead of just move somewhere else?

Clearly, many other Biblical authors understood the Noah’s flood story as being universal in nature.  No Biblical author even hints at the idea that this deluge was some local calamity. One would think that such an important event in human history would be more accurately described if it were in fact just a local event.  Such inaccuracy from such an otherwise careful Biblical description is just not like the Bible – which has been proven time and again to be very historically accurate as far as the observations of the Biblical authors are concerned. 

Also, to argue that the use of “everlasting hills” in David’s description of the mountains as evidence that the mountain heights that we see today were also in existence before the flood is very strained in my opinion.  Clearly erosion happens and things change constantly. Even within one lifetime significant geologic changes can be recognized.  To argue then that David’s poetic description of “everlasting mountains” gives evidence of very high mountains existing before the flood is quite surprising to me, especially given Ellen White’s direct statement that there were no high mountains before the flood.  It seems to me that the Bible leaves the whole question open as to exactly how the mountains we see today were actually built.  Certainly the Bible does not rule out or speak at all against the idea that a huge catastrophe, giving rise to a worldwide watery deluge, might not also release enough energy to rapidly build very high mountain ranges as well as very large oceans with deep ocean trenches.  In fact, there is very good evidence that these geologic features have not existed in their current state for very long at all (see www.DetectingDesign.com).