You know it says 2 of each type of animal, not every damn breed.
For example there is what, 4,000 breeds of cat. You only need 2 cats though, who cares if it is a tiger or a manx.
Also there is NOTHING in the bible against evolution. It just notes that God created Adam in his own image. For all we know God could be a monkey... in which case we could've then evolved from his original design. After all that is what every creater is designed to do, evolve to survive in thier environment.
Also if you look back to the prehistoric times, with the Wooly Mammoths and such, there were a damn sight less species running around crowding the planet (remember they'd just be killed of trying to evolve again) ... as such it isn't inconcieveable.
The Ark would've had to have been quite large, and iirc the bible does state it's size. It would've been something quite remarkably large for the time, perhaps equal to a Merchant Vessel of thew 1600s is what I remember hearing once.
Those things were capable of holding over 500tonnes of cargo.
While there are alot of plot holes in the story, it can to a degree be explained away given your wish to learn how possible it is / was.
I still don't think the bible should be taken as a historically accurate book. After all you know that a legend is never the same as a real story... but the basics of the story tend to be real.
I wouldn't be surprised if Noah created an arc and saved just the animals he could find around his local area. I mean if you think about it, in say just your local area, you might have some sheep, cows, goats, dogs, cats, rabbits, etc...
As people didn't travel as much until sea-faring became really popular or really feasible, i mean look at history and it was only in the 1,300 that it was begining to be used for migrating purposes. Long trips before then were generally unheard of, even more was actually leaving shore.. ships used to just hop from port to port rather than actually go out to sea.
I mean when you think about it, until the Romans (100bc-ish) people really didn't see animals of other nations. Like when Julius Ceaser used Elephants in Britain, many of the locals were scared because they'd never seen such beats before.
As such an elephant wouldn't be on thier lists of known animals.
Try not to take everything at exacting values is all I'm saying.
I mean fgs they believed they lived for 900-1000years at the start of the bible, when in reality 900-1000 luna months (60-70yo) was more likely. Remember the Christian years are different to other nations, and not what they originally had in the bible... it is more likely they would've gone by the passing of the moon to mark a year. As it would've been seen as a complete revolution of the universe around them.
:: coughs :: I shouldn't date any more Archeologist lol
