By Fr. Kelvin Ugwu
Let us put sentiments aside.
Let us also set aside everything we were told about Noah’s ark and the flood while growing up.
Let us approach this story with a clear mind, as the intelligent beings we claim to be.
First, the idea of a flood that covered the entire earth, as the story is often presented, is not logical and borders on the impossible.
If the earth were flat, one could at least attempt an explanation. But the earth is spherical. Just as it cannot be daylight everywhere on earth at the same time, it cannot rain everywhere at the same time. Some parts of the world must necessarily experience dryness while others experience rainfall.
For the entire earth to be flooded, the planet as a globe would have to be completely submerged in water. That would require a volume of water that does not exist on earth. Such a scenario is not just unlikely, it is absurd.
Now let us consider the animals.
As of today, scientists estimate that there are over two million identified species of animals, with many more yet undiscovered. Even if we limit ourselves to land animals alone, we are still dealing with tens of thousands of species, excluding insects.
Yet the biblical story gives the impression that all land animals survived solely because they entered Noah’s ark in pairs.
This immediately raises serious questions.
An ark capable of containing pairs of all land animals, along with food, water, and living space for human beings, would have to be unimaginably large. For context, The Gambia, one of the smallest countries in Africa, has a land area of about 11,295 square kilometres. The ark described in Genesis does not come anywhere close to such a scale.
Then there is the issue of time.
Many biblical chronologies place the flood narrative around 2300 BCE. By that time, Africa had already been inhabited for tens of thousands of years. In fact, the oldest known fossils of anatomically modern humans were discovered at Jebel Irhoud in Morocco and date to about 300,000 years ago.
This means it is historically and scientifically impossible for black people to have originated from Noah and his sons after a global flood.
Now let us talk logistics.
How do you keep lions and rams in the same confined space? Even if we assume they were restrained, what exactly were carnivorous animals fed with for over a year? Were other animals slaughtered to feed them? If so, how did the species survive in pairs?
How were crocodiles housed? What about venomous reptiles like snakes? What about animals with highly specialized diets?
And are we to believe that from one pair of dogs came all the breeds we have today, from Chihuahuas to Great Danes, German shepherd to the bingos in Iyana-Ipaja. . .in just a few thousand years?
So yes, when people dismiss these stories as fairy tales, I understand where they are coming from. Taken literally, much of it does not just lack logic, it contradicts everything we know about geography, biology, and history.
But here is the mistake many people make: they stop here.
Before we dismiss the story as nonsense, we must ask a more intelligent question:
Where did this story come from in the first place?
That is where the real conversation begins.
(To be continued)
