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LOL. Well, I am not sure I have a satisfactory answer on this point. This is a question that is debated among commentators and more often than not simply glossed over. I do not usually have much regard for commentators but Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible does have something interesting to say on this that is worth considering. He says,
"A daughter, whether born alive or dead, if she goes with it her full time: then she shall be unclean two weeks; or fourteen days running; and on the fifteenth day be free or loosed, as the Targum of Jonathan, just as long again as for a man child: as in her separation; on account of her monthly courses; the sense is, that she should be fourteen days, to all intents and purposes, as unclean as when these are upon her: and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying sixty and six days; which being added to the fourteen make eighty days, just as many more as in the case of a male child; the reason of which, as given by some Jewish writers, is, because of the greater flow of humours, and the corruption of the blood through the birth of a female than of a male: but perhaps the truer reason may be, what a learned man (p) suggests, that a male infant circumcised on the eighth day, by the profusion of its own blood, bears part of the purgation; wherefore the mother, for the birth of a female, must suffer twice the time of separation; the separation is finished within two weeks, but the purgation continues sixty six days; a male child satisfies the law together, and at once, by circumcision; but an adult female bears both the purgation and separation every month. According to Hippocrates (q), the purgation of a new mother, after the birth of a female, is forty two days, and after the birth of a male thirty days; so that it should seem there is something in nature which requires a longer time for purifying after the one than after the other, and which may in part be regarded by this law; but it chiefly depends upon the sovereign will of the lawgiver."
"A daughter, whether born alive or dead, if she goes with it her full time: then she shall be unclean two weeks; or fourteen days running; and on the fifteenth day be free or loosed, as the Targum of Jonathan, just as long again as for a man child: as in her separation; on account of her monthly courses; the sense is, that she should be fourteen days, to all intents and purposes, as unclean as when these are upon her: and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying sixty and six days; which being added to the fourteen make eighty days, just as many more as in the case of a male child; the reason of which, as given by some Jewish writers, is, because of the greater flow of humours, and the corruption of the blood through the birth of a female than of a male: but perhaps the truer reason may be, what a learned man (p) suggests, that a male infant circumcised on the eighth day, by the profusion of its own blood, bears part of the purgation; wherefore the mother, for the birth of a female, must suffer twice the time of separation; the separation is finished within two weeks, but the purgation continues sixty six days; a male child satisfies the law together, and at once, by circumcision; but an adult female bears both the purgation and separation every month. According to Hippocrates (q), the purgation of a new mother, after the birth of a female, is forty two days, and after the birth of a male thirty days; so that it should seem there is something in nature which requires a longer time for purifying after the one than after the other, and which may in part be regarded by this law; but it chiefly depends upon the sovereign will of the lawgiver."
About the animals on the boat, there are really not that many basic animal groups and from those groups it was possible through breeding to bring forth a lot of different animals. For instance, a cat is a cat, from house cat to lion they are clearly all cats. You have the cat, canine, bear, weasel, that represents most of your predators in four animals. You have the cow, deer, antelope, horse, elephant, that represents most of your grazing animals. Squirrels, rabbits, beaver, rats, that represents most of your rodents. God is very practical(look at creation). After the flood they begin to breed and move to different parts of the world and produced various differences.
D
I remember this from a Bible study class.
There were approximately 150,000 species of animals. (This includes the extinct ones.)
First, remember half the animals on earth aren't "on earth." They live in water.
And then remember how many insects fit into that. Now when you take the average size of all animals together, (from the brontosaurus to the flea), the average size is the size of a sheep.
They move sheep in railroad cars. They take your average boxcar and add "floors" to it. And by doing so they can fit roughly 300 sheep in each car.
The size of the ark was roughly the size of battleship. Now, picture, in your mind, a barrage with full cargo. Got that picture? What are you seeing on the deck? Lots of trailors? Yeah, something like a boxcar on a train, right? So they can fit how many cars on one ship? (I live about two miles from the docks of Philly, and our docks seem to be where they import lots of cars, so we get stuck waiting for new cars to go from ship to immense parking lot one driver at a time, like most people get stuck waiting for frieght trains to go by. lol)
So, the animals would fit, albeit the floors would have to be at different levels for the big dudes, but that space is made up by the insects space requirements.
Also, there weren't merely just two of each species. My memory is foggy on who got which, but the idea was to have clean and unclean animals coming in. One type (I'm vacillating between clean or unclean, but logic tells me, they need more clean animals, so the family could eat) had seven, and the other type only had the two animals.
By the time you fit in all the animals there is still half a boat left. Herbivores! Herbivores and omnivores need plant products too. (Not to mention it's good to have seeds to plant once you're back on solid ground.) That's what filled the other half of the ship -- plants. Fodder for the non carnivores. (I get a kick out of remembering there was bamboo and eucalyptus in the storage, since pandas and koalas can only eat those plants.) I would have left the safe animals fend for themselves. Rodents had to be caged, or they'd eat a hole through the wood and sink the boat. Herd animals ought to be safe to roam around by themselves. Oh, and let a herd animal walk by the T. Rex cage or the lion cage, and that pretty much explains why there had to be seven of one kind of creature, while only two of another. They WERE food as well as breeding stock. Also, since rodents breed like rabbits, (including rabbits lol), that's reptile food.
Cancel out insect feeding, since you know the insect were roaming free. Remember full carnivores don't have to eat every day. And, all I'm left with is the image of emptying the coffers of vegetation, cleaning a heck of a lot of poop, (but not so much that the poor dung beetles don't get their dung), and there biggest problem seems to be figuring out who's for dinner. (Ahhh, give me a year, and each of those bigger animals would have a name and become pets. lol)
There were approximately 150,000 species of animals. (This includes the extinct ones.)
First, remember half the animals on earth aren't "on earth." They live in water.
And then remember how many insects fit into that. Now when you take the average size of all animals together, (from the brontosaurus to the flea), the average size is the size of a sheep.
They move sheep in railroad cars. They take your average boxcar and add "floors" to it. And by doing so they can fit roughly 300 sheep in each car.
The size of the ark was roughly the size of battleship. Now, picture, in your mind, a barrage with full cargo. Got that picture? What are you seeing on the deck? Lots of trailors? Yeah, something like a boxcar on a train, right? So they can fit how many cars on one ship? (I live about two miles from the docks of Philly, and our docks seem to be where they import lots of cars, so we get stuck waiting for new cars to go from ship to immense parking lot one driver at a time, like most people get stuck waiting for frieght trains to go by. lol)
So, the animals would fit, albeit the floors would have to be at different levels for the big dudes, but that space is made up by the insects space requirements.
Also, there weren't merely just two of each species. My memory is foggy on who got which, but the idea was to have clean and unclean animals coming in. One type (I'm vacillating between clean or unclean, but logic tells me, they need more clean animals, so the family could eat) had seven, and the other type only had the two animals.
By the time you fit in all the animals there is still half a boat left. Herbivores! Herbivores and omnivores need plant products too. (Not to mention it's good to have seeds to plant once you're back on solid ground.) That's what filled the other half of the ship -- plants. Fodder for the non carnivores. (I get a kick out of remembering there was bamboo and eucalyptus in the storage, since pandas and koalas can only eat those plants.) I would have left the safe animals fend for themselves. Rodents had to be caged, or they'd eat a hole through the wood and sink the boat. Herd animals ought to be safe to roam around by themselves. Oh, and let a herd animal walk by the T. Rex cage or the lion cage, and that pretty much explains why there had to be seven of one kind of creature, while only two of another. They WERE food as well as breeding stock. Also, since rodents breed like rabbits, (including rabbits lol), that's reptile food.
Cancel out insect feeding, since you know the insect were roaming free. Remember full carnivores don't have to eat every day. And, all I'm left with is the image of emptying the coffers of vegetation, cleaning a heck of a lot of poop, (but not so much that the poor dung beetles don't get their dung), and there biggest problem seems to be figuring out who's for dinner. (Ahhh, give me a year, and each of those bigger animals would have a name and become pets. lol)
Noah's arc was about the size of the ship I was on in the navy(we had lots of animals there to he,he). It could not even come close to having two of every particular kind of animal we have today. God brought the animals to Noah, so I think He brought two animals that represented each species and God produced the various differences after the flood. Probably just one set of cats, from them came the lion, tiger, jaguar, leopard, and all the other various cats. Same with the canines...anyway this does make sense because there was only so much space on that boat and only so many workers and only so much food.
D
Two years ago we bought ladybugs for our garden. (Container garden and our backyard is only 14 X 14, so I knew most of the ladybugs would fly away or starve, but we do have aphids.) I thought we'd be able to keep some though, but I didn't see any last year. I did see praying mantises. NOW I know what happened to the ladybugs. 
