After that nasty business with Adam and the Tree of Knowledge, Mankind had become increasingly corrupt. The world was full of wickedness, and humans did exactly as they pleased. Which was usually something naughty. Yahweh, the Creator of All, just couldn’t do a thing with them. So he decided to kill them — and every other living thing — just to be on the safe side.

For forty days, the Earth was consumed by water until it covered even the tops of mountains. The entire human race, and every land-based creature, was unceremoniously drowned and utterly wiped out. The whole planet became empty and silent; the Great Flood had destroyed all.

Oh, except for one man and his family. His name was Noah and he was the only one who ever paid Yahweh the slightest attention. So naturally his life was spared. He was told to build a huge ark to keep his family safe during the Flood, and to preserve a breeding pair of all the world’s animals.

Make no mistake, the ark was huge. It was the height of a four-storey building and the length of a football pitch. With three decks, it had a total capacity of 101,250 sq ft. We have measured this out in the field and reckon the project may have been viable. But we’re still calculating the number of animals it could have carried. Does anyone know the surface area of an elephant?

Noah’s neighbors thought he was crazy when they saw him building this enormous wooden boat in his backyard — and when tigers, worms and aardvarks started to queue up they were ready to call the men in white coats. No-one had ever seen a kangaroo before. But Noah had the last laugh when the Heavens opened and whole cities were swept away.

Safe in his ark, Noah spent the next few months tending to his passengers while the flood waters raged and slowly subsided. Yahweh had instructed him to bring enough food for every animal, but we can’t help wondering where he got the eucalyptus leaves to feed the koala bears. For that matter, we’re not entirely sure how the koala bears managed to get there at all. The dinosaurs certainly didn’t make it.

Noah’s ark now contained the only surviving animals on the planet. It was thus a haven for thousands of infinitely precious, critically endangered creatures.

We would love to applaud Noah for being the world’s most impressive conservationist, but we can’t. Because when the flood waters finally subsided, a delighted Noah stepped onto dry land, grabbed some spare animals and... slaughtered them as a sacrifice to the Lord. So much for conservation.

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Article last revised on May 14, 2019 by Rowan Allen.
Editors: Peter J. Allen, Chas Saunders

References: Coming soon.

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