How Big was Noah's Ark and What is Significant About Its Size?

The story of Noah's Ark is one of the most well known stories in the Bible. Everybody knows that the ark was pretty big. After all it had to carry Noah, his family and a lot of animals. Do you know just how big Noah's Ark was? What is the significance of the size of Noah's Ark?

How Many People were on Noah's Ark?
Noah's family was allowed to go on Noah's Ark with him. Noah's family included his wife, his three sons (Shem, Ham and Japheth) and each of his sons' wives. There had to be room for 8 people on the ark.

How many Animals were on Noah's Ark?
Most people think that God told Noah to bring two of each animal. That is pretty close but God actually says to bring two of each unclean animal but 7 of each clean animal. The bigger question is how many different types of animals are there? There are actually millions of difference species but how many were on the ark? My guess is that only the animals that couldn't survive in water would be on the ark. Does a turtle need to be on Noah's Ark when it can swim? It is probably impossible to ever guess how many total animals were on Noah's Ark. Any number that somebody gives you is a complete hypothesis. All we know for sure is Noah's Ark had enough room for 8 humans and a whole lot of animals.

What was the Size of Noah's Ark?
Fortunately the Bible does go into detail about the exact size of Noah's Ark. In Genesis chapter 6, verse 15 God gives instructions to Noah. "This is how you are to build it; The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high."

What is the Significance of the Size of Noah's Ark?
In all the time that you've known the story of Noah's Ark have you ever once thought about how large it is. Let's put the size of Noah's Ark in perspective. At the time that Noah's Ark was built it was the largest ship that we know of. The ship that finally passed Noah's Ark as the largest ship ever built was the Great Eastern.

Everybody has a different hypothesis about when the flood happened. One of the more common estimates is that Noah's Ark was built in 2300 BC. The Great Eastern was built in 1858 AD. If those numbers are accurate it took 4,158 years for somebody to build a larger ship than Noah's Ark. Can you imagine that? Noah's Ark was such a large structure that nobody had the means to top it for 41 centuries.

The next question probably is, how could Noah build a ship that large? The Bible doesn't say how many years God gives Noah to build the ark. Noah and his family could be working on the ark for 100 years. We also don't know for sure that Noah and his family had no help. Perhaps Noah got help from others or paid for help. Either way it is important to realize that Noah's Ark was an impossibly large ship at the time, it was an impossibly large ship 41 centuries later, but somehow through God's will it was built and Noah's Ark was successful on its journey.