In the spiritual this is possible, not sure I could make a case scripturally for it, Noah would represent the single person to save out of an area, and on whole the single person of the planet as all those ‘Noah(s)’ would be acting as the single person. This would also allow much smaller taking of animals per Noah and much variation of the story per society.
Just out of curiosity, what is the original Hebrew word that got translated as “kind” and what did it mean?
Since there is no evidence of a world wide flood during human history, and since there is plenty of evidence of local floods throughout human history, I’d say that Occam would indicate that these myths originated out of simple human experience, embellished to be a good story to tell around the camp fire. Since the Noah story didn’t even originate with the Hebrew tribes but came from Mesopotamia, I’d say that it was simply borrowed (as a story) to make a point that the early authors of the bible wanted to make.
-XT
I believe it’s baramin. A subset of creationists have tried to construct some taxonomic framework based on this, but it’s all smoke and mirrors, no actual testable statements or anything concrete.
“It’s OK to kill almost everyone in a fit of rage…” Almost. Qualifiers are important. 
Bit like Job… “It’s OK to kill innocent people on a bet, as long as you replace them with equivalent people later”.
Taken as in modern translations: after their kind,
Word used = לְמִינֵ֗הוּ
Transliteration : le·mi·ne·hu
Strongs: 4327
Definition: kind, species
Origin: from an unused word
From this origin it would seem like this usage in scripture may define it.
Though Buddha would claim that everything is interrelated.
A series of small floods all over creation may equal one great flood. At least in the spiritual and also the physical end result.
Or, they could indicate that flooding is a normal and natural phenomena throughout the world, and one that peoples world wide have had to deal with, and that there is nothing spiritual, mystical or magical about them…they are memorable simply because of how much destruction and death they can cause. Even today.
-XT
Which requires diversification at a rate orders of magnitude greater than the evolution that creationists don’t want to acknowledge (who are also often the folks wanting the ark account to be literal). There is also no physical evidence that this rapid diversification took place.
So you’ve exchanged one set of problems for another set of very much larger ones.
None of the above is particularly consistent with the distribution or appearance of animals in the fossil record, the distribution of extant species today, or what we know about heredity, genetics, etc. You’ve cooked up a pseudoscientific explanation that, whilst it sounds like it might be bridging the gap between science and myth, actually does nothing of the sort - at the same time as asserting the existence of entities and processes that are neither described in the Bible, nor make any sense in terms of physical science.
Come on, people - the Bible says “kinds” so that’s what it meant. He only had to take a pair of the bear kind, then when they got off the boat they adapted out into the various bears we have in the world now. There was also the “beetle” kind which has done a really over-the-top job of branching out in the last 4000 years.
Noah and his family were of the simian kind, similar to African monkeys, and after the boat trip all the monkeys and apes (including humans) have descended from them.
It is in line with scriptures, in that we are to do what we can to the best of our ability, and God is totally responsible for the rest. Noah would only be required to save the animal kinds he knew about and that came to him, God would have to do the rest.
It is also very much like God to make the ark more into a biodome then a smelly stable for the person He finds favor with.
So the boarding part and the journey of the ark is not as far fetched at least as the animals are concerned. And seems to make sense in the light of scriptures.
It does have some apparent contradictions with science with some other aspects which so far can only be done with woo. My argument is science and historical work has not come up with a acceptable answer except God used woo, which He could, but doesn’t always and there may be a more natural answer.
I agree with this - there’s plenty of evidence that the stories of Noah, Moses, and others (but especially the legend of Moses) were shared between differing tribes/nations. It’s entirely possible that the new Israelites post-Egypt sort of compiled/merged them together to help shape a people’s history.
If you look at the Jewish tradition of midrash - the mythical filler stories that tell us tidbits that aren’t in the Torah, eg, King David was a redhead - why not take it a step further and address the Torah as something to be taken into historical context and not literally?
Why not come right out and say that God magicked it then? Why go through all this folderol of trying to fit it into the world of physics and science we know? Noah could not have built an ark to the dimensions quoted. An ark of those dimensions could not have held all of the animals it would have had to in order to save the species we know of today (without magical means). They wouldn’t have been able to logistically support all of the species we know of today for the duration quoted (without magical means). There would have been no way for many of the species that survived to have even gotten to where Noah was (without magical means). There is no way Noah could have kept the ark afloat based on the dimensions of the craft (without magical means) in the kinds of conditions described in the bible (i.e. a world wide flood). There is no way such a flood could have occurred (without magical means) since there isn’t enough water on earth to have flooded the entire planet. There is no way that even if you could transport the water here that it could rain fast enough and hard enough to have caused a world wide flood described in the bible (without magical means). There is no way the water could have or would have just ‘receded’ afterwards (without magical means). There is no evidence that there WAS such a flood, so it had to be magicked away afterward. There is no evidence that all species dispersed from a central location in the Middle East at any period in time, and lots of evidence that species inhabited the regions they inhabit for periods of time long before humanity was even around.
And on and on. So, why bother trying to link this story with reality? Why not just come right out and say that God did it, and it was magical, and that’s the end of it? Or even go a step further and just admit that it’s just a STORY…and one that didn’t even originate in the bible??
-XT
ID vs. Creationism?
Which I guess raises the question: are there folks in the US who want the Noachian flood story taught as actual history in public schools, and thus need the story to be both literal and non-magical?
OK, here is the misunderstanding, I am trying interpreting the story spiritually, and some of it does line up with reality, but that is not my intention, though it is awesome that it does.
I basically stated my model which is a pair of each kind of animal entered the ark. ‘Kind’ would be a certain animal spirit, which would represent many species in that kind.
This is not to line it up with reality, but because I have found that when God asks something it is usually actually far easier then we make it out to be - a lot of this is from personal experience. In this case for God to make it easier, Noah was given much fewer animals then the story looks like.
Also being couped up with a large number of animals in stalls seems miserable, but God makes things easier for His Loved children, so I would go for a bio-dome setting where the animals would take care of themselves would be much more how God works.
Spiritually the word ‘kind’ is brought to my attention, what does that mean? It is obvious from the above it is not species, but a number of animals much less then that. The Native American notion of a local community of animals and plants comes to mind, as well as the Nazca lines, along with theories of mother earth and her life in heaven. From the above those things seem to form a initial reasonable definition of a kind, and lo and behold it agrees with reality, Noah was certainly capable of transporting a sample of local animals, but the agreement with reality was not the end goal.
How the earth would repopulate all the species from the kinds, I really didn’t address, may require woo, may just require a spiritual interpretation that again agrees with reality.
(btw the water came from rain and ground water combined )
There isn’t enough water on earth to cause a global flood as described in the bible. Saying it fell as rain and came from underground doesn’t answer the fundamental(ist) question…where did the water come from and where did it go afterwards? And how could it have fallen/risen fast enough to cause a flood as described and not kill everything on earth? Sure…magic and Gods will and all that, but if you are going to try and keep a natural model then the math doesn’t work. If you are just going to say it was magic, then I’m good with that…there is zero evidence, but faith doesn’t need any of that evidence stuff.
There are a bunch of cites like this, but check out section 5 if you don’t get where I’m coming from here. I’ve seen more detailed explanations, but this one covers the basics.
If you are going to go with ‘animal spirits’ that represent entire categories of species then why bother with even attempting a natural explanation? Hell, it doesn’t even make sense (to me) from a spiritual perspective. Why didn’t God just kill everything and everyone except the chosen, then rebuild the same way he presumably built and created everything in the first place? Why all this loopy gathering up animals (or ‘animal spirits’), putting them on a wooden boat (with no propulsion, and that would take divine intervention not only to build in the first place but to keep afloat without a means of keeping it’s head into the wind, if nothing else)? Why would God even need to do all this silly flood stuff, for that matter?
Why would a God that could create the universe bother with games like that? I realize that faith doesn’t follow logic, but it just seems silly to me, when a more reasonable explanation is simply that the stories are stories, used by people to try and describe chaotic and difficult events, and then re-used and re-told and eventually incorporated into the bible for the purpose of making a point that the writer wanted to make in a way that the reader/listener could follow and understand? That seems much more likely to me than having to go through all this loopy ‘animal spirits’ and ‘kinds’ thing…not to mention all the other supernatural stuff that would have to happen to make the tale possible.
It would certainly require woo…basically the species would have had to have been teleported back to where they originally came from, and in a lot of cases past evidence of them continuously occupying said area would also have had to have been teleported back. For instance, humans have been in Australia for 10’s of thousands of years. 40-50k IIRC. Did the flood happen 40-50k years ago? Where is the evidence that the tale goes back that far? If not, how did the Australians get there, all drown, then all get back after the flood? Where is the evidence that their population narrowed whenever the flood supposedly happened? Same with people in the Americas? They have been here for 10’s of thousands of years…did the flood happen before that? If not, again, where is the evidence that everyone died off, then came back sometime later? Same with Polynesia…and that’s just for humans. The same thing would go for species around the world. Say the marsupials in Australia? Why and how did they get from Australia to Noah, how did they get back, and why didn’t any of them stop somewhere else along the way to breed…or even just to die? Why do we have a continuous (and unbroken) record of them being in Australia for 10’s of thousands of years if they all died in a flood then came back later on?
The story simply falls apart when you look at the evidence, if you want to try and keep a natural framework. If you just want to say ‘Well, God did it’, then stick with that and magic. Like I said, I’m good with that, though I think the whole thing is rather silly. Me, I don’t believe in God, but I have no problem with others having faith. I’m a ‘whatever floats thy boat’ kind of guy. 
-XT
There’s a lot of fun in watching lion behavior in housecats. And noting how a female’s belly sags after a litter. And how a male’s shoulders get all burly, mane or not.
I am a student of dogs, but cannot always sex them without an examination I’d rather not make (okay, it’s usually obvious). But cats? It takes a glance, large or otherwise. Housecats’ behavior and physiology are nearly identical to Large Cats, except for size. They are closely related.
Also, Noah put two of each unclean beast and seven of each clean beast. So that was quite a zoo. It also says that the Ark was approximately the size of a football field with three levels. (For some reason, the bottom level was trash…so apparently they didn’t want to litter. Wtf?)
I’ve actually never sexed a dog OR a cat…generally I stick to my own species. 
(Just some revenge for the JAQing comment in another thread)
-XT
XT, I follow your logic but, why sell out and allow the “magic” card to be played, if magic existed, we would see it in modern times, there is no REAL magic other than smoke and mirrors and modern illusion techniques. Did god ban all magic in modern times?? What does he have to gain from this 2000yr ban on magic? 