Evolutionists often scoff at the idea of Noah bringing two of every species into the Ark. They look at the number of species today and conclude that it would have been impossible for such a menagerie to be packed into a floating vessel of wood. Even with organizational help from IKEA, fitting millions of species into one boat is a tough pill to swallow. But how many animals really were on the ark? That specific question will be addressed in future post, however understanding the term baramin will help set the stage for that question. What is a baramin?
When God created the animals, the Bible says that He created each one “according to its kind” (Genesis 1:24). Every plant and creature was created according to its kind (min in Hebrew). These created (bara in Hebrew) kinds have been referred to as baramin by creationists. Roger Patterson defines baramin as follows:
Created Kind (Baramin): the original organisms (and their descendants) created supernaturally by God as described in Genesis 1; these organisms reproduce only their own kind within the limits of preprogrammed information, but with great variation.
Today we use a classification system based largely upon the work of Carl Linnaeus. The distinctions we use today (kingdom, phylum, class, etc.) are manmade titles for the animals God created. The distinction in mind with the biblical use of the word “kind” may not fit perfectly within our modern system. Therefore, we cannot infer that Noah brought two of every species into the Ark, but rather two of every created kind (baramin). For example a tiger (Panthera tigris) and lion (Panthera leo) are today considered separate species. They can, however, interbreed (check out Hercules). It is likely the lion and the tiger both came from the same baramin. Therefore, it is likely Noah did not need both a tiger and a lion on the Ark, but rather a big cat baramin, for example. Though a tiger and a lion cannot produce fertile offspring, other “species” have been able to “cross” and do just that. National Geographic News reported:
A growing number of studies has been presented as evidence that two animal species can combine to produce a third, sexually viable species in a process known as hybrid speciation. Newly identified examples include both insects and fish. This evolutionary process, while known to be common in plants, has long been considered extremely rare among animals. Animals are generally thought to evolve the opposite way, when a single species gradually splits into two over many generations. But some scientists now believe that the behavior that has been called animals’ sexual blunders could be an important force in their evolution.
This came as no surprise to creationists, who recognize that God likely built into the various baramin the genetic information to produce a plethora of different offspring. The great variety we see within the dog baramin today is evidence of just how diverse one created kind can be! It is possible that a new “species” can emerge from the original baramin that will be unable to interbreed with the parent population. This, however, is not molecules-to-man evolution. Rather, this is a loss of information leading to a group of animals that still belongs to the original baramin, but for any number of physiological reasons is no longer able to interbreed with other descendants from the same baramin. It is important to note that “speciation has never been observed to form an organism of a different kind, such as a dog species producing a cat” (G. Purdom, PhD, Molecular Genetics).
So, the original baramin that God created approximately 6,000 years ago could certainly have contained the genetic information to produce a wide variety of different subgroups. When evolutionists, such as Bill Nye the Science Guy, says things like, “to get from 7,000 species 4,000 years ago to 16 million today, we’d need to find 11 new species every day,” they are overlooking (among other things) the biblical concept of baramin.
Reformed Hope 