My wife and I are currently studying through the book of Genesis and this question came up.  God said in Genesis 7:4, "For after seven more days I will cause it to rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and I will destroy from the face of the earth all living things that I have made."  What about the fish?  What happened to them?  We see fish today, so obviously they survived a global flood, but how?  Did Noah take fish onto the ark?

I did some research on the subject, but before I give my account, what's your take on this?

Fish shouldn't have had any problems surviving it, if you ask me. I can't prove it with the bible as it doesn't mention fish in the passage. I don't think Noah needed to help the fish, as they could just swim closer to the surface, if there were problems down below...

Noah building a watertight aquarium to contain 2 of each kind of water creature, not to mention the weight of the water, does seem to be a problem of biblical proportions. I'm not sure I have a solution to the problem, perhaps you could write a well worded letter to the Author?

If you do, would you ask Him which of Noah and his sons and their wives were Asian, White, Black, Native American and Hispanic? I've always had a hard time figuring out how all those different races were descended from a Jewish person but were eventually declared not Jewish and unworthy to enter His kingdom (until the new covenant with Christ).

I would also like to make it clear that while my question and comment come across as condescending or humorous, I'm bringing up genuine questions that may have been stumbling blocks in the faith of millions of people (including myself). I'm also favoriting this thread because I'm EXTREMELY interested to read the various answers for the fish question.

thephantombrain :  I will do my best to answer your questions from a biblical perspective.  Allow me some time to think on this and to research your questions if you don't mind  Your questions are super valid and deserve an answer of course, but just know it's not going to be answered with a couple of words.  Essay deluxe pending...

I want to clarify, I'm not looking to prove anyone right or wrong and I hope your research proves to be fruitful. The faith of billions is not something for me to destroy. Essay deluxe anticipated.

darthyoda : Wouldn't the water have been much too polluted for fish to swim in even at the surface? The amount of decomposing corpses of men and animals would have been toxic for the fish. I'm still going to have to lean towards some kind of epic on-board aquarium.

thephantombrain : One problem with your theory. They didn't have glass. How did he feed the fish? You see, the water was miles high, it wasn't a little flood, like what we have. Since the water covered the entire earth, it would have parts where less sediment came up.

thephantombrain :

I don't think that the fish had any problems, simply because they had plenty of water outside. I don't really see a problem with sediment, cuase even so there are probably plenty of spots without it. Probably the places that already had a sea nearby. I dunno, but I'm certain God had it all planned out. ^^'

As for the racial question. It's just simply a factor of minor genetic changes.

there are nearly 300 different flood legends in the entire world, so I'm sure each race came from just Noah and his sons, (and their wives too). Over the course of time, I see a certain genetic traits becoming more outstanding in said gene pools, like Africa, India, And Europe.

oh my gosh! I'm doing an in-depth study of the bible right now, and although I've moved beyond it, this is something I brought up to my husband this week and something I've been thinking a LOT about.  As I read, I can't help but notice how important water is in the Bible (duh, but I'm taking a closer look at it, even in cases where we might not think to).  

I honestly do NOT think Noah took any aquatic life on board the arc, but I can't say more at the moment because I have work to do.  If someone will remind me on Monday, I'd love to provide more input.  Favoriting, for sure!  

It is my belief that the Genesis Flood was not a geographical universal flood but rather a anthropologically universal meaning that the flood did not cover the whole earth but rather covered the land in which humans resided. So while mankind was destroyed by the flood, god did not have to cover the whole earth to do so. Because of this the fish would be able to survive in there natural environment.

thephantombrain :   I do not believe that all of man could have perished in the Flood . The flood was not all encompassing of the earth and there for it is reasonable to assume that  people of other nations survived. The tribes that descended from Noah encountered other tribes of unknown origins. Take for example those in the land of Egypt people who were not descended for Noah yet have a vital role in the post deluge bible. 

I do believe that Noah doesn't need to gather the fish in the sea. In looking at the text, there is a huge emphasis on land animals and birds, but not on aquatic animals.

"Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground, according to its kind, two of every sort shall come in to you to keep them alive." (Genesis 6:20)

Notice that birds are mentioned on their own, bugs (creeping things) are mentioned on their own, and then you have "animals" which is a general term for us, but if we check other Bible translations and the original Hebrew "bĕhemah" (http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H929&t=KJV), the definition of this word is for "cattle, beasts". This is showing that (even though my translation doesn't want to put an emphasis on it, because it can be defined as "animal") it was only referring to land animals.

You can also cross reference to an earlier verse when God was talking about human's dominion of animals, saying that they have "dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26) Here, Genesis was specific in saying fish, bird, livestock, and creeping thing. This is to emphasis that Man is dominant over all animals created, while Noah only needs to bring what was asked of him.

When they talk about gathering the clean and unclean animals, if you look at the list, unclean animals do not include exclusively water animals either, and the clean animals based on the previous word analysis is only talking about land animals. From this we can conclude that Noah didn't need to bring fish onto the ark.

rjfmoulton : Just to clarify that the nation of Egypt is a descendant of Noah according to Genesis 10:

"The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan." (Genesis 10:6) Ham is Noah's son.

play4fun : Sorry about the confusion my bible stated (Gen 10:6) Ham's sons: Cush, Mizraim, Put, Canaan. After looking into Mizraim I now see that Mizraim is also the Hebrew word for Egypt given to them because of the person they were descended from. My mistake. 

rjfmoulton : Just wondering, What translation do you use? (It isn't important, but I wanted to just check.) You see the translation isn't the really important part. It's the source. The Greek, New Testament, and Hebrew, Old Testament, are the real sources. If they say something, that's how it is. In this case, the original says that all came from Noah. (And his sons, but in effect it's the same.)

thephantombrain:
darthyoda:
play4fun:
Singelli:
Sword legion:

I've just summoned the people who showed interest / replied to this, just in case you miss it ;p

I've also let this marinade long enough, so here goes.

Although an epic onboard aquarium would've been quite cool, it was not the case because the idea is dismissed by Genesis 7:13-16 and Genesis 7:21-23.  play4fun has already touched on this as well by referring to other verses from Genesis and I'm basically just re-iterating some of the things he mentioned.  However, if you do not believe or take the Genesis account as truth (or the
whole Bible for that matter), then this would be a problem for you.  In the referenced biblical text, it clearly shows that God only brought to the Ark representatives of all the created kinds of air-breathing, land-dwelling creatures.  Water-dwelling creatures would surely have been able to survive in the Flood waters and there are many plausible explanations for how freshwater and saltwater fish could have survived in spite of the water conditions during the Flood.  I am not going into all the detail.  This is just a short summary of potential survival strategies.  Before I go into this, I would also just like to mention that it's important to realise that the Flood was a total global flood and not just a localized event.  I'll explain later the problems of a non-global flood theory.

Heavy rainfall over the land would have quickly filled river basins and such flooded rivers would have emptied out into the oceans as freshwater blankets.  These massive freshwater outflows from the continents would combine with the rainfall over the oceans to form freshwater layers sitting on top of the salty ocean waters, technically known as halocines that are stable for extended time periods.  You actually get these type of scenarios today where rivers flow into the sea, called salt-wedge estuaries.  Fish flushed out from land aquatic systems could have continued to survive in these highly "stratified", strong density gradients of freshwater.  Both marine and freshwater organisms are found even today, living in the same water column, but within their preferred water conditions. These water layers might even have survived strong winds if the depths of the freshwater layers were great enough to prevent internal current mixing. Turbulence may also have been low at high latitudes for this layering to occur.  So, situations are quite likely to have occurred during the Flood where freshwater and marine fish could have survived in water suited to them, in spite of being temporarily "moved" from their normal habitats.

Another possibility is that the eggs of marine organisms survived the Flood to then hatch later after the Flood and re-populate the oceans.  These organisms might have done better than full grown fish, for example, to survive the harsh water conditions during the Flood, because the "shell" of the eggs would maintain the necessary conditions within the eggs for embryo survival.  Many aquatic creatures however were killed in the Flood, because of the turbidity of the water, changes in salinity and temperatures.  The geological record testifies to this with shallow water marine invertebrates alone accounting for an estimated 95% by number of the fossil record.  So, many aquatic creatures probably became extinct as a result of the Flood, but many fish must have survived as they were not taken aboard the Ark and yet they are in today's oceans, lakes and rivers.  There are more species of fish today than any other group of vertebrates, which possibly attests to their ability to hybridize and diversify.  

There are obviously, as I've already mentioned, many other possible scenarios that could have contributed to the survival of the fish which made it possible for Noah not having to take them aboard the Ark, but I'll stop here for now.

rjfmoulton:  "It is my belief that the Genesis Flood was not a geographical universal flood but rather a anthropologically universal meaning that the flood did not cover the whole earth but rather covered the land in which humans resided."

There's a problem with this "belief" or theory which I'll address by asking a couple of questions.  Why would God put Noah to the job of building such a big boat? Why didn't He say, "Move out of this plain, Noah, over to the next mountain and get into that valley over there cause this thing is going to get flooded"?  How could the ark be deposited on Mount Ararat and how could the waters cover Mount Ararat fifteen feet above which is seventeen thousand feet high? How could the waters just be piled up in that one area without being dispersed around the face of the earth? So those who try to just make this a local flood have many problems. Why bring all the animals in? It would not at all be necessary if it were just a localized flood.

@thephantombrain:  So where did all the races come from?  To stay true to forum rules, I will address this in a separate thread and summon you in on that.

Oi.  All the summons failed.  If someone could please summon these folks to this thread it would be greatly appreciated

thephantombrain:
play4fun:
Singelli:
darthyoda:
Sword legion:
rjfmoulton:

thephantombrain : Summon fail... 
Singelli : Look above ^
play4fun : ^
Sword legion : ^ 
rjfmouton: ^ 

I have to agree with you SoL@R, it does need to be a Global Flood, if God wanted to judge mankind for his sin, he wouldn't have judge a small group of them, because they were the worst. He judged all who did evil. The fish could have survived in both Egg and Adult form, but I don't know which would have been the case, but I do know that what you said about the water "layers" with salt, does make sense. I would agree with that! 

Can you summon me to the other thread that you are going to make on the races? I would like to see it. 

I won't summon myself, because I read this already, lol.

SoL@R :
Thank you for the wonderful insights! I've always been of the belief that aquatic life was untouched during the Great Flood (as far as not dying off, I mean), but I didn't know all those little fun facts you gave about fresh and salt water layers.  Actually, I had never even thought about the two types of water and what kinds of problems it could cause if mixed.

Thank you again... it was a lovely read.  

Also, I agree with you on the whole 'localized' flood idea.... it's just crazy!  Concerning both topics: the bible specifically mentions creatures that FLY and crawl on the earth to go into the ark.... and the bible also  mentions that the waters of the flood covered the whole world... on many accounts.

I can see how people that don't believe in the infallibility of God's Word would be confused though, which is why it's so important to establish that quality before moving into such debates.