A study of mitochondrial DNA has concluded that humans and 90% of animal life came into being from one set of parents between 200,000 t0 100,000 years ago.  In their study, two geneticists, Mark Stoeckle from New York’s The Rockefeller University and David Thaler from Switzerland’s University of Basel, analyzed the DNA of five million animals encompassing 100,000 species before reaching their conclusion.

Their study published in Human Evolution, counters the theory of evolution that requires animals to have slowly evolved over millions of years.

Based on their study, most animals and all humans came from a single set of parents at roughly the same time.

For animals to have derived from a single set of parents, the researchers concluded that some cataclysmic event must have taken place in the distant past to force a restart of human and animal life. For the record, the duo still believe evolution involving millions of years preceded this single event.

Addressing this issue, David Thaler said:

“This conclusion is very surprising. I fought against it as hard as I could. Ice ages and other forms of environmental change, infections, predation, competition from other species for limited resources, and interactions among these forces.

All of animal life experiences pulses of growth and stasis or near extinction on similar time scales.”

So the authors threw out several possibilities that could have caused devastation on such a scale that only a single couple of all animals survived, such as disease and the ice age. However, these do not offer anything close to a satisfactory explanation.

Looking at this from a Christian perspective, we would conclude this single human couple is Adam and Eve. However, the additional evidence suggests this may not be the case.

So what kind of event could result in the near extinction of all animal life at the same time and result in a restart of life from single parents?

Though science is puzzled by this, despite the obvious “time” problems the Bible oddly offers an explanation because it not only reports on a mass extinction of all life when God sent a world-wide flood, but says that God spared a single couple of all animals, birds, reptiles via an ark to restart life on earth.

So could Noah’s ark hold a remnant of all animal life for this restart?

Apparently the answer to the question is yes as well.

In 2014, Physic students from the University of Leicester in England conducted a study to determine if Noah’s ark could have held a sampling of all animal life on earth and they came to the shocking conclusion that it would.

Based on their study of the ark’s buoyancy based on the wood used and its size there was more than enough room to hold all the animals. Now to be fair their study focused on weight not the actual size of the animals.

Using sheep to represent the average weight of all animal/bird/reptile life on the planet, they calculated the ark could have held 2.15 million sheep without sinking.

They estimated there are 35,000 different types of animals in the world. Note other studies put the number much lower at closer to 21,000. This means for the sake of preservation there would only need to be one pair of canines to represent the different canine species such as dogs, wolves, coyotes and etc.

There was more than enough room on the ark to house a representative of every type of animal and most suggest that the young of larger animals would have been chosen over the full-grown.

So the original parents from which all human life came in the restart were Noah, his wife and family.

But why did God cause the flood and what was so special about Noah and his family that God used them to restart human life?

To find the answer to that question, we need to turn to the King James Bible that explains why Noah was chosen and also offers a clue as to why all life on earth was destroyed.

“But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

⁹ These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.” (Genesis 6:8-9 King James)

Noah is described as “perfect” in his generations.  The Hebrew word “tamin” translated perfect means “pure,” “sound,” “whole,” “safe,” and “secure” and the word “generations” refers to all the people living in Noah’s time.

So Noah is described as perfect and pure during his generation. Is this referring to Noah’s spiritual purity or something else?

Repeatedly throughout Genesis 6, the earth is described as being filled with violence, and this is the reason traditionally given as why God judged the earth with a flood.

But the idea of Noah being pure in all his generations may be a reference to an incident recorded in the first few verses of this chapter that talked about the sons of God marrying the daughters of men resulting in off spring with unique abilities.

6 Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, ² that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. … ⁴ The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. (Genesis 6:1-2, 4 NASV)

So what was this marriage of the sons of God and daughters of men referring to? There are two possible explanations, some have suggested it was referring to intermarriage between the godly line of Seth and the ungodly line of Cain referenced in the previous chapter.

Others have suggested that the sons of God were actually angelic beings as this is how angels were referred to several times in the Old Testament (Job 1:6).  It also best explains why their children had unique abilities.

Now many will probably refer to a passage in the gospels where Jesus said that angels are not given in marriage. Though this says that angels are not married, it does not mean they can’t and in fact, Genesis may be referring to an illegal, sinful activity by fallen angels.

It would also explain the reference about Noah, who was described as “perfect, pure, whole, secure or intact” in his generation. This would suggest that Noah’s lineage had not yet been contaminated by angelic DNA and that is why God chose him and his family as the human template for this restart of human life picked up by the DNA study.

Sources:

• Scientific theory claims most species appeared 100,000 years ago from two original parents: Breaking Israel News
• Did a mysterious extinction event precede Adam and Eve?: Fox News
• All humans  have same ancestors: Every man and woman was spawned from a single couple living up to 200,000 years ago, scientists claim: Daily Mail