I’m a Christian but Noah’s ark is a myth. According to the story, about 4000 years ago, God told Noah there was going to be a flood. Noah built an arc and put a breeding pair of every animal on it. Noah and his family survived and no one else in the world survived the flood. Without getting into the improbabilities of who came to North America and captured wolverines or South America and captured jaguars, how did native Americans survive this world wide flood. There may have been a local flood, but not the one described in the Bible.
It’s OK to have these questions, and even though we don’t have the answer to every single thing throughout history, we have all the answers we need.
Here’s my thought about this topic… I know of some things that get misapplied or taken out of context within New Testament references surrounding the word “world”. I strongly suspect the same has occurred here, and I would advise that the flood did not have to cover the entire world. In the New Testament, the word “world” could be translated into 2+ ways, but time has simplified it into one word. There was the
oikoumene used to refer to the inhabited earth or the Roman Empire. Think local. Then there’s the word
kosmos that refers to the world, or universe.
The Old Testament and ancient Hebrew writings do it as well, with interchangeable meanings for the word “earth”, a word that could be either localized or across the whole Earth. BibleHub is a great research tool for meanings and origins and translations, and here’s an example of the bolded word for earth/ land being used even for the local populated area:
Genesis 7:10
HEB: הָי֖וּ עַל־
הָאָֽרֶץ׃
NAS: of the flood came upon the earth.
KJV: of the flood were upon the earth.
INT: came upon the earth
Genesis 7:12
HEB: הַגֶּ֖שֶׁם עַל־
הָאָ֑רֶץ אַרְבָּעִ֣ים י֔וֹם
NAS: fell upon the earth for forty
KJV: And the rain was upon the earth forty
INT: the rain upon the earth forty days
Genesis 34:30
HEB: לְהַבְאִישֵׁ֙נִי֙ בְּיֹשֵׁ֣ב
הָאָ֔רֶץ בַּֽכְּנַעֲנִ֖י וּבַפְּרִזִּ֑י
NAS: among the inhabitants of the land,among the Canaanites
KJV: among the inhabitants of the land,among the Canaanites
So…… don’t let thousands of years of changing languages, translations, and interpretations - especially one part of the story - lead you to doubt in the big picture story!