GPLindsey

I don't know if this question fits better under the Science forum or not, but here goes. I saw a special on cable about the Noah's Ark myth, and one point that was raised was that there is an upper limit to how large a wooden ship can be built. Apparently it has something to do with the length of the wooden beams being limited to the sizes of trees (naturally), and over too large a frame the ship would have just started coming apart during the pitching/rolling on the ocean. I guess archeologists & engineers have studied ship building techniques and ship sizes historically, and the Ark would have been several orders of magnitude larger than any other wooden ship ever built. A ship the size of the Ark would have needed a steel frame like an oil tanker in order to survive the ocean. My problem is that I didn't catch or hear any references for more information during the special, to learn more about this critique of the Ark myth. Does anyone out there have any good sources for learning more about this particular criticism of the Ark story?

mrmoderate

I don't know if the technology existed in ancient times but there should be no reason why a wooden structure could not be made in sections with each section supporting itself. In this way a ship should be able to be made in any length as long as the framing between the sections was stong enough.

I have heard of large steel ships breaking in half when lifted onto extremely high swells that left a major portion of the ships hull unsupported. In this case it wouldn't matter what material the ship was made of.

As far as technology, we have been shown many times by archaeology that technology that we did not believe existed had indeed existed in ancient times. Some manmade structures must have used technology that still elludes our understanding.

Roland

I have a challenge to all those who insist on believing in the historical accuracy of a mythological story:

Stop bitching and moaning because people won't accept the story as true and SHOW us how it can be done. Build an ark out of wood to the exact specifications given in the Bible and float the damn thing out into turbulent waters and see what happens. This, after all, is what a SCIENTIST would do: test his hypothesis to see if it had any validity.

Gawen

The Ark. There are a lot of 'if's' and 'givens'. Basically, the Ark would be nothing but a barge. No propulsion, no steering. All barges do is float and hold cargo. Most barges are flat-bottomed. The Ark couldn't be flat-bottomed and hold the weight of itself and its cargo without breaking. So there must be a keel. The keel is the backbone of a ship. Everything is built around and upwards from the keel. Most ships/barges with a keel have a draft, which is the depth of water a ship needs to float.

Now we have to equal the Ark to keep it from tipping over, even if it has a keel. To much above the water-line and over it goes. So there must be some sort of ballast. Ballast could be anything from rocks and dirt to animals and feed for said animals. But ballast is below the water-line. The ballast must be spread evenly throughout the bottom of the Ark.

Now we have to strengthen the keel and bulkheads and then make the outside of the Ark below the water-line water-proof. Enormous amounts of wood would be needed to strengthen the Ark. Perhaps Bronze Age peoples could have used bronze and other soft metals in the strengthening. But these materials would have given way sooner or later, unless there were no storms, wind, eddies or conflicting currents for the Ark to withhold. What would they have used to water-proof? Some sort of pitch, I reckon. But this pitch would not keep barnacles and other oceanic lifeforms from adhering to the bottom of the boat. This will weaken the bottom of the wooden boat by boring into it after time, creating soft spots and eventually rot and decay. Seventeenth century buccaneers had to periodically (as in several times per year) beach their ships to scrape off the bottoms and apply more water-proofing.

So, since we can't make a seaworthy long flat boat, we have to make one several storeys high to hold our cargo. We have ballast to keep it from tipping. We have made the keel and superstructure so strengthened that there is little room below and must build higher. Still, we can keep from tipping over. We've distributed the weight of our cargo evenly throughout. And we've water-proofed it.

IF nothing inside the Ark moved about...IF there were no storms or wind....IF there were no eddies or currents or whirlpools or swells...IF nothing adhered to the bottom of the Ark...IF nothing sought to weaken the keel or structure in any way, the Ark may float for an unspecified time. There are so many 'ifs' that it just wouldn't be possible, especially using Bronze Age tech.

Also, there would need to be supports along the bottom of the boat. You can't make a boat without stabilising it some way. Not to mention, if it wasn't stabilised, as the water came up about it, it would put enormous pressures on parts of the boat not yet in the water. It would crack or even just pull apart.

But then again.....the Ark could float..and did float..because God held it together....

DougP

I watched a special on the discovery channel (or maybe history channel) on this very subject. They determined that the Ark would simply not have been able to work being the side the bible says it is. There would have invariably been leaks because of the number of logs needed to make the ark and that technology of the time simply couldnt deal with it.

mrmoderate

Of course, all of this is based on our current understanding of the technology available at the time of the building of the ark. It would also be an argument that does not include God into the equation. So, in essence, if the ark were found would anyone believe it was the ark of Noah if it were not possible to have held together?

jafosei

Of course. What else could one base this kind of discussion on? Wishful thinking?

If God worked through natural means, then the ark would have to be structurally sound and able to hold together for its intended purpose. In that scenario, rational speculation about the ark's seaworthiness is perfectly valid.

If God worked through supernatural means and defied His own natural laws, then such talk is pointless, of course. But if He was going to use supernatural means to save Noah, Noah's family, and some animals, couldn't He have used supernatural means that didn't involve flooding the entire planet in order to purify the world? He could have just had everyone but Noah & Company disappear (poof!) or die of "natural" causes. A lot less convoluted than causing an impossible flood, and saving people and animals with an impossible boat.

If we found the ark, how would we know it was the ark in the first place? Because we found an old boat on a mountainside?

Sauron

But at some point you still have to strap the sections together to form a boat. The connections between sections are where the integrity of the ship breaks down.

In this way a ship should be able to be made in any length as long as the framing between the sections was stong enough.
[/quote]
There are plenty of reasons why a wooden ship might have problems.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-....html#building

1. Building the Ark

Wood is not the best material for shipbuilding. It is not enough that a ship be built to hold together; it must also be sturdy enough that the changing stresses don't open gaps in its hull. Wood is simply not strong enough to prevent separation between the joints, especially in the heavy seas that the Ark would have encountered. The longest wooden ships in modern seas are about 300 feet, and these require reinforcing with iron straps and leak so badly they must be constantly pumped. The ark was 450 feet long [ Gen. 6:15]. Could an ark that size be made seaworthy?

The longest wooden ship I have ever heard of is Admiral Zheng's flagship treasure boat - but it would have been shaped differently without all the carrying capacity needed for two of every kind of animal.
http://www.time.com/time/asia/featur...greatship.html


Considering that the rainfall and rushing water that allegedly took place during the Global Flood were stronger and heavier than anyone has ever seen, it's *highly* likely that a wooden boat built with Bronze Age technology could have held up - much less a modern double-hulled steel ship.

Or maybe star visitors from Sirius 9 showed us how to make pyramids and great drawings at Nazca, Peru.

Legion

That's just the beginning of the problems with the ark.

There are over two million species of animals, including over 800,000 seperate species of insects alone. Even allowing for the "kinds" and so not needing specimens for every species (which there is absolutely no evidence of the imediate dying off and shortly thereafter reappearance of all the species on the planet), it would have taken a fleet of ships just to carry the months of food it would have required to feed these creatures, and that doesn't even account for the water, as some would need salt water and others would need fresh water. Only allowing for the space the animals would have taken up does not really think this through--further, it's not like they can just be kept in stalls for months on end, wild animals have to have serious amounts of space in order to move around. Putting them on a single ark just is not plausible.

Speaking of the animals, how would they have gotten the animals on other continents--such as penguins, pandas, kangaroos, koalas, and polar bears, etc--that could not get to the ark and how would they even know where it is? How would the slow animals such as snails, sloths, and tortoises gotten to the ark in time? How would the animals have gotten back to there respective regions? Further, many of those animals would not have been able to withstand the climate change of living on the ark; they would have died. Also, many of the animals can only eat specialized foods that exists in certain regions; where would Noah have gotten that food from all over the world?

How would the animals have been prevented from killing their natural prey? Going back to the food, how could only eight people feed and care for the world's greatest zoo for many months? Even the Central Park Zoo, with only a small number of animals, takes dozens and dozens of employees to care for them.

According to the story, the water covered all of the earth's mountains, even Mt. Everest, which is five and a half miles high. Where did all that water go? How would the herbivores have been preserved after leaving the ark, before the earth was again clothed with vegetation? What would the carnivores have eaten after leaving the ark, since the only animals available would have been the ones on the ark (and killing them would have wiped out an entire "kind").

Anyway, those are many of the questions raised by this story, and provide part of the reason for why I believe it is unrealistic to take it literally.

Vorkosigan

In any case, while researching this topic, I discovered that there were, in the 19th century, a couple of temporary ships bigger than the Ark, at least in probable displacement. The Great Republic, designed by Daniel McKay, weighed in at 4,500 tons, is generally considered the largest wooden ship of all time, but there was one larger ship, a ship constructed out of wooden timber for a trans-atlantic voyage, and then broken up deliberately at the end of the voyage, the "cargo" being the timbers of the ship itself, along with her cargo. She displaced over 5,000 tons, as I recall. I have forgotten its name, though.

In any case, it goes without saying that no Bronze Age people could ever have constructed a ship of that size.