James Brown

This is in reference to the Secular Web Kiosk article "A Chat with Noah" just published, written by Charles Martin Halle. If this is not the right sub-forum for reactions to SecWeb essays, please move this post appropriately.

The article adds a modern twist to age-old questions about some of the problems of Noah's Ark, although there's little new here for experienced readers.

However, I'm curious about the statement that Noah and his family built the ark in just seven days. I wonder how Halle can justify this.

Looking in NIV, I see the following references regarding the years involved in Ark building:

Gen 5:32: In Genesis 6:11-21, Jehovah warns Noah that he's going to flood the earth, and commands him to build the ark and load up two of each kind. The passage ends with verse 22: What's not mentioned is A) how old Noah was when God first approached him, or B) how long it took Noah to accomplish it.

In Genesis 7:1-3, Jehovah tells Noah to enter the ark, along with seven of clean animals and two of the unclean, because (verse 4): This is followed by verse 6 which states that Noah was 600 years old when the flood started.

So I see a mention of Noah being 500 years old, followed by an indeterminate period in which Noah builds his ark, followed by a command to enter the finished ark seven days before the rains began, which occurred when Noah was 600.

Therefore, I don't see how a seven-day build can be justified from the text, only a seven-day waiting period between the time Noah entered the ark and when the rains started. The build time could be anywhere from one week to one century.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not taking this story any more seriously than I would over a Star Wars story. But even myth and fairy tales ought to have logical chronology (which Star Wars doesn't.)

steve_bnk

Such a vessel would have been inpossible using the materials of the day. Doesn't matter what the bible says about time.

Take two of every creature alleged to hve been on the ark and calcuclate the volume of a box around them, add up all the volumes. The bending forces caused by waves on the long dimensions would crack the ship. It has happend to modern cargo ships.

Also, shoveling the shit form all those animals would be quite a task....

Believers can interpret as they say fit.