Helo

Ok, I always ask this every forum I go to.

Why do people take the story of Noah and the Ark seriously or litterally.

Lets start at the beginning.

In Genesis 3:16, the basic measurements for the Ark are:

300 cubits long
50 cubits wide
30 cubits high

Now we'll use the Royal Egyptian cubit, as that was the most common usage of the term cubit at that time.

After conversion the measurements (Rounded to the nearest decimal) become
515 feet long
86 feet wide
51 feet high

Thats a huge vessel. The largest wooden cargo vessel ever build was the Wyoming, launched in 1909, measured 305 feet long and it needed iron bars to make sure it didnt buckle at sea.

In Noah's time, metal was not used in ship construction. Nails consisted of wooden pegs driven through pre-drilled holes. The wood would swell when wet and lock the two pieces of wood together.

So lets start at the very basic with the materials used. There is no real agreement on the type of wood the bible says was used, the translations favor gopher, cypress, or cedar.

We can rule out cedar almost immedieately. Cedar wood was VERY expensive in the ancient world, highly prized for its aeromatic qualities and beautiful finish when polished. If the ark was constructed of cedar, it would have cost more money than any one country could pay for at the time.

Cypress is also not a good bet. The cypress in the Medeterrainian at the time was the Cupressus sempervirens, a very tall but very thin trunked tree. The tree can grow as tall as 120 feet but the boardage avalible from one tree is very limited. It would take MASSIVE quantities of trees to produce enough useable wood to build an ark.

Which leaves gopher wood. Problem is, no one is quite sure what gopher wood actually was. But for the sake of argument, lets assume it was a feasible solution.

How do you PAY for all this? Noah was a vinter, he made wine. How could he AFFORD to pay for all this material? The wood in and of itself would cost a fortune, plus you'd need thousands of yards of rope and tools. Where do you get the money for that?

Allright, so assume that by some miricle that these problems could be overcome

Already, we run into a problem. The ship would have been so massive that it would have needed modern construction methods or atleast metal to reinforce it and keep the ship from snapping itself in half once it got to sea.

Annother technical problem would be the construction of the ship itself. A ship that size would need to be constructed one of three ways.

1. On land- plausible, but how do you keep the ship from colapsing under its own weight? Also how do you get it to the water once your done, presumeably the flood would take care of that but wouldnt you want to TEST the ship first to make sure it didnt leak? Also how would you hoist timber 40 to 50 feet in the air with very few hands working? (The bible says Noah, his three sons, and all thier wives were told to build the boat, thats 8 people)

2. In the water- You could concieveably construct a boat in the water, but you'd need to ensure that the timber didnt warp or just plain float away on you. Also you'd need to protect it from the tides and from waves. You again run into the problem of getting heavy wooden beams to a height of over 50 feet with no modern cranes.

3. In a drydock- This would be the best scenario, however drydock technology wouldnt come along till 1070 AD in China so Noah would be a little out of luck.

Assuming you were able to somehow overcome those problems and actually BUILD the damn thing, you have a whole NEW set of problems.

The biomass of two of every animal on the planet would NEVER EVER fit inside the ark. It would crush the Ark like a matchbox.

Now for the sake of argument say that could be overcome.

What would you FEED two of every animal in the world? The food required for almost a month and a half of survival for hundreds of thousands of animals is astronomical. Forget the food, what about the water? Where would you store the fresh water for the people and animals to drink? Yes it will be raining but that rain will probably be saline and un-drinkable. And even if it isnt, how do you ensure the animals can drink it without flooding the Ark.

Also, animals produce crap. ALOT of crap. How do you deal with it? Shovel? That'd be like digging a hole in sand. You would have to get rid of a nearly incalculible ammount of crap.

And while you were shoveling, the crap would cause disease to fester, possibly spreading pathogens to your animals and causing an epidemic. If history teaches us ANYTHING, cramped conditions with poor sanitation breeds disease.

How would you prevent animals from attacking eachother? From breeding? Animals need space, they need to be able to run around. If anything with muscles isnt given a chance to use them, thier muscles begin to atrophy and they become very weak.

Now in trying to answer these questions, consider you only have 1.5 million cubic square feet (or 100,000 feet of floorspace) to work with.


Now considering alllllll of these things.....how can people take Ark story seriously?

fromdownunder

I was going to answer this in my "bornagainaussie" persona, with a fundie parody, but I wont, 'cause it's late, and I could write it in such a way that some posters would take me seriously. So, I'll get serious instead.

I really do not think that a lot of Christians worry about the mechanics at all, and a very large proportion of Christians (YECs apart) either do not take it literally, or don't even think about it.

I recall in my younger days seeing pictures of a wooden ship moving over the peaceful waters, a pair of Giraffes sticking their heads out, birds flying around, and a lion lying with a lamb. Very pretty, very much the picture a lot of people associate with the God thing. A lovely scene from times gone by.

But let's wake up and get back to reality.

Work out how long it would have taken a pair of Sloths to get from South America to Mesopotamia to avoid the flood. Koala's from Australia, with no food on the way (and they sleep 18 hours per day). Kakapos from New Zealand (Parrots who forgot how to fly). How many species of Dinosaur?

Kangaroos and Wallabies. How many different "kinds" are there? Are Rat Kangaroos, and Big Reds the same "kind"?

AIDS virus? Asian Bird Flu Virus? Were they on the Ark, created by Satan later, or did they evolve?

NONE of this matters. Believers will believe regardless of the evidence, or if in doubt go to their favourite Creation site for reassurance. For those who do not need a literal flood (or a literal Adam and Eve) it does not matter. For those who do, it will not change.

GODDIDIT!!

Norm

Sven

Hey, we once had a creationist here who actually claimed that metal working was known to Noah, but was lost later [only to be rediscovered at the time when he was still alive, if we take Noah's age from the bible and the standard dating from archeology, which contradict the story anyway, but who cares...]

Could you please cite where the bible says so?

Yes. Miracles solve all problems with the story. So I really wonder why creationists discuss it - they can say "Poof" right at the start and can be done with it.

See above about metal working. *sigh*

Umm, don't you know about the "kind" argument creationists make here? Apparently, only one pair of each kind was necessary - unfortunately, until today they still have no coherent definition of what "kind" even means.

There's another problem related to this: Noah and the other seven (and of course the animals, too) apparently carried all pathogens known to humans at once. Quite good immune system, these folks, don't you think?
Alternatively, all these pathogens turbo-evolved after the flood, as did all the other "kinds" (whatever this means...) do.

I've heard the excuse (which also addresses the food and crap problem) that they all hibernated...

I prefer to address the ark story another way: From the moral and logical side. Did an omnipotent god really not see another way to get rid of all "bad" humans than to drown them? Is this a death you would expect from an omnibenevolent being?
Additionally: If all other people were indeed as wicked as the bible claims, how comes that they apparently managed to prosper for many, many years (before the command of god and during the time the Ark was built)?

cardiform

it is true. Science has proved it.

<Signature consisting of a link promoting a commercial site removed - Pervy>

cgordon

Umm. Really? Citations? Sources?

Helo:

Damn, friend, it's good to see you questioning things like this. I've no problem with thinking Christians maintaining the faith -- as long as they question and SEEK truth.

What annoys me is folks like cardiform who can't even _formulate the questions_ much less comprehend the answers ...

Hang in there kiddo. Keep seeking answers, keep seeking truth.

Cardiform, take notes. Helo's light-years ahead of you in terms of really understanding the faith.

fromdownunder

cardiform...meet savedforgod.

savedforgod...cardiform

You two have a lot in common. I can't sat what, 'cause it could get me banned.

Norm

scisyhp

Stop posting that stupid site! I'm sure you don't know anything about math anyways.

LoneWolf

I predict cardiform will soon be banned. The only purpose of his posts are to seed the link to his site in order to increase his Google ranking. It is a common trick and if you read his other posts it is obvious that is what he is doing.

As for the OP....if the Noah story were only mentioned in the OT I am sure more Christians would be willing to dismiss it, since they have no problems dismissing other stories in the OT they find unsettling. However, Jesus himself talks about Noah, the ark, and the flood in the NT which forces Christians to take the story more seriously.

And of course any problem can be solved with "God made it work."

Newton's Cat

The numerical data in the biblical Noah's Ark story can be mathematically processed to produce of map of the Eastern Mediterranean depicting a voyage from Egypt to Greece during the Interregnum between the Egyptian Old and New Kingdoms (a time of major social upheaval).

A semicircle of 300 units circumference.

An angle of 30 degrees "cuts off" (a don't knpw the actual mathematical terms) a 50 units portion of the circumference.

The centre is Heliopolis.

The destination is the Isle of Patmos.

Presumably the author of Revelations "knew something".

The Noah's Ark story is a mixture of two stories, both with numerical data in them. The numbers in the other story (e.g. "40 days", and so on) are symbolic.

"On the 17th day of the second month" is part of the calculation that identifies the start of the voyage as being at Heliopolis.

Helo

Im not sure of the exact passage, but I do remember him being a vinter.

Allright, assuming that they arent referring to two of every species on Earth. You still have to pack food, water, clean up after everyboddy, and ensure the animals dont die. Whats more is that the boat itself wouldnt have been feasible.

Considering that hibernation is exsclusive to certain species of animals, that would be rather impossible.

This is all well and good but according to the story, the entire world was covered with water (Which in and of itself is impossible) so how would you be able to tell where you were? Celestial navigation would have been completely foreign to a vinter and the only places you could really learn it was being taught by someone else and theres no mention of Noah knowing how.