Noah's Ark

From RationalWiki

Noah's Ark was a gigantic wooden vessel in which Noah supposedly saved every kind of animal^[1] of the earth from the great flood.^[2] This myth is to be found in the Bible, Torah, and Qur'an.^[3] It is most likely just one of a number of retellings of retellings of retellings of the same general Mesopotamian flood story, an example of which is the story of Utnapishtim, the King of Shurrupak, from the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh.^[4]

Contents 1 Construction 2 How much water? 3 The animals 4 Archaeological search 5 See also 6 External links 7 Footnotes

[edit] Construction

The construction of the Ark supposedly took 70 years.^[5] The Bible says it was built of "gopherwood" (essentially a transliteration from the Hebrew of a tree name that nobody understands anymore), 300 cubits^[6] long by 50 cubits wide by 30 cubits deep.

The Ark would have been a sizeable fraction of the size of an aircraft carrier or a battleship, and a wooden boat that size would have been too leaky and flexible to withstand the stresses of global flood conditions.^[7]

[edit] How much water?

Since the area of Earth is approximately 200 million square miles, and the height of Mt Everest is approximately 5.5 miles, the amount of water that needed to be supplied (and disposed of) in the Great Flood is about 1.1 billion cubic miles. However, the atmosphere is only capable of holding the equivalent of one inch of precipitation in the form of water vapor.

[edit] The animals

According to the Bible, Noah was instructed to load the Ark with two or more of every kind of animal on earth at the time. The logistics involved in rounding up the animals (chasing down every nematode, netting every last songbird and riding herd on the rhinos) and and getting them on board the Ark are amusing to contemplate. Then there is the no small matter of collecting and loading a year's supply of the correct kind of food for every single species. How did they keep enough meat for all the carnivores without the benefits of refrigeration? The meat required by the T-Rex alone would have been prodigious. Keeping the predators seperated from each other and from the species they would ordinarily have eaten must have proven a formidable task. Finally, disposing of the enormous quantities of fecal matter such a menagerie would produce over the course of a year must have tried the patience and fortitude of even the most devout of Noah's super-devout family. One hopes they had plenty of room deodorizer. For an image of pure bedlam one may imagine the view of Young Earth Crackpots, who picture dinosaurs^[8], goats, saber-toothed tigers, deer, and mastodons all happily sharing their ocean cruise on board the Ark.

[edit] Archaeological search

Many creationists, both Christian and Muslim, have searched for the remains of Noah's ark, but in vain. Astronaut James Irwin participated in one such search in the 1970s. Every time they find the Ark Turkish authorities invariably swoop down, expose their film, confiscate their wood samples and deport them, forcing believers to settle for using Google Earth to look for it.

[edit] See also

• Global flood
• Examples of God personally killing people
• Caring for the animals in Noah's ark

[edit] External links

• The article at Talk Origins

[edit] Footnotes

1. ↑ For a discussion of the number of each kind Noah took with him, see this article.
2. ↑ The skeptics dictionary
3. ↑ Wikipedia
4. ↑ Wikipedia
5. ↑ Answers in genesis
6. ↑ Genesis 6:15. Also, What's a cubit? About a foot and a half, but maybe bigger depending on what source you use.
7. ↑ Some wooden craft in this size range were indeed constructed in roughly this time period, but they were used as barges on inland waterways. which is much less stressful on the boat.
8. ↑ http://www.conservapedia.com/Dinosaur#Creationary_Perspective