Noah's Ark

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Part of a series on the
Global flood
Seven of the clean kind

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

[edit] Construction

The creationist model of the ark

The construction of the Ark supposedly took at least 70 years,[5] or possibly even 120 (see below on Conservapedia). The Bible translates that it was built of "gopherwood (essentially a transliteration from the Hebrew that could have been 'Kofer-wood' or 'gofer-wood'. Which is either a general type of wood covered with pitch, or a type of cypress wood. Unfortunately it cannot be confirmed of the exact meaning), 300 cubits long by 50 cubits wide by 30 cubits deep.[6]. Also, What's a cubit? It is a form of measurement used by Egyptians. There are two types of cubits, a standard cubit and a royal cubit. A standard cubit is approximately 18" or a foot and a half, but a royal cubit is around 22" or a foot and ten inches. Essentially, a cubit is the measurement between a mans elbow to his wrist, or to the tip of his fingers.

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]

The Bible makes no mention of sails or oars, and it usually assumed that the Ark did not have any. Depictions of the Ark almost invariably show a symmetrical vessel with no clearly-defined bow or stern. Without means of propulsion or navigation in the flood waters, the Ark's course would have been entirely at the mercy of the elements. This of course is understandable as the point was survival, not a voyage.

[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. Now, Creationists have got this strange notion that the animals must have been "hibernating". We should humour them on this one.


[edit] A male and its mate

Genesis 7:2 (NIV) says that the animals were taken as pairs, "a male and its mate". This has a couple of interesting consequences.

Not all animals form pairs. For example, there are genera of whiptail lizards which have only females, and which reproduce parthenogenically. It would be impossible to take a male, because there aren't any. This also presents problems with eusocial animals: a male bee (a drone) and a queen bee do not make up a viable hive. One might also wonder about animals which do not form pair bonds, whether it makes sense to speak of a bull and his cow, for example.

Some creationists try to solve the space problem with the suggestion that many kinds of large animals were taken as eggs (or small babies). But only mature forms have a mate.

[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] The Ark on creationist wikis

For those living in an alternate reality, Conservapedia has an "article" about Noah's Ark

Naturally, the fundie-hole Conservapedia treats the ark as a very real, rather than mythological or symbolical or even legendary vessel. They treat the ark in the same manner as a modern vessel, using their "ship" template. Apparently Noah had 120 years notice but it took him less than 19 years to build once he'd started. The fact that they give actual days of the month that the keel was laid and the ship was completed is rather impressive and certainly improves upon James Ussher's chronology dramatically.

A Storehouse of Knowledge gives a less detailed account than Conservapedia, preferring to stick with a straight biblical description. It does not branch out into actual "evidence" or bizarre attempts to make it seem like a real object, although that is undoubtedly the editorial stance of the site.

Creation Wiki presents a decent run down of the ark as a fact.[9] It primarily complains about how secular scientists don't take the flood seriously. It also features, in all seriousness, a good, full colour picture of a model of the ark, complete with dinosaurs![10] Their excuse for why technology of the day would be unable to produce the ark, is that modern society can't know what the technology of the day was, due to it being under a mile of sedimentary rock. Unlike the hyper-accurate Conservapedia ship template, Creation Wiki admits that the exact time that Noah began construction is unknown.

[edit] External links

[edit] See also

[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
  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
  9. ↑ Creation Wiki - Noah's Ark
  10. ↑ Noah's Ark Model by Rod Walsh
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