Noah's Ark: Figurative or Literal?

The Ark is such a ridiculous story, I don't see how even Christians buy it.

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Smaller than a World War 1 battleship? Try more along the lines of a aircraft carrier. 300 cubits would have been about 450 feet long.

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Intrepid wrote:

Smaller than a World War 1 battleship? Try more along the lines of a aircraft carrier. 300 cubits would have been about 450 feet long.

So are you in the fact or fiction camp?

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edgarblythe wrote:

The Ark is such a ridiculous story, I don't see how even Christians buy it.

If one was to ignore the part about 2 of every animal species.... would it still be ridiculous?

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Intrepid wrote:

edgarblythe wrote:
The Ark is such a ridiculous story, I don't see how even Christians buy it.

If one was to ignore the part about 2 of every animal species.... would it still be ridiculous?

Yes.

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Green Witch wrote:

Intrepid wrote:
edgarblythe wrote:
The Ark is such a ridiculous story, I don't see how even Christians buy it.

If one was to ignore the part about 2 of every animal species.... would it still be ridiculous?

Yes.

I would be interested to see Edgar's answer.

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Green Witch wrote:

Intrepid wrote:
Smaller than a World War 1 battleship? Try more along the lines of a aircraft carrier. 300 cubits would have been about 450 feet long.

So are you in the fact or fiction camp?

I don't think it is that simple. However, of the two you provide I would not say that it is fiction.

Perhaps you could elaborate on why you think it is ridiculous.

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Intrepid wrote:

Smaller than a World War 1 battleship? Try more along the lines of a aircraft carrier. 300 cubits would have been about 450 feet long.

The HMS Dreadnought, launched in February, 1906 displaced 17,000 tons and had a waterline length of 527ft. A Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier displaces 78,000 tons and has a waterline length of better than 1000 feet.

So yes, the Arc was smaller that a WWI battle ship.

Rap

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Even without the animals, science has long ago shown that no such flood occurred. But, if the animals all drowned, where would they have gotten new ones?

When you consider scurvy and other limitations to storing food on ships in ancient times, they probably would not have suvived anyway.

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Intrepid wrote:

Smaller than a World War 1 battleship? Try more along the lines of a aircraft carrier. 300 cubits would have been about 450 feet long.

Traditional "World War I Battleships" (the USS Vermont BB-20, launched in 1905, to the USS Mississippi BB-41, launched in 1917) were between 456 to 624 feet in length.

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Well, Jesus believed it a fact. (Matthew 24:37)

As do I.

This could prove a tripwire for those who claim to put faith in the bible but do not accept the story. (2Timothy 3:16)

For those who doubt Noah's ability to build something so large to float for a year, or to figure out how to corral and feed all those critters, please keep in mind that it was God directing the operation. Noah was just the subcontractor. Whatever Noah might have lacked, God certainly had the power to provide.

I could consider an assertion that the flood may not have been worldwide, but sufficient only to have destroyed all but 8 humans. I would need more information, though.

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It need to be remembered that in the time of the arc the known world would have been quite limited as would the number of animals

The Ark may indeed have been capable of holding 2 of every animal from the middle east.

The flood may actually have been limited to quite a localised area or been the result of a tidal wave or sea based meteor strike. Earthquake that allowed sea water to innundate a low lying area is also a possibility. The dead sea?
New Orleans is a prime example. how long did it take for water to receed?
This flood may not have been of such biblical proportions as we are led to believe.

40 days is not much over a month, many animals could live this long without eating at all. In early times 40 days was a reference to "a very long time" rather than being that exact period.

The story may have been around for hundreds of years before actually being incorporated into a bible story.

I for one am in the camp that the story, like many myths is rooted in fact, the details of which have become unclear/embelished after such a long period of time.

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neologist wrote:

I could consider an assertion that the flood may not have been worldwide, but sufficient only to have destroyed all but 8 humans. I would need more information, though.

It is commonly thought that all the continents were at one time united. If that were the case during the Flood, then obviously a much smaller amount of water would be required to cover 'all the earth' ( i.e. all the land , as the word could easily be translated http://cf.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H0776&Version=kjv )

In addition, if many of the areas which at present are high mountain ranges were much lower, the same is true -- much less water required. And again, scientific evidence exists that many of the high mountains include large areas of sedimentary rock and even deposits of coral (as on Everest, the Earth's tallest mtn) They had to be low enough at some point in history to be underwater, whether that was during the Flood or even afterward.

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I'm presuming that the dinosaurs couldn't all fit in...

I want to know where the many different species of termites were put...
....and the driver ants (they travel in colonies of 20million or so)

What did they feed the eagles etc?

What did they feed the lions etc while on the ark?

How far did Noah have to go to put a Polar Bear inside?

Why does Australia have such unusual creatures, compared to the rest of the world?

Did the Antartic penguins board?

How many Cats n Dogs made it on? If only 2...wouldn't that speak for evolution (or did two of many breeds make it on?)

How did the plants survive that long underwater? Or is it that seeds regrew afterwards?

What did the animals have to eat when they left the ark?

Has anyone ever counted the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of species of animals in this world, then tried to fit them into a computer modelled ark?

...I'm sure there's many questions I haven't thought of.

Here's one though...Garden of Eden was somewhere near the two rivers, right? Is Saudi Arabia so low that the melting of the ice caps would flood it? And would a complete flooding account for the oil under it? (oil is decomposed plant life)

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Vikkor you should look to Australias salinty problems before making light of legends such as this.

Is it not a fact that vast tracts of Australia were an inland sea at some time?

Do we not in fact have a Mt Ararat in western Victoria?

Dare I mention the legendary Mahogany ship near Warnambool in Vic?

There are in fact several small trees that look remarkably similar to the olive to the untrained eye.

I'll let the facts speak for themselves.

:wink:

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vikorr wrote:

I'm presuming that the dinosaurs couldn't all fit in...

I want to know where the many different species of termites were put...
....and the driver ants (they travel in colonies of 20million or so)

What did they feed the eagles etc?

What did they feed the lions etc while on the ark?

How far did Noah have to go to put a Polar Bear inside?

Why does Australia have such unusual creatures, compared to the rest of the world?

Did the Antartic penguins board?

How many Cats n Dogs made it on? If only 2...wouldn't that speak for evolution (or did two of many breeds make it on?)

How did the plants survive that long underwater? Or is it that seeds regrew afterwards?

What did the animals have to eat when they left the ark?

Has anyone ever counted the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of species of animals in this world, then tried to fit them into a computer modelled ark?

...I'm sure there's many questions I haven't thought of.

Here's one though...Garden of Eden was somewhere near the two rivers, right? Is Saudi Arabia so low that the melting of the ice caps would flood it? And would a complete flooding account for the oil under it? (oil is decomposed plant life)

I think some of the predators lived on the extra wabbits....... Embarrassed

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RL said..."It is commonly thought that all the continents were at one time united. IF that were the case during the Flood, then obviously a much smaller amount of water would be required to cover 'all the earth' ( i.e. all the land , as the word could easily be translated http://cf.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H0776&Version=kjv )

In additionIFmany of the areas which at present are high mountain ranges were much lower, the same is true -- much less water required. And again, scientific evidence exists that many of the high mountains include large areas of sedimentary rock and even deposits of coral (as on Everest, the Earth's tallest mtn) They had to be low enough at some point in history to be underwater, whether that was during the Flood or even afterward. "...

The operative words in all this is "IF".
EVidence does not support RL's position, in fact, all the evidence refutes his "IFs"

RL's last statement assumes that all these oceanic deposits and fossils were deposited on the tops of present mountains. The evidence does not support this outrageous stamenet either. It strongly refutes it.

All this evidence does not exist in a vacuum. There is context from several disciplines that clearly show the SEQUENCE of deposition, movement, deformation and erosion. This is the kind of stuff that RL merrily ignores.
RL, please dont infer that geologists are fools like you, most are not. Those that believe as you are either employed by govt where they cant hurt anyone, or else they are involved in Creationist causes,(after theyve refuted most all their educational credentials. This they do for many reasons known only to them). Fortunately the number of Creationist Geologists is very small, small enough to be individual curiosities to those of us employed in the trenches of the science.

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At the time of Noah's flood (regardless of whether you date it by the bible or history) there were approximately 15 million species of animals on the planet. A 450 foot boat wouldn't exactly be appropriate. Not to mention... some biblical translations called for 7 of some species and 2 of others. Even if only 1/4 of the species were numbered 7, that would mean about 46 million animals on a boat the size of a very small cruise ship.

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If God provided Noah and his family and the animals a way to survive the flood, do you honestly think He would let them get something like scurvy? :wink: You can't put God in a box. There isn't one big enough to contain Him.

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Noah's Ark: Figurative or Literal?

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