[__ Science __ ] Noah's Boatyard

[for_his_glory]

I'm not sure what sight you are using, but there are fallacies within it.

 

[Dant02]

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The most popular interpretation is the box type, but yet can not be proven to look like a long box.

The Hebrew word for "ark" is tebah (tay-baw') which means: a nondescript box

There's only two such tebah in the entire Old Testament. There's Noah's tebah and there's baby Moses' tebah.

Noah's tebah and baby Moses' tebah both had to be watertight so they wouldn't sink, of course. But even more important; they had to be stable; viz: it was essential that they not capsize.

Well; speaking from years of experience in boatyards and shipyards, flat bottoms and straight sides are the best design for stability. They may not cut through water as well as craft with tapered sides, but neither Noah nor Moses needed to navigate; their tebah only needed to float. In other words: they didn't need a ship, they needed a barge.

A barge constructed like a shoe box would also afford the most cargo space; which in Noah's situation, was very important.
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[Dant02]

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● Gen 8:3b-4 . . At the end of one hundred and fifty days the waters diminished, so that in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.

The Hebrew word for "Ararat" is from 'Ararat (ar-aw-rat') which appears three more times in the Bible: one at 2Kgs 19:36-37, one at Isa 37:36-38, and one at Jer 51:27. Ararat in the Bible is always the country of Armenia: never a specific mountain by the same name.

The Hebrew word for "mountains" in Gen 8:4 is haareey which is the plural of har (har). It doesn't always mean a prominent land mass like Everest or McKinley; especially when it's plural. Har can also mean a range of hills or highlands; like the region of Israel where Miriam's cousin Elizabeth lived.

"At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth." (Luke 1:39-40)

In California, where I lived as a kid, the local elevation 35 miles east of San Diego, in the town of Alpine, was about 2,000 feet above sea level. There were plenty of meadows with pasture and good soil. In fact much of it was very good ranchland and quite a few people in that area raised horses and cows. We ourselves kept about five hundred chickens, and a few goats and calves. We lived in the mountains of San Diego; but we didn't live up on top of one of its mountains like Viejas, Lyon's, or Cuyamaca.

The ark contained the only surviving souls of man and animal on the entire planet. Does it really make good sense to strand them up on a mountain peak where they might risk death and injury descending it?

When my wife and I visited the San Diego zoo together back in the early 1980's, we noticed that the Giraffes' area had no fence around it. The tour guide told us the Giraffes' enclosure doesn't need a fence because their area is up on a plateau 3 feet high. The Giraffes don't try to escape because they're afraid of heights. There's just no way Giraffes could've climbed down off of Turkey's Mount Ararat. It's way too steep and rugged. Those poor timid creatures would've been stranded up there and died; and so would hippos, elephants, and flightless birds like penguins.

● Gen 8:10-11 . . He waited another seven days, and again sent out the dove from the ark. The dove came back to him toward evening, and there in its bill was a plucked-off olive leaf. Then Noah knew that the waters had decreased on the earth.

The word for "plucked-off" is from taraph (taw-rawf') which means: recently torn off; viz: fresh. A taraph leaf is alive; which of course the skeptics are only too happy to point out is impossible seeing as how olive trees cannot survive under water very long before they die. But wasn't the Flood itself impossible? (sigh) Some people are just naturally miracle-challenged; what can I say?

Old-world olives prefer a Mediterranean climate, which is pretty good empirical evidence that the ark did not come to rest on the top of Turkey's Mt. Ararat; a snow-capped dormant volcano consisting of two peaks: Lesser Ararat @ 12,782 feet, and Greater Ararat @ 16,854 feet.

Tall mountains like Ararat have what's called a timberline; which is an elevation beyond which no trees grow. The elevation of Mt. Hood's timberline here in Oregon is right around 6,000 feet. So it's a pretty safe bet that the olive tree, from which the dove plucked a leaf, wasn't growing up on Mt. Ararat prior to the Flood. It would've preferred neither the elevation nor the climate.

NOTE: People hoping to find the ark up on Mt Ararat are sort of like a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there.
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[Dant02]

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● Gen 7:10-11a . . The Flood came upon the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month,

The Flood isn't dated according to a calendar; but rather, relative to Noah's life. In other words: let's say that Noah was born in the month of July. Had that been the case; then the second month of his life would have been August.

● Gen 7:11b . . on this day, all the springs of the great deep were split, and the windows of the heavens opened up.

The word for "deep" is from tehowm (teh-home') which indicates an abyss (as a surging mass of water) especially the deep (the main sea or the subterranean water-supply). Tehowm occurred very early on in the Bible's texts at Gen 1:1-2.

The difference is that this deep is the great deep. The word for "great" is from rab (rab) which means abundant (in quantity, size, age, number, rank, quality), so that this particular deep could be thought of as bottomless; viz: an abysmal source of water beyond human imagination.

The atmosphere alone holds about 2,900 cubic miles of water at any given time; with the balance of Earth's 340 million cubic miles of water stored in oceans, rivers, lakes, ice caps, glaciers, permafrost, and the ground. Relatively little ground water is stored in subterranean voids. Most of it is soaked in tiny pores and cracks in soil and rocks. Almost all ground water resides within five to ten miles of the surface. Water below that depth is chemically bound in the rocks and minerals and not readily accessible; but can be released as a result of geologic processes such as volcanism. But for the Flood, water above and beyond the earth's indigenous sources was necessary.

There's an abundance of water out in the cosmos. In an article I found on the internet dated July 22, 2011; astronomers have discovered the largest and oldest mass of water ever detected in the universe-- a gigantic cloud harboring 140 trillion times more water than all of Earth's oceans combined. Well; I'm pretty sure that's a sufficient quantity of water to inundate the earth to a depth required by the Flood.

● Gen 7:21-23a . . And all flesh that stirred on earth perished-- birds, cattle, beasts, and all the things that swarmed upon the earth, and all mankind. All in whose nostrils was the merest breath of life, all that was on dry land, died.

. . . All existence on earth was blotted out-- man, cattle, creeping things, and birds of the sky; they were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.

All "existence on earth" was limited to fauna life on land. Apparently flora life and aqua life were spared.

The Flood antagonizes critical thinkers, and they usually demand to be told why a supposedly loving God, knowing in advance that He was going to have to do this, would go ahead and create a race of beings who'd bring it about. If He knew in advance that people would become so bad, then why create them in the first place? Is the Bible's God a genocidal maniac? What kind of deity would do such a thing?

Well; I don't know; and in point of fact, according to Rom 9:17-24, it's wrong to demand an explanation.
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[for_his_glory]

You have to remember that God's ways are not of our intellect. Many always try to fit God into the logical. but we need to let God be God in His infinite ways that will always be a mystery to us.

 

[Dant02]

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God's ways are not of our intellect.

The human mind is produced by a three-pound lump of flabby organic tissue; and not even all three of those pounds are devoted to cognitive processes. Plus, 60% of it is fat. That doesn't compare very favorably to the IQ of a genius with enough intelligence to design an entire cosmos with all of its forms of life, matter, and energy.
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[Barbarian]

Compared to modern ships, 450 feet is not all that big.

The problem is that wooden ships even close to the size of the Ark flex under even light seas, and leak so badly that full time pumps are necessary to pump out the water.

Perhaps cubits were a lot smaller in those days.

 

[Dant02]

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The problem is that wooden ships even close to the size of the Ark flex under even light seas, and leak so badly that full time pumps are necessary to pump out the water.

The Flood was a miraculous event, which by its very nature circumvented the laws of physics.

With God's involvement, even a house of cards would have survived the Flood had He wished it to because the strength of natural materials isn't fixed; they can be greatly enhanced, e.g. Samson (Judg 13:2-16:31). He was just an ordinary man of flesh and bone; but God made Samson strong enough to do things that no one man alone could possibly attempt unassisted.
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[Barbarian]

The Flood was a miraculous event, which by its very nature circumvented the laws of physics.

If one can call in a non-scriptural miracle to patch up any problems with one's eisegesis, any story is equally plausible.

 

[Dant02]

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● Gen 7:4 . . I will make it rain upon the earth, forty days and forty nights

I grew up thinking that the Flood lasted just those forty days; but in time I discovered my notion fell short by quite a lot.

● Gen 7:10-11 . . And waters of the Flood came upon the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month,

● Gen 8:13-14 . . In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first of the month, the waters began to dry from the earth; and when Noah removed the covering of the ark, he saw that the surface of the ground was drying. And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry.

It began to rain on the 17th day of the second month of the 600th year of Noah's life. The Earth was dry on the 27th day of the second month of his 601st year. So, reckoning time according to prophetic months of 30 days each, and not counting the final day, Noah's passengers and crew were was aboard the ark for a total of 370 days; which is roughly 5 days over a solar year, and 10 days over a prophetic year.

FAQ: Whence came the so-called prophetic year?

A: The Flood began on the seventeenth day of the second month of Noah's life, and it rained for forty days. Then the rain stopped so the water could begin draining off and leave the ark aground. A period of exactly five months went by. Those five months are recorded as exactly 150 days (Gen 7:24). If we were to try and use the months of the Jewish calendar, the number of days would not add up to 150. Here's why.

The months of the Jewish calendar supposedly equivalent to the months of the Flood are:

lyar . . . . . . . . 29 days
Sivan . . . . . . . 30 days
Tammuz . . . . . 29 days
Av . . . . . . . . . 30 days
Elul . . . . . . . . 29 days
Tishri . . . . . . . 30 days

Using the Jewish calendar, it would begin raining on the 17th of lyar, thus flooding a total of 13 days during that month. Following would be 30 in Sivan, 29 in Tammuz, 30 in Av, 29 in Elul, and lastly 16 in Tishri if we don't count the day that the ark ran aground. The total number of days from the beginning of the Flood until the day the ark went aground, would have been, according to the Jewish calendar, 147; which is three days short of 150.

However, we can safely ignore the Jewish calendar, and just reckon the elapsed time relative to Noah's birthday. The 150 days then average out to five months of 30 days apiece. That doesn't really cause any problems because a dating method of that nature is not intended to mark off the actual passage of astronomical time in a calendar year; only the days of time elapsed during an important event such as the Flood.

So; here in Genesis, very early in the Bible, a precedent is set for specifying the length of a special kind of year: the prophetic year. Since the months in a year of this type are of thirty days apiece, then twelve such months add up to 360 days; which is 5¼ days less than a calendar year.

The prophetic year is sort of like a baker's dozen. Though a baker's dozen is not a dozen of twelve; it is nonetheless a dozen in its own right. As long as students of the Bible are aware of the existence of such a thing as a prophetic year, they won't be tripped up when they run across it in prophecy; for example the one below:

"And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days." (Rev 12:6)

"And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent." (Rev 12:14)

Those two passages speak of a 3½ year period of exactly 1,260 days. Well, 3½ solar years is 1,274+ days; which is almost fifteen days too many. But if we reckon those 3½ years as prophetic years of 360 days each, then it comes out perfectly to 1,260 days.

Keep that in your tool box as it just might come in very handy some day.
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[WIP]

Genesis 6:21 And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.

I do believe the food for them means all the animals, birds and creepy things that entered the ark.

I wonder how many animals were involved. Maybe he didn't have to feed them for the entire year they spent on the ark. If he did....

We have horses. On average, one horse will consume about 15-20 pounds of hay per day. So to supply just one adult horse for 40 days would require 800 pounds of hay. That's just one horse but he needed to feed fourteen of them, seven pairs per Genesis 7:2-3. What about meat eaters? Did he sacrifice animals taken on board?

Each of our horses also consumes roughly 5 gallons of water per day. Since the entire earth was covered in water it would have mixed with the ocean salt water making it undrinkable to use so he would have to have enough fresh water for all of them. During the 40 days while it was raining he could collect what he needed each day but when the rains stopped, he'd have a problem for the remaining 320 days or so.

A state of hibernation would seem quite plausible eliminating many issues.

It's equally possible that God could have done something similar to what He did when He fed the thousands with just a few fish and loaves of bread.

 

[WIP]

God told Noah it would rain forty days and forty nights so I would think Noah would calculate how much food to bring for his family plus all the animals and birds on the ark. Also notice that Noah was to take seven, male and female, of clean animals and only two, male and female, of unclean animals. We couldn't even fathom how many animals, birds and creeping things that entered the ark.

Genesis 7:1 And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. 2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. 3 Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth. 4 For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.

Fourty days was only the duration of the rain. They were actually on the ark for about a year.

 

[Dant02]

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FAQ: Why didn't all that rain water dilute the Earth's seas and cause marine life to die out?

A: The sea's saltiness isn't static; it's increasing all the time, and always has. Which means that if you were to go back in time, the sea was a lot less salty in Noah's day than it is today; ergo: aquatic life's adjustment to dilution back in his day wouldn't have been as extreme as aquatic life's adjustment would be in our day.

And besides: the Flood was a miraculous event. The one who created the physical requirements of all life is easily able to adapt it to suit His purposes; even if only temporary. For example: three Hebrew boys in the book of Daniel were tossed into a furnace so fiercely hot that the guards who threw them in died from the heat. The boys walked out unscathed: their clothing didn't even smell as if it had been exposed to fire.

FAQ: What happened to the ark?

A: According to the dimensions given at Gen 6:15, the ark was shaped like a common shoe box. So most of the lumber and logs used in its construction would've been nice and straight; which is perfect for putting together houses, fences, barns, corrals, stables, gates, troughs, mangers, and outhouses.

I think it's safe to assume that Noah and his kin gradually dismantled the ark over time and used the wood for many other purposes, including fires. Nobody cooked or heated their homes or their bath and laundry water using refined fossil fuels and/or electricity and steam in those days, so everybody needed to keep on hand a pretty fair-sized wood pile for their daily needs.

According to Gen 6:14 the ark's lumber was treated. So underneath the pitch it was still in pretty good shape and should have been preserved for many years to come.
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[for_his_glory]

I wonder how many animals were involved. Maybe he didn't have to feed them for the entire year they spent on the ark. If he did....

We have horses. On average, one horse will consume about 15-20 pounds of hay per day. So to supply just one adult horse for 40 days would require 800 pounds of hay. That's just one horse but he needed to feed fourteen of them, seven pairs per Genesis 7:2-3. What about meat eaters? Did he sacrifice animals taken on board?

Each of our horses also consumes roughly 5 gallons of water per day. Since the entire earth was covered in water it would have mixed with the ocean salt water making it undrinkable to use so he would have to have enough fresh water for all of them. During the 40 days while it was raining he could collect what he needed each day but when the rains stopped, he'd have a problem for the remaining 320 days or so.

A state of hibernation would seem quite plausible eliminating many issues.

It's equally possible that God could have done something similar to what He did when He fed the thousands with just a few fish and loaves of bread.

It's really impossible to know how many variations of animals, birds and creeping things there were, but I could only imagine a very large amount. Like you said, it could have been a fish and bread moment.

I did the math today and Noah was actually in the ark for around 374 days.

Genesis 7:10 And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth. 11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. 12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.

Genesis 8:1-15 Noah, now being 601 years old in the first month being Abib/Nisan on the first day of the month the waters were dried up from the earth as Noah removed the covering of the ark and saw that the earth was dried. It was the 27th day of the second month of Abib/Nisan that Noah, his family and all the animals, fowls and creeping things left the ark.

We can actually know the very day that Noah and all the animals entered the ark and how many days they were on the ark from the time it began to rain up to the time they exited the ark by the above verses. Noah was 600 years old on the 17th day of the second month of Zif/Iyyar (April/May) using the Lunar Solar Calendar Noah would have used.

We know it rained for forty days and forty nights starting on the 17th of Zif/Iyyar (April/May) so this would bring them into the month of Sivan (May/June) on the 27th day when the rain stopped. A year from the 17th of Zif/Iyyar to the 27th of the first month of Abib/Nisan (March/April) they were on the ark for around 374 days before exiting.

Side note: By using the Lunar Solar Calendar that Noah used a year would be around 360 days unless a 13th month would have to be added in order to keep the lunar year aligned up with the solar year. Each month had 30 days unless it was a leap year then certain months had 29 days.

 

[Corn Pop]

I dont believe in a global flood. I believe in a regional flood. I don't think I can believe Noah was 7 meters higher than Mt Everest In a boat and could breathe.

I think it's just how people interpret. For example the earth to the very early people would have only been what they knew the earth was or refered to as the earth. Today with technology we know and call what the earth is on a global scale what we know and refer to the earth, so to them the whole earth could have been just a region. So even the whole earth was covered and the highest hills in all the earth were covered , might have just been a region with what we would call small hills covered.

 

[Who Me]

I've never thought about the measurements, or what the ship didn't need before. That's very interesting Dan. It makes me wonder just how many animals were in there.

try:-

How Could Noah Fit the Animals on the Ark and Care for Them?

While it is possible that God made miraculous provisions for the daily care of these animals, it is not necessary—or required by Scripture—to appeal to miracles.

answersingenesis.org

 

[Tessa]

Thank you for the link Who Me it's very interesting. The conservative researchers estimate 16,000. That's a lot of livestock to take care of. I will go back to the link to carry on reading later.

 

[WIP]

Thank you for the link Who Me it's very interesting. The conservative researchers estimate 16,000. That's a lot of livestock to take care of. I will go back to the link to carry on reading later.

I question the validity of eight persons being able to properly feed, clean up after, and care for 16,000 animals. There isn't enough time in a day to do that. Putting the animals into a state of hibernation certainly ads to the possibility.

 

[for_his_glory]

I dont believe in a global flood. I believe in a regional flood. I don't think I can believe Noah was 7 meters higher than Mt Everest In a boat and could breathe.

I think it's just how people interpret. For example the earth to the very early people would have only been what they knew the earth was or refered to as the earth. Today with technology we know and call what the earth is on a global scale what we know and refer to the earth, so to them the whole earth could have been just a region. So even the whole earth was covered and the highest hills in all the earth were covered , might have just been a region with what we would call small hills covered.

Genesis 6:11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. 12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. 13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

The Hebrew word for earth is "erets" which means land, ground, earth. I believe the flood was regional as in the areas surrounding Turkey like that of present day Syria Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia where most everyone would have lived in Noah's time. All other nations would have been formed after the flood beginning with Noah's sons and the generations after them.

Mt. Ararat is located east of Turkey surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea, Caspian Sea and the Indian Ocean. Turkey is the original location of Eden where a river flowed out of it that formed four heads. The four heads are Pison that ran through the land of Havilah, Gihon that covered the land of Ethiopia, Hiddekel that went towards the east of of Assyria and the Euphrates. These rivers run through present day Syria, Iraq, Jordon and upper portion of Saudi Arabia.

Noah was born and died in Nakhchyvan east of Turkey about 153 miles from Mt Ararat. It's located between Armenia and close to the boarder of Iran. We know that God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and after they were taken out of the garden they would have stayed close to that region of Eden, which is present day Turkey. Being that Seth is Noah's 8x Great Grandfather and buried east of Eden in the Cave of Treasures and Noah living and died and buried in Nakhchyvan this sets the region where the flood took place. The flood could have been global. but only affected those of that region.

Now for the different species of animals and fowls and creeping things God created we can read in Genesis 2:18-20 they were also regional to the same area as Adam gave names to all of them. These animals would have not crossed over and seas or oceans to come to Adam.

Genesis 2:18-20 God formed from the ground every beast of the field and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

 

[for_his_glory]

try:-

How Could Noah Fit the Animals on the Ark and Care for Them?

While it is possible that God made miraculous provisions for the daily care of these animals, it is not necessary—or required by Scripture—to appeal to miracles.

answersingenesis.org

That was an interesting article. thank you for sharing it.