Noah an analogy or reality or both?

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Hi,
I have been reading the Navarre Bible Pentateuch It says that Noah is portrayed as an early saviour who followed God’s will down to the smallest details. As a result, he saved mankind from complete destruction. This is supposed to be a foreshadowing of Jesus? The ark is supposed to represent the Church, every person who enters into it is saved? The dove sent out is symbolic of the Holy Spirit and how he appeared to the apostle’s? The flood is akin to a cleansing baptism for mankind? All the sinful people were dead so the earth and humankind were offered a chance to renew the earth?

Is there anyone who has heard of this before? Does this mean that Noah and the ark is more a symbolic story rather than actual event in history?
 
Galnextdoor said:
Hi,
I have been reading the Navarre Bible Pentateuch It says that Noah is portrayed as an early saviour who followed God’s will down to the smallest details. As a result, he saved mankind from complete destruction. This is supposed to be a foreshadowing of Jesus? The ark is supposed to represent the Church, every person who enters into it is saved? The dove sent out is symbolic of the Holy Spirit and how he appeared to the apostle’s? The flood is akin to a cleansing baptism for mankind? All the sinful people were dead so the earth and humankind were offered a chance to renew the earth?

Is there anyone who has heard of this before? Does this mean that Noah and the ark is more a symbolic story rather than actual event in history?
Click to expand...
No, the story of Noah is considered factual. The Navarre is giving you examples in Typology - where Old Testament events point us to the Truth in Christ.

BTW, the Navarre is fantastic, isn’t it?
 
Noah factual? I believe the Church teaches Noah as a faith story to highlight the consequences of not following the laws of God and not as fundamental facts. There are three main flood stories retold including the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Sumarian and the Atrahasis stories, each with different meanings and details but also with similarities. Each of these are referenced in the Catholic Bible Dictionary.
 
Galnextdoor said:
Hi,
I have been reading the Navarre Bible Pentateuch It says that Noah is portrayed as an early saviour who followed God’s will down to the smallest details. As a result, he saved mankind from complete destruction. This is supposed to be a foreshadowing of Jesus? The ark is supposed to represent the Church, every person who enters into it is saved? The dove sent out is symbolic of the Holy Spirit and how he appeared to the apostle’s? The flood is akin to a cleansing baptism for mankind? All the sinful people were dead so the earth and humankind were offered a chance to renew the earth?

Is there anyone who has heard of this before? Does this mean that Noah and the ark is more a symbolic story rather than actual event in history?
Click to expand...
Scripture can have have more than one meaning. A story can have both literal and spiritual meanings. I do not believe that the Church has an official teaching whether or not the story of Noah was a historical event or not.
 
Galnextdoor said:
Hi,
I have been reading the Navarre Bible Pentateuch It says that Noah is portrayed as an early saviour who followed God’s will down to the smallest details. As a result, he saved mankind from complete destruction. This is supposed to be a foreshadowing of Jesus? The ark is supposed to represent the Church, every person who enters into it is saved? The dove sent out is symbolic of the Holy Spirit and how he appeared to the apostle’s? The flood is akin to a cleansing baptism for mankind? All the sinful people were dead so the earth and humankind were offered a chance to renew the earth?

Is there anyone who has heard of this before? Does this mean that Noah and the ark is more a symbolic story rather than actual event in history?
Click to expand...
Noah is reality.
 
The Navarre Bible is fantastic. It’s strange that there is no consensus about whether Noah and the ark is real, a teaching story or both. I guess I will just keep searching.
 
Galnextdoor said:
Hi,
I have been reading the Navarre Bible Pentateuch It says that Noah is portrayed as an early saviour who followed God’s will down to the smallest details. As a result, he saved mankind from complete destruction. This is supposed to be a foreshadowing of Jesus? The ark is supposed to represent the Church, every person who enters into it is saved? The dove sent out is symbolic of the Holy Spirit and how he appeared to the apostle’s? The flood is akin to a cleansing baptism for mankind? All the sinful people were dead so the earth and humankind were offered a chance to renew the earth?

Is there anyone who has heard of this before? Does this mean that Noah and the ark is more a symbolic story rather than actual event in history?
Click to expand...
You can believe Noah et. al. were “historically true” or not. Either way is fine according to the Catholic faith.

The interpretation you refer to is an ancient one, and a wonderful part of the Catholic tradition.
 
I really like that interpretation. This is the first time I’ve heard it, I have trouble with the literal flooding of the entire Earth and the story of Noah was always a gray area for me.

Thanks. 👍
 
Galnextdoor said:
Hi,
I have been reading the Navarre Bible Pentateuch It says that Noah is portrayed as an early saviour who followed God’s will down to the smallest details. As a result, he saved mankind from complete destruction. This is supposed to be a foreshadowing of Jesus? The ark is supposed to represent the Church, every person who enters into it is saved? The dove sent out is symbolic of the Holy Spirit and how he appeared to the apostle’s? The flood is akin to a cleansing baptism for mankind? All the sinful people were dead so the earth and humankind were offered a chance to renew the earth?

Is there anyone who has heard of this before? Does this mean that Noah and the ark is more a symbolic story rather than actual event in history?
Click to expand...
I wrote an article on part of the historical half of the question published in a Catholic magazine.

Though I am “Mr. Typology” in this website, in fact, surprisingly, there is respectable evidence that there was an ark!!!

A friend of mine, Charles Berlitz (who passed away a few years ago), led one of the expeditions to the mountains of Ararat, years ago, traveling to the site of that stone shape in the mountains originally caught in aerial photographs…

lighthousepatriotjournal.files.wordpress.com/2006/05/arkwyattsite.jpg

The evidence found by him at the site really does seem to dramatically lock-in theories that that shape is Noah’s ark!!!

When Genesis has God saying…

14 “Make yourself an ark of gopherwood, put various compartments in it, and cover it inside and out with pitch.” Genesis 6:14.

…what you are looking at is an extract from a Dr.-Seuss-like ancient rhyming child’s poem, somewhat like that song, “God told Noah, Build me an arky arky…”…

Make yourself an ark of GFR,
Put various rooms in it,
And KFR it inside and out with KFR.

The translators rendered “GFR” “gopherwood,” but that is really an intentional misstatement. There is no such thing as “gopherwood.” There never has been. Not in the history of the world.

The reason why they were puzzled is that the Hebrew term “GFR” in Genesis is closest to the term for “plaiting” – basketweaving!!! They had trouble believing that something as huge as the ark could be made of basketweaving. Since that did not make sense to them, they retained the Hebrew consonants, “GFR,” and added “wood” to them – presto! “GFR-wood”!

“KFR” on the other hand is “pitch.” So, a proper translation is…

Make yourself an ark of basketweaving,
Put various rooms in it,
And pitch it inside and out with pitch.

Lo and behold, just as God told Noah to make an ark out of “GFR,” until very recently, when Saddam Hussein began to kill them all, the Marsh Arabs in southern Iraq were building boats called a “gufa”…

scienceandsociety.co.uk/Pix/TRN/07/10316507_T.JPG

There it is: That’s your “gufa.” It is a basketweave vessel covered with bituminous pitch.

The ark would have been a giant version of that.

If someone were to say, “Basketweaving as big as the ark is IMPOSSIBLE!!!,” well, that’s not true. Before Saddam Hussein butchered the Marsh Arabs to make room for French oil concessions (so that dear old Saddam could make “big bucks”), they were making enormous warehouse-size basketweave structures…

laputanlogic.com/images/2004/01/27-Y99E2FNR00.jpeg

Then they would have covered them with bituminous pitch, like a typical gufa, cut it off the ground, and turned it over.

When Berlitz’s team went to Ararat, what did they find?

They found that that shape on the ground was made of concretacious pitch, covered with a basketweave design!!!

Other expeditions have found typical ships’ ribs in neaby glaciers. I believe that they were from the same structure, and were inserted to give the basketweaving a shaped superstructure.
 
Peter_Dawson said:
The evidence found by him at the site really does seem to dramatically lock-in theories that that shape is Noah’s ark!!!

When Genesis has God saying…

14 “Make yourself an ark of gopherwood, put various compartments in it, and cover it inside and out with pitch.” Genesis 6:14.

…what you are looking at is an extract from a Dr.-Seuss-like ancient rhyming child’s poem, somewhat like that song, “God told Noah, Build me an arky arky…”…

Make yourself an ark of GFR,
Put various rooms in it,
And KFR it inside and out with KFR.

The translators rendered “GFR” “gopherwood,” but that is really an intentional misstatement. There is no such thing as “gopherwood.” There never has been. Not in the history of the world.

The reason why they were puzzled is that the Hebrew term “GFR” in Genesis is closest to the term for “plaiting” – basketweaving!!! They had trouble believing that something as huge as the ark could be made of basketweaving. Since that did not make sense to them, they retained the Hebrew consonants, “GFR,” and added “wood” to them – presto! “GFR-wood”!

“KFR” on the other hand is “pitch.” So, a proper translation is…

Make yourself an ark of basketweaving,
Put various rooms in it,
And pitch it inside and out with pitch.

Lo and behold, just as God told Noah to make an ark out of “GFR,” until very recently, when Saddam Hussein began to kill them all, the Marsh Arabs in southern Iraq were building boats called a “gufa”…

scienceandsociety.co.uk/Pix/TRN/07/10316507_T.JPG

There it is: That’s your “gufa.” It is a basketweave vessel covered with bituminous pitch.

The ark would have been a giant version of that.

If someone were to say, “Basketweaving as big as the ark is IMPOSSIBLE!!!,” well, that’s not true. Before Saddam Hussein butchered the Marsh Arabs to make room for French oil concessions (so that dear old Saddam could make “big bucks”), they were making enormous warehouse-size basketweave structures…

laputanlogic.com/images/2004/01/27-Y99E2FNR00.jpeg

Then they would have covered them with bituminous pitch, like a typical gufa, cut it off the ground, and turned it over.

When Berlitz’s team went to Ararat, what did they find?

They found that that shape on the ground was made of concretacious pitch, covered with a basketweave design!!!

Other expeditions have found typical ships’ ribs in neaby glaciers. I believe that they were from the same structure, and were inserted to give the basketweaving a shaped superstructure.
Click to expand...
I recently came across this same information. It seems an ancient civilization used large basket-weaved boats long ago as well, so this isn’t out of the realm of possibility.

My question is, A basket-boat would not have lasted for over 4000 years. If so, any search for remains of the Ark would be fruitless.

Appended: Peter, I must have missed the last part. Would the remains be like the ribs of the ark?
 
NotWorthy said:
I recently came across this same information. It seems an ancient civilization used large basket-weaved boats long ago as well, so this isn’t out of the realm of possibility.

My question is, A basket-boat would not have lasted for over 4000 years. If so, any search for remains of the Ark would be fruitless.

Appended: Peter, I must have missed the last part. Would the remains be like the ribs of the ark?
Click to expand...
The part made of plaited reeds apparently rotted out of existence centuries ago. The concretacious pitch hull exterior is what Berlitz found. It’s amazing to look at.

Timbers shaped like these…

farm4.static.flickr.com/3216/2417470897_e9d3ba22a3.jpg?v=0

…were pulled out of a glacier up there in the mountains of Ararat – boat ribs.
 
Wow, thanks for the information Peter. That was fascinating. I once saw a program where Robert Ballard was searching for remains of a civilization under the water. He found a remains of towns underwater in the Black Sea. They said there must have been a flood there of biblical proportions.
 
Charles Berlitz? “Philadelphia Experiment”, “Bermuda triangle” Charles Berlitz? No thanks I’ll get my information from more reliable sources.BAR has articles on so called Ark on Ararat and they have an article on “was Noah’s Ark a sewn boat”.
 
juliamajor said:
Charles Berlitz? “Philadelphia Experiment”, “Bermuda triangle” Charles Berlitz? No thanks I’ll get my information from more reliable sources.BAR has articles on so called Ark on Ararat and they have an article on “was Noah’s Ark a sewn boat”.
Click to expand...
Hey! Julia! What am I? Dog food?

I wrote one of the articles, too! And in a more reliable magazine than BAR!

Berlitz, by the way, was a good, good, good man. He was one of the gentlest souls on Earth, God rest his soul.
 
Peter_Dawson said:
Hey! Julia! What am I? Dog food?

I wrote one of the articles, too! And in a more reliable magazine than BAR!

Berlitz, by the way, was a good, good, good man. He was one of the gentlest souls on Earth, God rest his soul.
Click to expand...
Woof!No dog food…what magazine? Mr. Berlitz might have been a very good man but it doesn’t mean he was right about the “Philadelphia Experiment”(supposedly he had documents proving it!) Or the Bermuda triangle nonsense. Even good men have their eccentricities.😛
 
“Noah and the Ark: Fact or Fiction?,” The Catholic Answer, September/October, 2001, pp. 36-42.
 
On the subject of the Philadelphia Experiment, I checked-out one point for Mr. Berlitz. He claimed that one of the sailors who made it alive off the ship became a spontaneous human combustion victim in a bar in South Philadelphia shortly thereafter, breaking out into flames in front of several witnesses, and that this was reported in a Philadelphia newspaper.

I found the article – a tiny blurb in the Philadelphia Bulletin, in the Bulletin collection in the Philadelphia Free Library.

One sparrow does not a Spring make.

But when it comes to verification of an amazing fact, that ain’t bad!
 
tobinatorstark said:
Peter is there anyway you can provide a link or something so we can see this?
Click to expand...
I just did try, Toby. It doesn’t appear to be on-line anymore. Fr. Stravinskas appears to have let the post lapse.

The “Our Sunday Visitor” organization owns the rights to the article. They send out free copies.
 
Peter_Dawson said:
I just did try, Toby. It doesn’t appear to be on-line anymore. Fr. Stravinskas appears to have let the post lapse.

The “Our Sunday Visitor” organization owns the rights to the article. They send out free copies.
Click to expand...
ok. I am very familiar with the Sunday Visitor.
 
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