Noah's Ark - True Story or Fiction?

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Dandelion_Wine:
Now I didn’t read all the posts (don’t have time today - I may go back), BUT with that said, I saw a thing on Nova on PBS about Noah’s Ark. They had some guy who worked for the Pentagon going over some of the ‘biblical’ evidence. It was a pro-Noah’s Ark thing. He said that the flood explained something like 17 natural occurences - a couple that I remember where the fossil record, the oil deposits, continental drift and subsequently mountains.
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If he said that, he was absolutely wrong on those four examples.
They built a scaled model of the ark and said that it could handle 200 foot waves and turn almost up to 90 degrees on its side and still upright itself.
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A boat the size mentioned in the bible could not be made of wood and withstand any waves, much less 200 ft waves.
As a catholic, I’m allowed to believe that it’s a literal story or a fictional story. I haven’t decided. I think I lean 50.000001% on the literal side.
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You are correct. You can believe anything you want.

Peace

Tim
 
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PraRFLEsEkHm:
While I have looked through your sources, here is where we differ - you believe that a long string of letters after ones name indicates an ‘authoritative source’, solely for that reason. I tend to believe that a solid belief in the Word of God, first, whether or not it is followed by a string of letters, is more of an acceptable authority.
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You are right. Many theologians (those without degrees, of course) are better at finding oil than those geologists who have a long string of letters after their names.:rolleyes:

Peace

Tim
 
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Mystophilus:
Actually, I depend more on the fact that the person with the letters after his/her name belongs to an organisation which bases its existence upon professional scholarship, and which is, therefore, reviewed by peers around the world rather than being a case of some lone individual claiming to know the truth. Consensus is always more reliable.

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There was a time when the consensus was the world is flat. Consensus can be bad when it is used as a substitute for examining the facts. Consensus is most definately not a reason to apply to exgesis, after all the road is narrow.

btw, I speculate this to be a morality tale with a real person at it’s center, Noah, who was a just man who survived a terrible flood by God’s providence.
 
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Orogeny:
A boat the size mentioned in the bible could not be made of wood and withstand any waves, much less 200 ft waves.
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Sure it could. It would be a remarkable feat, but it’s possible. Sure, if the hull was made of a single layer of timbers, it would definitely warp itself right in half. But suppose there were many layers of timbers tied together tightly by rope, so that the hull was quite thick, and it was very thoroughly braced.

Who knows what kind of technology they had back then? The people before Noah’s Ark could very well have been a very advanced society, and we would never know.

What I want to know is how to answer someone who says that there isn’t enough water on the planet to flood it completely.
 
Krasnaya Kometa:
Sure it could. It would be a remarkable feat, but it’s possible. Sure, if the hull was made of a single layer of timbers, it would definitely warp itself right in half. But suppose there were many layers of timbers tied together tightly by rope, so that the hull was quite thick, and it was very thoroughly braced.
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I’m afraid not. Wood is not structurally strong enough for a boat that size.
Who knows what kind of technology they had back then? The people before Noah’s Ark could very well have been a very advanced society, and we would never know.
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Sounds a little like the chariots of the gods approach to me. Besides, you suggest that Noah would have been one of the advanced civilization, so he would have brought it along with him on the boat and we would know about it.
What I want to know is how to answer someone who says that there isn’t enough water on the planet to flood it completely.
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You can’t because they are right.

Peace

Tim
 
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Shadowcry:
Its obviously just a story ,people have to stop interpreting things so literally.
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Why? It’s no good making sweeping statements to support either position, you know. Unless you explain why you believe that, we can’t determine if you are basing it on anything solid or merely on personal distaste for supernatural explanations.

As for me, I have already stated what I think, given what we know. I do wish someone would address my proposal instead of merely debating whose science is the more reliable, which seems to be too subjective to be truly useful.
 
“Faith must precede understanding, and one must accept that there is nothing recorded in the Old Testament that is beyond the power of God. We must be like little children in our approach to God, and not as the skeptics and godless of the present times, who think themselves so sophisticated and certain in their assumptions but are really wise-fools.” Father John Echert

Is it any hard matter for God to drop the stones of a man made wall of Jericho, Who created the entire world out of nothing?

Oh, here’s another one for you, why would the Holy Spirit inspire something that’s not true? Surely the Holy Spirit doesn’t contradict itself.

Here’s another one this my favorite. Ask the sceptics if they had been around in the 100 years Noah spent building the ark they would thought him to be crazy. They would be laughing at Noah as silly, until the flood waters came and he/she started treading water and sucking for air among the scoffers. Or in hell for that matter.
 
Originally Posted by Orogeny
A boat the size mentioned in the bible could not be made of wood and withstand any waves, much less 200 ft waves.
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Genesis 6:14-16 (New Living Translation)
14"Make a boat from resinous wood and seal it with tar, inside and out. Then construct decks and stalls throughout its interior. 15Make it 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high. 16Construct an opening all the way around the boat, 18 inches below the roof. Then put three decks inside the boat–bottom, middle, and upper–and put a door in the side.
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Every hear of the saying: Through God ALL things are possible.

'Nuff said.
 
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Mystophilus:
Flood stories also occur in Native American legends, Pacific Island legends, and East Asian legends, which could mean that there was a worldwide flood, or that there have been many floods at different times in different places and so people have written stories about them.

Had there been a worldwide flood, it should be very evident in the geological record, which it is not except to diehard fundamentalists.
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Woot I can play this game to.

There is lots of geological data that show there was a major flood years ago.
 
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Orogeny:
I’m afraid not. Wood is not structurally strong enough for a boat that size.

Sounds a little like the chariots of the gods approach to me. Besides, you suggest that Noah would have been one of the advanced civilization, so he would have brought it along with him on the boat and we would know about it.

You can’t because they are right.

Peace

Tim
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If they can make a pyramid out of tooth picks that will hold up a full size car they can make a zoo out of lumber that can hold a zoo.
 
According to Bible History (the theology of history), Noah’s Ark is accurate. God’s Word needs to be believed.

One cannot explain the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. I cannot explain or defend it. My Christology professor at the College of St. Thomas did not believe it because he could not understand it. He wanted to see (know and understand) before he could hear (believe). They have eyes, but cannot see. They have ears, but cannot hear.

I cannot explain creation, but it is still true.

Too simplistic, prove Washington was president to a person who does not want to believe. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera…
 
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Singinbeauty:
Every hear of the saying: Through God ALL things are possible.

'Nuff said.
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Yep, you got me there. I guess that is the end of this discussion.😉

Peace

Tim
 
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roymckenzie:
Woot I can play this game to.

There is lots of geological data that show there was a major flood years ago.
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A major flood? Only one? Was it global? There is lots of geologic evidence for a GLOBAL flood?

I am eagerly awaiting a link to that data.

Peace

Tim
 
Whether or not the Flood story actually happened, or to the degree depicted in scriptures, is not as important as the symbolism of this story.
The sins of the people were washed away by water, Typology for Baptism.
If anyone would like, Jean Danielou wrote in Bible and the Liturgy about this and many other Types in the old and new testament.
 
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Fidelis:
In his encyclical about the inspiration of Scripture (Spiritus Paraclitus,), Pope Benedict XV acknowledges: “[St.] Jerome was compelled, when he discovered apparent discrepancies in the sacred books, to use every endeavor to unravel the difficulty. If he felt that he had not satisfactorily settled the problem, he would return to it again and again, not always, indeed, with the happiest results” (ibid., no. 15).

St. Augustine also held that if there were some difficulty in Scripture, he would take the position that, since God’s Word is perfect, the problem must either be with the translation, or from his own dullness of mind.
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Ark or not, there was a great flood in what is now Iraq.

However, think about this - Were the Australian marsupials also on the ark? Then how did they all get back to Australia without spreading throughout the rest of the world?
 
l w smith:
Ark or not, there was a great flood in what is now Iraq.

However, think about this - Were the Australian marsupials also on the ark? Then how did they all get back to Australia without spreading throughout the rest of the world?
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Could have been the Australian marsupials were in the ark and spread out through the whole world but the animals found they were very tasty and ate them in other places. They probably ate them all except the opossum. The other animals probably figured they were just so ugly they were not worth eating. Could have been.
 
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