Noah's Ark - True Story or Fiction?

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I believe that the Bible story of God, the Flood, Noah and his Ark and the covenant that God made with Noah after the flood are allegorically, historically and prophetically true.

Allegorically, the Ark could have been a type…allowing for more than one great ship with human and animal refugees in more than one place. Allegorically, the flood is a symbol for baptism. Prophetically, God’s statement that He will not again destroy the world by flood lets us discern false prophecies about present and future destructions by world flooding.

I hope this doesn’t contradict the analysis in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. If or where it does, I’ll yield to the CCC.

God love’s ya’ll,
Don
 
twinc said:
that there was a world wide flood is evident and clearly seen,except by those refuse to see with eyes to see that see not viz “millionos of dead things buried in sedimentary rock layers covered by water all over the earth” - twinc
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correction;- “millions of dead things buried in sedimentary rock layers laid down by water all over the earth” - twinc
 
Shayde said:
Wow - I hope this turns out to be the ark. Thanks for posting, Rodomonte. I often think, wouldn’t it be fantastic if the arc of the convenant were to be found!
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Hi, Shayde,

IIRC, the prophet Jeremiah is quoted in 2 Maccabees as saying the Ark of the Covenant will not be found, until the Lord comes in glory. The prophet Jeremiah hid it.
 
If you believe in Jesus, you believe in Noah’s Ark. Jesus was a direct descendant of Noah in the flesh; Jesus spoke about his great grandfather Noah. Just believe the Bible. Jesus wouldn’t mention Noah if he was fictional. Peter wrote about Noah & the flood. 2 Peter 2 vs.5
The Ark, along with the rainbow, is a sign to man of the worldwide flood. It was God’s plan to put a large boat high in the mountains to preserve it in ice.
 
Well tradition does seem to confuse people. no wonder there are many world flood traditions.

This is the best way to explain it:

Moses wrote Genesis later in time but he went back to the beginning of earth & man. “In the beginning God”

The other tribes, before Moses, had their traditions of the flood from the actual Noah Ark event.
The reason their events vary is because oral tradition is not always accurate.
 
St_Kevin said:
Well tradition does seem to confuse people. no wonder there are many world flood traditions.

This is the best way to explain it:

Moses wrote Genesis later in time but he went back to the beginning of earth & man. “In the beginning God”

The other tribes, before Moses, had their traditions of the flood from the actual Noah Ark event.
The reason their events vary is because oral tradition is not always accurate.
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I don’t think that’s a good explanation. All Scripture is inspired by God. Moses was not just jotting down a few notes, the Holy Spirit guided the words. This is Church teaching.

God bless,
Ed
 
Let the debunking begin:

michaelsheiser.com/PaleoBabbl…obabble-update

I am a slave to the Lord Jesus Christ, and I believe every word of the Scriptures, including the story of Noah’s Ark. But this ain’t it.

Why are people so credulous? This is like the Blessed Virgin image on a tortilla. People that place stock in these things lose their (already weak) faith when things like this turn out to be frauds or hoaxes, and Christians look like fools.

Our Faith does not rest upon archaeology, it rests upon the power and the promises of God and on the Lord Jesus Christ.
 
I think its a bit of history and a bit of story.

Apparently there’s some beleif in the scientific community who state that around the time of Noah there was a tsunami, so that could be the big “flood”. I seriously, seriously doubt the guy got two of every animal, I mean, how did he manage animals that are only found in other parts of the world, like the Kiwi down under. Not to mention, I always find it a little sus, if Noah and his family were the only humans to survive, does that mean that God looked the other way on the whole incest thing? Or did he whip a new batch?

I think its a nice story that makes a nice song for little Christian children to sing at their little Christian schools, but as for something that is literal, unlikely.

I do always find these things to be intriguing though, as some Christians seem to think that unless you leave your brain at the door and beleive some of these stories, you’re nto really Christian.

Long and short of it, no one’s going to Hell because they dont’ beleive a senior citizen built a boat, got 2 of EVERY animal and sailed around for 40 days and 40 nights while the heathens were drowning.
 
edwest2 said:
I don’t think that’s a good explanation. All Scripture is inspired by God. Moses was not just jotting down a few notes, the Holy Spirit guided the words. This is Church teaching.

==============================================
The flood occured; the people who lived after the flood past their tradition of the flood to their children. The flood stories vary because mans tradition is not always reliable.

Then Moses wrote the true account of the flood. His account went from the beginning of creation to the present. The Moses version is the true version.
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vera_dicere said:
I think its a bit of history and a bit of story.

Apparently there’s some beleif in the scientific community who state that around the time of Noah there was a tsunami, so that could be the big “flood”. I seriously, seriously doubt the guy got two of every animal, I mean, how did he manage animals that are only found in other parts of the world, like the Kiwi down under. Not to mention, I always find it a little sus, if Noah and his family were the only humans to survive, does that mean that God looked the other way on the whole incest thing? Or did he whip a new batch?

I think its a nice story that makes a nice song for little Christian children to sing at their little Christian schools, but as for something that is literal, unlikely.

I do always find these things to be intriguing though, as some Christians seem to think that unless you leave your brain at the door and beleive some of these stories, you’re nto really Christian.

Long and short of it, no one’s going to Hell because they dont’ beleive a senior citizen built a boat, got 2 of EVERY animal and sailed around for 40 days and 40 nights while the heathens were drowning.
Click to expand...
===========================================================
Well Jesus believed in the flood account; so did St. Peter & Paul
after all, they wrote & spoke about it. Did you know that archeologists found a large mosiac of Jonah & the whale in the front of St. Jeromes house? These events were true or the Bible & Jesus were dishonest.

Noah did not search for the insects & animals to fill the ark. They came to him. God sent them to Noah. God closed the door.
They did not practice insest. First of all, the Mosiac law was not established back them; their blood lines were stronger than man today. Noah had a wife before he built the ark.; she wasn’t his sister. There’s no mention of Noah having relations with anyone but his wife. Noahs 3 sons had wives before the ark also. They were not their sisters. There’s no mention of any of the sons having relations with their daughters. Those that got married would have been cousins. There’s was nothing wrong with that back then. After all, God said “be fruitful & multiply” right after they got off the ark. If Noah & the ark isn’t true, neither is Catholicism.
 
Fidelis said:
Let the debunking begin:

michaelsheiser.com/PaleoBabbl…obabble-update

I am a slave to the Lord Jesus Christ, and I believe every word of the Scriptures, including the story of Noah’s Ark. But this ain’t it.

Why are people so credulous? This is like the Blessed Virgin image on a tortilla. People that place stock in these things lose their (already weak) faith when things like this turn out to be frauds or hoaxes, and Christians look like fools.

Our Faith does not rest upon archaeology, it rests upon the power and the promises of God and on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Click to expand...
Yes, our faith does not rest on archaeology but consider how the world uses so-called science in an attempt to disprove Biblical events. Catholics Cannot Afford To Ignore This.

An osuary - a stone box – containing the bones of Jesus. A close look at the writing on the box shows the word Jesus was added by someone else.

The recent claim that the Exodus never happened.

The TV program that tried to explain the plagues sent against Egypt as “natural” events.

Don’t ignore the repeated yearly attempts to discredit the Church by charlatans who think they’ve explained Biblical events. In the 1980’s, a local free newspaper ran this headline: Easter Cancelled. Christ’s Body Found ! It included a photo of a pair of feet sticking out of the dirt. It was fake, of course.

Christians have always looked like fools to the secular world. 🙂

God bless,
Ed
 
vera_dicere said:
I think its a bit of history and a bit of story.

Apparently there’s some beleif in the scientific community who state that around the time of Noah there was a tsunami, so that could be the big “flood”. I seriously, seriously doubt the guy got two of every animal, I mean, how did he manage animals that are only found in other parts of the world, like the Kiwi down under. Not to mention, I always find it a little sus, if Noah and his family were the only humans to survive, does that mean that God looked the other way on the whole incest thing? Or did he whip a new batch?

I think its a nice story that makes a nice song for little Christian children to sing at their little Christian schools, but as for something that is literal, unlikely.

I do always find these things to be intriguing though, as some Christians seem to think that unless you leave your brain at the door and beleive some of these stories, you’re nto really Christian.

Long and short of it, no one’s going to Hell because they dont’ beleive a senior citizen built a boat, got 2 of EVERY animal and sailed around for 40 days and 40 nights while the heathens were drowning.
Click to expand...
Hi, vera dicere,

Personally, I think that a valid explanation of how two of every animal came to be on the Ark, would be that angels transported the further animals to the Ark’s location.
And, since Noah’s three sons each had a wife, there’s no problem with incest, unless you count first cousin marriages as incest.

I also think that all the different flood and survivor stories from all around the world, different interpretation of the same data notwithstanding, indicates a global flood.

So, the Flood story still generates debate among educated adults, as well as a Bible story for little children.

God loves you,
Don
 
Fidelis said:
Let the debunking begin:

michaelsheiser.com/PaleoBabbl…obabble-update

I am a slave to the Lord Jesus Christ, and I believe every word of the Scriptures, including the story of Noah’s Ark. But this ain’t it.

Why are people so credulous? This is like the Blessed Virgin image on a tortilla. People that place stock in these things lose their (already weak) faith when things like this turn out to be frauds or hoaxes, and Christians look like fools.

Our Faith does not rest upon archaeology, it rests upon the power and the promises of God and on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Click to expand...
Hi, Fidelis,

Your link on this post goes to an 404 Error message. However, your link on the other thread,

michaelsheiser.com/PaleoBabble/2010/04/noahs-ark-paleobabble-update/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=noahs-ark-paleobabble-update

worked.

I’d like to make a few comments in addition to what I said on the other thread.

First, the different books I’ve read about different expeditions to Mt. Ararat lead me to seriously doubt that the locals would have been part of the alleged fraud.

Second, there’s just Dr. Price’s say so, about the alleged fraud.

Third, I would like to point out, that the author of the article could have put words in Dr. Price’s mouth, to phrase it politely.

Fourth, timber beams from the Black Sea area would not necessarily have the age that the beams on Mt. Ararat were dated at.

Fifth, the article, if true, stated that Dr. Price also was working on the Noah’s Ark at Mt. Ararat research. This opens Dr. Price to the suspicion that the motive of jealousy prompted him to compose the story of the alleged fraud.

Sixth, there’s also the credulous nature of people listening to a fallible human being with academic certification. Which is no guarantee of any moral character traits.

Therefore, in closing, my opinion has not altered, that if not the Ark, that the evangelical teams could have found the site of the old shrine, constructed of timbers from the Ark.

Just my two cents worth,
Don
 
donsnow said:
Hi, Fidelis,

Your link on this post goes to an 404 Error message. However, your link on the other thread,

michaelsheiser.com/PaleoBabble/2010/04/noahs-ark-paleobabble-update/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=noahs-ark-paleobabble-update

worked.

I’d like to make a few comments in addition to what I said on the other thread.

First, the different books I’ve read about different expeditions to Mt. Ararat lead me to seriously doubt that the locals would have been part of the alleged fraud.

Second, there’s just Dr. Price’s say so, about the alleged fraud.

Third, I would like to point out, that the author of the article could have put words in Dr. Price’s mouth, to phrase it politely.

Fourth, timber beams from the Black Sea area would not necessarily have the age that the beams on Mt. Ararat were dated at.

Fifth, the article, if true, stated that Dr. Price also was working on the Noah’s Ark at Mt. Ararat research. This opens Dr. Price to the suspicion that the motive of jealousy prompted him to compose the story of the alleged fraud.

Sixth, there’s also the credulous nature of people listening to a fallible human being with academic certification. Which is no guarantee of any moral character traits.

Therefore, in closing, my opinion has not altered, that if not the Ark, that the evangelical teams could have found the site of the old shrine, constructed of timbers from the Ark.

Just my two cents worth,
Don
Click to expand...
P.S I did go to the PaeloBabble website, and submit a comment copied from the above text. I added to the first line, that there was no personal disrespect intended. I rearranged Second and Third points. And, I added, “in this age of moral relativism.” after “Which is no guarantee of character moral traits…”

This post is just to say, that I say the same thing to a person, that I say about them, on another site.
 
I agree with the criticism of the Q & A ‘Answer’.

The ‘Answerer’ assumes that it was the author of Genesis who ‘took a Mesopotamian story and dressed it up with Hebrew details’.
If we compare the Mesopotamian and Biblical accounts, it is easy to see that the ‘Answerer’ is quite wrong is is absurd.

Genesis 7-9 gives a fairly straightforward account of the flood: God angry at evil men, God gets man to build big boat, man takes animals on boat, big flood drowns everyone, water goes down, man lands big boat. There is no identification of Noah with specifically ‘Hebrew’ culture, which we would expect if Genesis were merely ‘converting’ a Mesopotamian story.

The Mesopotamian accounts (in ‘Gilgamesh’ and ‘Atrahasis’) look like embellished versions of the Genesis 7-9 story: they add obvious ‘local flavour’, ie ‘Noah’ becomes a Sumerian king at Shuruppak, and various Babylonian gods feature in minor roles. It is not made clear why the ‘gods’ drowned everyone but warned Noah.

All in all, the Genesis account looks more like an unembellished, fairly faithful ‘original’ account of an actual event (eg note the careful enumeration of days and cubit measurements, which would mean little to a fiction writer but a lot to an actual sailor), while the Mesopotamian accounts look like they have been dressed up with ‘homespun theology’.

Pax tecum
 
Why is the story of Noah and the Flood always assumed to be either entirely figurative or entirely literal?

My interpretation is that the story has both figurative and literal elements. There was a Noah and an Ark and a great Flood. But the extent of the Flood did not kill all human persons and all animals, other than those in the Ark. The Ark need not contain all species of animals, but only a range of species as a representation of all life on earth. The waters need not have covered all land everywhere, rather this is a figure for the extent of sin and the extent of the offer of salvation.

So there need not be evidence of a worldwide Flood of the literal type, in order to support the story. Science indicates that this was not the case; a flood did not cover all land and kill all species and all human persons. Yet the story is not entirely figurative. There was still a great Flood and an Ark, but the extent of the Flood is figurative, while the event itself is literal.

The story of Adam and Eve is similarly part literal and part figurative. There were two human persons, one man and one woman, at the start of the human race, and they did fall from grace. But the tree and fruit and talking serpent are figures. An historical event is related by means of a figurative description.

Interestingly, W. Bruce Masse offers some scientific evidence that the Flood occurred in 2807 B.C., due to a piece of a comet striking the Indian Ocean, throwing large amounts of water into the upper atmosphere, and causing great quantities of rainfall worldwide. This is about the right time frame given the geneologies in the Bible and the various lengths of time that are stated.
 
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