Thoughts on Noah's Ark

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When talking to non-Christians, Noah’s Ark is usually brought up as a way to make you feel childish and silly for believing something that sounds like nothing more than a children story or fairy tale. For a while I would dwell over all the little aspects of Noah’s Ark like:

How did 2 of EVERY animal possibly fit in there? How did none of them die or fight with each other in the ark? How did they have enough room to store all the different kinds of food to feed these animals? How did the penguins and polar bears get to Noah if they are only in arctic regions? How did they get back to the arctic regions after the flood? What about all the plant life on earth that would die if submerged under water for so long? etc. etc. etc.

I also heard someone argue that if the whole world was flooded, the level of humidity in the atmosphere would make the earth much too hot for human life.

After all of this stuff is pointed out, it seems very implausible to believe the story of Noah’s Ark. However, I think that Noah’s ark is no more implausible than Moses parting the Red Sea, Jesus healing Lepers, curing the blind, raising people from the dead .Jesus’s own resurrection, and Jesus walking on water. Isn’t pointing out all of the minor details in the story of Noah’s Ark like pointing out all the minor details of Jesus healing a blind man or any of the other things I’ve mentioned?

If someone is blind, it is because the parts of the eye don’t function correctly or they’re damaged and today a doctor could look at the eye and point out all of the different reasons why you’re blind. If Jesus can snap his fingers and twink reality a bit and fix everything that’s wrong with a blind man’s vision, how is the story of Noah’s Ark any more “ridiculous” or “childish” or “silly” ? If he can tinker with the biological factors of the eye, can’t God also tinker with all the factors of the atmosphere in the flood or ensure that 2 of every animal fit in the ark?

It all boils down to the fact that the God of the bible is a miracle working God that intervenes in the natural world. What are your thoughts on this?
 
And don’t forget the part about mixing waters. If the whole world was flooded then fresh water mixed with salt water. How did the freshwater fish survive in that?

I have two books about people finding what sure looks like Noah’s Ark on the mountain it’s supposed to be on. I’ve seen a third book in the public library. That’s good enough for me to conclude that there was an Ark. But yes, Jesus rising from the dead is a harder and more important trick then sorting out the animals. After contemplating Easter/Pascha, at the end of the day I’m actually not interested in sorting out Noah’s details.
 
scottm said:
And don’t forget the part about mixing waters. If the whole world was flooded then fresh water mixed with salt water. How did the freshwater fish survive in that?

I have two books about people finding what sure looks like Noah’s Ark on the mountain it’s supposed to be on. I’ve seen a third book in the public library. That’s good enough for me to conclude that there was an Ark. But yes, Jesus rising from the dead is a harder and more important trick then sorting out the animals. After contemplating Easter/Pascha, at the end of the day I’m actually not interested in sorting out Noah’s details.
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Well said. While I would be very interested to hear good answers for these questions, if you can believe God became man, and rose from the dead, animals in a wooden boat don’t seem quite so important. 🙂
 
Keep in mind, too, that the “whole world” does not necessarily mean the entire globe. It could simply refer to the “whole world” from Noah’s perspective (i.e. the Middle East region). No reason for the penguins to go anywhere. 🙂

In Scott Hahn’s “Understanding the Scriptures”, he says that the Hebrew word translated as “world” could also mean “country”. Along this line, he talks about how recent geological and archaelogical evidence suggests that there was a major flood in ancient times. They have even found evidence of cities at the bottom of the Black Sea (which may have, at one time, simply been an isolated lake) Understandiung the Scriptures, p. 73].

Many Catholics interpret the story of Noah (and all of Genesis 1-11) in the same vein of being stories that reveal religious truth without necessarily being historically accurate. As far as I know, there is nothing preventing Catholics from adopting such a view.

The main thing about the story of Noah is what it tells us about our relationship with God. Some scholars have observed that the story of Noah is one large palistrophe. This is a literary device that uses a symmetrical narrative structure to emphasize a point. Think of it as book ends. If you break down the story of Noah in Genesis 6:10-9:19 in this way, you find that the center verse is Genesis 8:1: “God remembered Noah”. That’s the take-away point right there. God will not forget us.
 
Hebrew words earth, land,ground used interchangeably in the OT. In english, these words are different in meaning and also not understood to a people that views the world as flat and no other continent(s)
In fact, we see that even the writer of the Flood account used the two words, #127 and #776 interchangeably too, and the translators had translated it rather freely into “land” and “earth” as well. This is more obvious when we compare Gen 7:8 and Gen 7:14 where both words are used for the same phrase.
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Gen 7:8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth #127],
Gen 7:14 They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth #776] after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort.
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In many instances where it was translated as “earth”, the word “land” could be used in its place without altering its significance, sometimes even making the meaning more clear.
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Exo 10:4 Else, if thou refuse to let my people go, behold, to morrow will I bring the locusts into thy coast:
Exo 10:5 And they shall cover the face of the earth [land #776], that one cannot be able to see the earth [land #776]: …
Exo 10:14 And the locusts went up over all the land #776] of Egypt, and rested in all the coasts of Egypt: …
Exo 10:15 For they covered the face of the whole earth[land #776], so that the land #776] was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land#776], … through all the land #776] of Egypt.
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.
from: preteristarchive.com/Hyper/2003_cheo_noahs-flood.html
 
**Noah’s Ark Replica Schagen Netherlands **Photo Gallery by …Replica of Noah’s Ark built by a Dutch contractor, Johan Huibers. It was built approximately to scale, however is 1/2 the length and 1/3 the width of the …

pbase.com/paulthedane/noahs_ark

National Geography Channel on the Ark:

Drogue stones believed to be the anchor stones of the ark. Close to the Dururpinar Ark site are several drogue stones dotted across the landscape. It is believed that these stones were once attached to the Ark when it was sailing and hung overboard in the water to support and stabilize the ship to make sure it remained upright when faced with large waves.

channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/the-ark-4548/Overview#tab-Photos/7

**Sea Worthiness Test (Hydrodynamics) on Noah’s Ark **using building measurements described in Sacred Scripture:

youtube.com/watch?v=WV8QoiCAf7Y

Black Sea Deluge Theory

Fresh water lake turns into the Black Sea:
**
youtube.com/watch?v=JT5QH1tLPEo**

google.com/search?q=black+sea+deluge+&rlz=1I7ADBR_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7

**Tels of People living 5600 BC **

youtube.com/watch?v=SnoD1kyprHI&feature=related
 
Curious_Hobbit said:
When talking to non-Christians, Noah’s Ark is usually brought up as a way to make you feel childish and silly for believing something that sounds like nothing more than a children story or fairy tale. For a while I would dwell over all the little aspects of Noah’s Ark like:

After all of this stuff is pointed out, it seems very implausible to believe the story of Noah’s Ark. However, I think that Noah’s ark is no more implausible than Moses parting the Red Sea, Jesus healing Lepers, curing the blind, raising people from the dead .Jesus’s own resurrection, and Jesus walking on water. Isn’t pointing out all of the minor details in the story of Noah’s Ark like pointing out all the minor details of Jesus healing a blind man or any of the other things I’ve mentioned?
Click to expand...
Or no more implausible than God creating the world in six days and resting on the seventh day …
 
Curious_Hobbit said:
When talking to non-Christians, Noah’s Ark is usually brought up as a way to make you feel childish and silly for believing something that sounds like nothing more than a children story or fairy tale. For a while I would dwell over all the little aspects of Noah’s Ark like:

How did 2 of EVERY animal possibly fit in there? How did none of them die or fight with each other in the ark? How did they have enough room to store all the different kinds of food to feed these animals? How did the penguins and polar bears get to Noah if they are only in arctic regions? How did they get back to the arctic regions after the flood? What about all the plant life on earth that would die if submerged under water for so long? etc. etc. etc.

I also heard someone argue that if the whole world was flooded, the level of humidity in the atmosphere would make the earth much too hot for human life.

After all of this stuff is pointed out, it seems very implausible to believe the story of Noah’s Ark. However, I think that Noah’s ark is no more implausible than Moses parting the Red Sea, Jesus healing Lepers, curing the blind, raising people from the dead .Jesus’s own resurrection, and Jesus walking on water. Isn’t pointing out all of the minor details in the story of Noah’s Ark like pointing out all the minor details of Jesus healing a blind man or any of the other things I’ve mentioned?

If someone is blind, it is because the parts of the eye don’t function correctly or they’re damaged and today a doctor could look at the eye and point out all of the different reasons why you’re blind. If Jesus can snap his fingers and twink reality a bit and fix everything that’s wrong with a blind man’s vision, how is the story of Noah’s Ark any more “ridiculous” or “childish” or “silly” ? If he can tinker with the biological factors of the eye, can’t God also tinker with all the factors of the atmosphere in the flood or ensure that 2 of every animal fit in the ark?

It all boils down to the fact that the God of the bible is a miracle working God that intervenes in the natural world. What are your thoughts on this?
Click to expand...
IMO to say that the flood was an geographically isolated event–even though ארץ can at times in different biblical contexts mean what we think of as a “country” in cases where a country name is cited–'the land of Egypt"–this reads against the plain meaning of the text at Gn 7:19 and the general context of the the first eleven chapters of Genesis. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”–the ארץ.

I think the Israelite story was told to stand in contrast to the other Mesopotamian flood stories where the gods attempt–without success–to arbitrarily and periodically destroy humans as a means of population control.
 
Whether it sits well with us or not, Noah’s Ark is true. There is an old Sumerian myth that repeats the story of a nutcase building an ark and surviving a flood. This predates Noah by thougsand of years. But the World wide flood is not in the geogolical record. But I theorize that they writers meant the known world. Whether there is evidence for such a flood I do not know. But If its in the Hebrew Scriptures, its true.
 
Note the people lived much longer prior to the flood.

The story of Noah’s ark is often assumed to have happened to largely primitive people compared to us. The reality may be that people were much more advanced at the time of the flood then we are today. We should also consider that the story of the flood was really something like a nuclear war where people got wiped out. If the people of Noah’s ark were much more advanced then we are today the story of the animals could have been a collection of DNA.

Anyway, one must think deeper into the meaning of Noah ark and remember that humans today haven’t a clue to “ancient” history. In fact, we live in a time of amnesia where our memory for the past has been obliterated.
 
David Fasold, a member of the merchant marine and a marine salvage expert, wrote, The Ark of Noah after much research and with a maritime outlook. Fasold’s many insights include Noah’s Ark as a flotation vessel, not a displacement vessel. Flotation is just that–bundles of now-extinct triangular reeds 3" on each side coated with pitch versus some giant wooden teacup that would sink if it sprung a leak. I highly recommend this now out-of-print wonderful book for its biblical and ancient research and archaeological adventure in Turkish Armenia, the site of Noah’s Ark per Fasold and the Turkish government.

Fasold died of a brain tumor and was a little erratic at the end. This is Fasold in his prime. I love this book for the “Shem Shuffle” chapter on the bible years puzzle that vexed St. Augustine; for the insights into the “ringed bundles” in ancient art as the ship’s attachments for the drogue stones or sea anchors; for the examination of Berosus the Chaldean priest as pointing to the Ark site; for the history of the Ark as a tourist trap…Wonderful stuff, and generally explains why this singular event has so much hiding-in-plain-sight artifact support, including the swastika–pointing the good way–as denoting the four couples on Noah’s Ark.

The newer-ish juicy dish is that Noah’s farmstead in Turkey was looted by “westerners” and that brings us to look at that site. Radiating stone fences surround one home area. That means a small crew could take care of lots of different animals! The technology of the Ark as described by Fasold and this example show the elegant solutions to many problems, all inspired by God. PS The rainbow covenant symbol is OURS!
 
Joe_5859 said:
Keep in mind, too, that the “whole world” does not necessarily mean the entire globe. It could simply refer to the “whole world” from Noah’s perspective (i.e. the Middle East region). No reason for the penguins to go anywhere. 🙂

In Scott Hahn’s “Understanding the Scriptures”, he says that the Hebrew word translated as “world” could also mean “country”. Along this line, he talks about how recent geological and archaelogical evidence suggests that there was a major flood in ancient times. They have even found evidence of cities at the bottom of the Black Sea (which may have, at one time, simply been an isolated lake) Understandiung the Scriptures, p. 73].

Many Catholics interpret the story of Noah (and all of Genesis 1-11) in the same vein of being stories that reveal religious truth without necessarily being historically accurate. As far as I know, there is nothing preventing Catholics from adopting such a view.

The main thing about the story of Noah is what it tells us about our relationship with God. Some scholars have observed that the story of Noah is one large palistrophe. This is a literary device that uses a symmetrical narrative structure to emphasize a point. Think of it as book ends. If you break down the story of Noah in Genesis 6:10-9:19 in this way, you find that the center verse is Genesis 8:1: “God remembered Noah”. That’s the take-away point right there. God will not forget us.
Click to expand...
I was taught there was a literal ark, a global flood, not regional, and it happened as described.

Jesus walked on water and calmed the waves and wind with His words. Aren’t there things only God can do? There is the Real Presence in the Eucharist.

I doubt the making a point idea. God gave Noah exact instructions about building the ark. People, today, have built small scale replicas and have found them fully sufficient to handle the sea.

Is there a spiritual truth in the Noah account? Yes.

God bless,
Ed
 
Robert_Sock said:
Note the people lived much longer prior to the flood.

The story of Noah’s ark is often assumed to have happened to largely primitive people compared to us. The reality may be that people were much more advanced at the time of the flood then we are today. We should also consider that the story of the flood was really something like a nuclear war where people got wiped out. If the people of Noah’s ark were much more advanced then we are today the story of the animals could have been a collection of DNA.

Anyway, one must think deeper into the meaning of Noah ark and remember that humans today haven’t a clue to “ancient” history. In fact, we live in a time of amnesia where our memory for the past has been obliterated.
Click to expand...
That’s incredible. More advanced than today? Do you have any references for that?

God bless,
Ed
 
buffalo said:
Ancient Chinese Characters - fascinating
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Well, as one who lives in a country where hanzi/kanji/hanja (whatever you want to call 'em) are used everyday, the whole thing is quite fascinating. Still, that does not make it automatically true.

The first thing that struck me is how the site identifies Buddha as a god. Notwithstanding the fact that there are many Buddhas in Buddhism (since the term just refers to one who has become enlightened), and that certain Mahayana Buddhist rituals and terminology seem to give the appearance of the Buddhas as gods and worship of them, Buddhism is in general non-theistic, in the sense of not teaching the existence of a supreme creator god - in Buddhist cosmology, there are god-like beings, the devas, but they are still bound under the cycle of death and rebirth: they have longer lives and live in more pleasant conditions, but they are not immortal, all-knowing, morally perfect, nor omnipotent - or depending on any supreme being for enlightenment. The Buddha is a guide and teacher who points the way to enlightenment, however the struggle for enlightenment is one’s own.

We come next to Shangdi - a term which literally translates to “Above Emperor”. Yes, the Heaven worship of the ancient Han people does have certain attributes that are quite interestingly comparable to facets of ancient Israelite religion: Shangdi has no images or idols; instead he is represented with a tablet bearing the legend 皇天上帝 (‘Ruler of Heaven, Shangdi’), and sacrifices of bulls are offered to him.

I won’t comment on their rather literal reading of the Biblical stories, but this is where I would comment.

First, they present as evidence of Babel the character 遷, meaning among other things ‘to move’ (can also be used to mean ‘to remove’ or ‘to get transferred’ or ‘to change’ - positions for instance). They get correct the part that 辶 (辵) signifies a foot(print on a road), implying something that requires use of that body part: to travel, for instance. They interpret the phonetic component 䙴 as being composed of 大 (big, great), 西 (west), and what I assume is 巳 (identified in the site as ‘division’; actually the sixth of the twelve Terrestrial Branches). What I assume, because there are two other characters which are quite the similar shape with it: 己 (‘self’ - originally a depiction of the back and forth motion of the warp string in weaving), and 已 (‘to cease’, ‘to come to an end’, ‘already’, ‘very, much’).

That said, what 䙴 (‘to climb’) originally represents, according to [this site](Chinese Etymology 字源(name removed by moderator)ut=%E4%99%B4&submitButton1=Etymology) (which is actually a good database for Chinese Characters), are “hands and feet 舁 climbing with head 囟 between hands and kneeling man 卩 at bottom - a monkey - climbing”. Nothing about Babel here, unfortunately.

Next, they present 告 (‘to tell’, ‘to inform’) as a combination of 土 (earth), 口 (mouth), as well as something that resembles the Japanese katakana ノ (purportedly ‘alive’). It seems they forgot that the original form of the character is this: 吿. The vertical line is quite longer, reaching to the mouth part below. No need for fancy explanations here: the top part is just 牛 (cow). Combined with the ‘mouth’, it is just [a representation of a cow with a mouth](Chinese Etymology 字源(name removed by moderator)ut=%E5%91%8A). 告 does form part of the character 造 (‘to create’). And in the form that we have it, we can see again the foot symbol here: 辶 (辵). Still, in some Bronze scripts, the character [appears to be a combination of](Chinese Etymology 字源(name removed by moderator)ut=%E5%91%8A) 宀 (a roof), 告, and 肉 (‘meat’/flesh, originally a pictogram of the ribs of an animal). It doesn’t look anything from Genesis to me: rather, the whole picture seems to be that of a slaughterhouse. I mean, you got a cow with a mouth and meat under one roof.

Hey! Perhaps the Chinese foretold the coming of McDonald’s and Burger King. 😛
 
To move on to 先 (‘first’), said to be made up of 土 (earth), 儿 (man), and that enigmatic ノ (‘alive’). Nope: it’s just a picture of a foot(print) 止 (nowadays this character has the meaning ‘to stop’) and 儿, a man.


止 (‘footprint’/‘to stop’)


儿/人 (‘man’)


先 (‘first’)

Next comes 福. I’m quite tired of critiquing, but let me just point this out: the site claims that 礻 (示) is a character for ‘god’. So close, and yet so far: it’s actually a representation of an altar (BTW, nowadays 示 has the meaning of ‘to show’ or ‘to indicate’). 畐, meanwhile, is just [a picture of a pot or jar](Chinese Etymology 字源(name removed by moderator)ut=%E5%91%8A) (it seems the idea is a pot in or near an altar, sometimes with hands carrying it): [nothing](Chinese Etymology 字源(name removed by moderator)ut=%E5%91%8A) about the overblown interpretations of ‘one man in a garden’.

Their explanation of the character 西 (west) as being ‘one man in an enclosed garden’ (funny how they make 口 ‘mouth’ to mean ‘enclosed garden’ here :rolleyes:) is quite overblown as well: nothing about Adam in a garden here, folks, it’s just a picture of [a sack or bag](Chinese Etymology 字源(name removed by moderator)ut=%E5%91%8A) (西 is actually related to 卤, [which represents a bag of salt](Chinese Etymology 字源(name removed by moderator)ut=%E5%91%8A)).

Despite the character for ‘to desire’ (also ‘necessary’ or ‘important’) looking like this (要) nowadays - 西 west + 女 woman, it was originally conceived [as a picture of a woman giving birth](Chinese Etymology 字源(name removed by moderator)ut=%E5%91%8A).

They almost get it right with 元 (‘beginning’), which they interpret as ‘two people’ (二 ‘two’ + 儿): what it is in reality is a figure of [人 a ‘man’ with a line drawn over his head](Chinese Etymology 字源(name removed by moderator)ut=%E5%91%8A), as if to accentuate him. Same with 禁 (‘to forbid’): without their rather forced connection between it and Genesis, they get it 90% right in that it is composed of 林 (two 木 trees, hence ‘a grove’) and 示 (according to them, ‘to command’). Two trees plus an altar means ‘restricted’.

I’m getting tired here, so I would just pass briefly overmost of the examples:

婪 (‘covetous’, ‘greedy’) - A combination of ‘woman’ (what else? :rolleyes:) and 林. The character 林 serves as a phonetic indicator, making this one of the manyphono-semantic characters: in Mandarin for example, 婪 is lán, while 林 is lín (Cantonese: laam4 - lam4). Notice the similarity in sound?
鬼 (‘spirit’, ‘ghost’, ‘demon’) - [A figure of a man/man-like creature](Chinese Etymology 字源(name removed by moderator)ut=%E5%91%8A). Of course, the 'take ‘em apart and interpret them’ approach of that website is not necessary here.
魔 (‘magic (power)’, ‘demon’, ‘(evil) spirit’) - 麻 ([林 under a roof](Chinese Etymology 字源(name removed by moderator)ut=%E5%91%8A) - ‘hemp’) plus 鬼. Um, am I the only one thinking of this? 😃
 
edwest2 said:
That’s incredible. More advanced than today? Do you have any references for that?

God bless,
Ed
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Remember that there is an upper world called “Heaven” that is surely more advanced than we are. There are references in Revelation that there was a war in Heaven with Lucifer being cast down to earth along with a third of the stars. Jewish mysticism states that there exist multiple worlds, with our world being the lowest! Jewish mysticism also insists that we need to go beyond the stories of the bible to get at the root of knowledge. Also, there are rumors of ancient city called “Atlantis” that is below the oceans.

Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world–he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, "Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.
–Revelation 10:7-10

*Nothing under the sun is new, neither is any man able to say: Behold this is new: for it hath already gone before in the ages that were before us.
–Ecclesiastes 1:10 *

That’s it for references, the rest is mainly thoughts of imagination, without which we are stuck with an unlikely story of a Noah’s ark.
 
Our friends then dig up here 倮 and 裸, both meaning ‘naked’. Out of all their interpreting, this is where our experts may not be so far after all.

楚 is another phono-semantic character. 疋 ([‘foot’](Chinese Etymology 字源(name removed by moderator)ut=%E5%91%8A), misidentified as ‘piece’) serves as the phonetic compound, while 林 suggests a lot of trees. Aside from its meaning of ‘distress’ and ‘suffering’, 楚 (Chu) is the name of a Chinese state during the Spring and Autumn Period. There must’ve been a lot of trees there. 😉

苦 (bitter) [is yet another phono-semantic character](Chinese Etymology 字源(name removed by moderator)ut=%E5%91%8A). 古 forms the phonetic compound, while 艹 (艸, ‘[grass](Chinese Etymology 字源(name removed by moderator)ut=%E5%91%8A)’) suggests something to do with plants.

They again get it almost right with 兇 (a man 儿 with an evil head - 凶 is a representation of [a container 凵 full of bad stuff](Chinese Etymology 字源(name removed by moderator)ut=%E5%91%8A)), ‘fierce/violent’. That said, their connection with brother rests only on a superficial similarity between 兇 and 兄 (man with a mouth - ‘elder brother’).

我 (‘me’) is almost correct, but it’s not a hand holding a lance: it’s [a long handled instrument (a rake?)](Chinese Etymology 字源(name removed by moderator)ut=%E5%91%8A) Rakes and 羊 sheep make up 義, ‘righteousness’ or ‘generosity’.
 
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