Wasn't there an actual ark?

[William_inquire]

what technologies would those be?

I think the arke problem is much more fundamental that you are giving it credit for. there are physical limitations on what anyone can do with wood. this isn’t cultural background, its the physics of volume and buoyancy and the building properties of wood.

I don’t have an online reference for you but, see, Pope, Life in Nelson’s Navy, Naval Institute Press, p. 37 for figures on the amount of wood needed to construct HMS Bellerophon, a ship smaller than either the *HMS Victory *or HMS Victoria. At 168’ along the gun deck, this ship was about a third as big as the arke was supposed to be. it was built around 1800.
it took at least 2,000 oak trees, about 50 acres of forest were cleared. as in, felled, stripped of bark and branches, transported to the building site to be shaped and cut. you’d want oak for strength, and you’d prefer that it be seasoned oak, which can take years so it won’t rot while at sea. add in pitch, iron and copper fittings, nails, oil, paint, specialized tools trained builders and the services of a navy yard and after a couple of years you’d have a ship.

noah was a shepherd

come on.

you and I both know that the purpose of the arke story is not supposed to be a lesson on naval architecture.

Wirraway, Just who is making it a lesson on naval architecture.

1. Please start with the idea that I am accepting your arguments about the amount of wood, specialists in naval architecture and all the problems cited by your authors. The state of the art in the 19th century would have demanded all those things that you cite.
2. Thor Heyerdahl (spelling) wrote Kon Tiki. the premise is that he thought that a group of people could make a trans oceanic voyage in a reed boat from south america to polynesia. He proved that it was possible. A key concept was that he used only the materials and technologies available to those people at the time. Herein lies the assumption. He used what scholars THINK was available.
3. Cultural background has everything to do with how archeologists interpret things.
   3a you assume that Noah having been a sheperd couldn’t learn to do something else?
   3b you are in effect stating that because it couldn’t be done in the 19th century that means it couldn’t have been done earlier.
   4 Likewise the Ark is more like a modern 20th century cargoship.
4. some modern inventions are actually quite old. Example the Romans used concrete.
5. We now use trusses using 2x4s instead of more traditional rafters in house building, less material more strength. there are plenty of engineered wood products that are stronger . Laminates are also quite strong. Buckminster Fullers structures are quite a lot stronger than 19th century structures.
6. I hesitate in using this example because I cannot remember the source and as much detail as I would have liked. The ancients were able to quarry and move a 72 ton stone. We are not able to do this today. Alternatively consider the pyramids: people marvel at the accuracy achieved with simple tools . Or another example: The Admiral Piri Rice map. It shows Antartica UNDER the ice sheets and it it has accurate longitudinal measurement. It was discovered in the 1500s. That requires a clock, an accurate one!
   7b The idea that more primitive civilizations are further back in time is an evolutionary concept.
   In the end my argument is NOT that one can look at what we currently know about : wood, physics, logistics. But RATHER the problem is what we don’t know about Noah’s ark and the point that you didn’t address which is whether you can accept the idea that God can do miracles. Our current naturalistic orientation in science tends to reject anything that smacks of the supernatural .It tends to make A PRIORI assumptions that reject anything that cannot be explained by natural processes AND our schooling teaches us to think this way. It is this schooling , starting with the elightenment, which teaches us that revealed knowledge is not knowledge , but that Man’s reason is what will eventually discover all “Truth” People have become futile in their thinking. (romans)

You make the point that Noah’s Ark isn’t a lesson in naval architecture. I couldn’t agree more. It isn’t … It is about God’s judgement on Men. Jesus believed that the Flood killed every person not on the Ark. What else could Christ mean when He likened the coming world judgment to the judgment of “all” men in the days of Noah (Matthew 24:37–39) Making it a local flood mitigates this. Without the ark you cannot have a global flood and have survivors.

 

[Wirraway]

Wirraway, Just who is making it a lesson on naval architecture.

1. Please start with the idea that I am accepting your arguments about the amount of wood, specialists in naval architecture and all the problems cited by your authors. The state of the art in the 19th century would have demanded all those things that you cite.
2. Thor Heyerdahl (spelling) wrote Kon Tiki. the premise is that he thought that a group of people could make a trans oceanic voyage in a reed boat from south america to polynesia. He proved that it was possible. A key concept was that he used only the materials and technologies available to those people at the time. Herein lies the assumption. He used what scholars THINK was available.
3. Cultural background has everything to do with how archeologists interpret things.
   3a you assume that Noah having been a sheperd couldn’t learn to do something else?
   3b you are in effect stating that because it couldn’t be done in the 19th century that means it couldn’t have been done earlier.
   4 Likewise the Ark is more like a modern 20th century cargoship.
4. some modern inventions are actually quite old. Example the Romans used concrete.
5. We now use trusses using 2x4s instead of more traditional rafters in house building, less material more strength. there are plenty of engineered wood products that are stronger . Laminates are also quite strong. Buckminster Fullers structures are quite a lot stronger than 19th century structures.
6. I hesitate in using this example because I cannot remember the source and as much detail as I would have liked. The ancients were able to quarry and move a 72 ton stone. We are not able to do this today. Alternatively consider the pyramids: people marvel at the accuracy achieved with simple tools . Or another example: The Admiral Piri Rice map. It shows Antartica UNDER the ice sheets and it it has accurate longitudinal measurement. It was discovered in the 1500s. That requires a clock, an accurate one!
   7b The idea that more primitive civilizations are further back in time is an evolutionary concept.
   In the end my argument is NOT that one can look at what we currently know about : wood, physics, logistics. But RATHER the problem is what we don’t know about Noah’s ark and the point that you didn’t address which is whether you can accept the idea that God can do miracles. Our current naturalistic orientation in science tends to reject anything that smacks of the supernatural .It tends to make A PRIORI assumptions that reject anything that cannot be explained by natural processes AND our schooling teaches us to think this way. It is this schooling , starting with the elightenment, which teaches us that revealed knowledge is not knowledge , but that Man’s reason is what will eventually discover all “Truth” People have become futile in their thinking. (romans)

You make the point that Noah’s Ark isn’t a lesson in naval architecture. I couldn’t agree more. It isn’t … It is about God’s judgement on Men. Jesus believed that the Flood killed every person not on the Ark. What else could Christ mean when He likened the coming world judgment to the judgment of “all” men in the days of Noah (Matthew 24:37–39) Making it a local flood mitigates this. Without the ark you cannot have a global flood and have survivors.

let’s assume the shepherd noah was infused with knowledge of maritime architecture beyond 21st century shipbuilders, had access to a navy yard, skilled workers, 100 acres of seasoned oak, and a zoo. he still could not build a 450’ boat out of wood alone. even with steel reinforcing, it would sink. I am stating that what can’t be done in the 21st century couldn’t be done in the bronze age. what you’re saying is like claiming that noah could have built a 100 story building out of wood. the tension and compression characteristics of wood don’t allow this. a large wooden ship is not a floating shoebox, there are a lot of similarities between how a steel freighter and a wooden battleship are built up, the differences being the freighter is made of steel, not wood, and structures made of steel can be made considerably bigger than ones made of wood.

there’s a lot of pseudo-science in your response.

if you can find any physical laws that are different for different cultures, let me know. if you know something about the technologies noah used, rather than what he might have used, let me know. (he might have had a modern shipyard at his disposal, just because we haven’t found evidence that he didn’t – see how your reasoning leads nowhere?)

the piri reis map is not what you think it is. what you’re saying is the coastline of antarctica is actually south america. the map as evidence of supernatural events or whatever has been debunked long ago.

cutting stone blocks and floating them to a construction site the technology isn’t magical.

bottom line: the story of noah is not about shipbuilding. if God wanted to float an unseaworthy craft, that He could do.

so which person carried smallpox and where was the plague and ebola hiding?

 

[buffalo]

let’s assume the shepherd noah was infused with knowledge of maritime architecture beyond 21st century shipbuilders, had access to a navy yard, skilled workers, 100 acres of seasoned oak, and a zoo. he still could not build a 450’ boat out of wood alone. even with steel reinforcing, it would sink. I am stating that what can’t be done in the 21st century couldn’t be done in the bronze age. what you’re saying is like claiming that noah could have built a 100 story building out of wood. the tension and compression characteristics of wood don’t allow this. a large wooden ship is not a floating shoebox, there are a lot of similarities between how a steel freighter and a wooden battleship are built up, the differences being the freighter is made of steel, not wood, and structures made of steel can be made considerably bigger than ones made of wood.

there’s a lot of pseudo-science in your response.

if you can find any physical laws that are different for different cultures, let me know. if you know something about the technologies noah used, rather than what he might have used, let me know. (he might have had a modern shipyard at his disposal, just because we haven’t found evidence that he didn’t – see how your reasoning leads nowhere?)

the piri reis map is not what you think it is. what you’re saying is the coastline of antarctica is actually south america. the map as evidence of supernatural events or whatever has been debunked long ago.

cutting stone blocks and floating them to a construction site the technology isn’t magical.

bottom line: the story of noah is not about shipbuilding. if God wanted to float an unseaworthy craft, that He could do.

so which person carried smallpox and where was the plague and ebola hiding?

Ancient Chinese Explorers

http://www.chinapage.com/chengh2v.gif

 

[LMP]

I have to laugh at this thread. If you will notice, people, the original questioner is long gone. HA And, I don’t care how hard anyone pushes their position, no one will ever know absolutely for sure until they meet God. So as we all travel along until that day, we should just simply enjoy the great fun it is to think of these things.

 

[athenaluvsdoves]

I’m not long gone. I’ve been reading all the posts and I appreciate everybody’s answers. I just wanted to find out what the official position of the Catholic Church was on this issue. As long as I don’t have to believe that Noah’s Ark was a myth, then I feel a lot better about it.

 

[StAnastasia]

there’s a lot of pseudo-science in your response.

Wirraway, don’t forget Noah’s pre-flood cruise around the world to collect the Australian Marsupials and the North and South American megafauna. And his post-flood cruise to drop off the marsupials in Australia, every point of which (problematically) is thousands of feet lower than Mt. Ararat.

And don’t forget to account for the 29,035 feet of water needed to cover Mt. Everest.

And the problem of thousands of pounds of manure per day!

StAnastasia

 

[Wirraway]

Wirraway, don’t forget Noah’s pre-flood cruise around the world to collect the Australian Marsupials and the North and South American megafauna. And his post-flood cruise to drop off the marsupials in Australia, every point of which (problematically) is thousands of feet lower than Mt. Ararat.

And don’t forget to account for the 29,035 feet of water needed to cover Mt. Everest.

And the problem of thousands of pounds of manure per day!

StAnastasia

torpedo ye arke covered the physics of all the heat released from the rain:

Problem #10: Latent heat of vaporisation. Do you know how much heat water releases when it turns from vapour to liquid? Ever have a steam burn? 1g of steam condenses to 1g of liquid water plus 2261 joules! A cubic meter of water is a million grams and the surface of the Earth is 5.09 x 10^8 km2 or 5.09 x1014 m2. Thus, if we drop a measely meter of water a day for 40 days, the amount of energy released is 2261 joules/g * 1,000,000 g/m3 * 5.0910^14 m3 per day or 1.15 * 10^24 joules a day or 249,300,000 megatonnes/day! The pentagon would envy such an arsenal. *
*
Put another way, for every m of water level increase, we have to release 2.261 billion joules/m2. At a rate of 1 m/day, this comes to 2.261 billion joules/day/m2 or a radiance of 26 kilowatts/m2, roughly 20 times the brightness of the sun! Result: The atmosphere rapidly turns into incandescent plasma incinerating Noah and Ye Arke. Nothing survives, the oceans boil and the land is baked into pottery.*

 

[StAnastasia]

Put another way, for every m of water level increase, we have to release 2.261 billion joules/m2. At a rate of 1 m/day, this comes to 2.261 billion joules/day/m2 or a radiance of 26 kilowatts/m2, roughly 20 times the brightness of the sun! Result: The atmosphere rapidly turns into incandescent plasma incinerating Noah and Ye Arke. Nothing survives, the oceans boil and the land is baked into pottery.

Wirraway, next you are going to try convince my children that Santa Claus doesn’t exist! Santa’s job was to delivering presents (in a flying sleigh) even if only to Christian households, in one night. But it was much easier than Noah’s job of preserving the DNA of 30 million species for half a year.

I’ve read calculations that in order for Santa to do this, the sleigh would have to go so fast that it would be incinerated:

“353,430 tons (160,650 metric tons) travelling at 650 miles (1048 km) per second creates enormous air resistance. This would heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion kilojoules of energy per second, each. In short, they would burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and creating a deafening sonic boom in their wake. The entire reindeer team, the sleigh, the Christmas presents, and Santa would be vapourized within 4.26 thousandths of a second.”

StAnastasia

 

[Wirraway]

Wirraway, next you are going to try convince my children that Santa Claus doesn’t exist! Santa’s job was to delivering presents (in a flying sleigh) even if only to Christian households, in one night. …

StAnastasia

well I remember my own epiphany (as it were) in discovering that there was no Santa. Dad made me take down the trip wire that would have triggered a double spread of buckshot and taken off Santa’s legs at the knees. childhood was such an innocent time of wonder and beauty. I cherish this trip down the long halls of my memory and thank you.

 

[athenaluvsdoves]

Originally posted by St.Anastatia:Wirraway, don’t forget Noah’s pre-flood cruise around the world to collect the Australian Marsupials and the North and South American megafauna

Noah didn’t have to go around collecting the animals. They came to him. “Two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive.” Genesis 6:20.

 

[TravisandJill]

I dont get why it is so hard for people to believe that God can do anything! like the previous poster’s comments on the manure or the animals on the ark wanting to eat eachother… wouldnt it be possible for a GOD who made man from DUST to take away the animals instincts for a time and sustain them so they dont kill eachother on the ark??? Wouldnt it also be possible that God realized they would be messy and temporarily stopped them from urinating or deficating? Is it so hard to imagine that God can do whatever he wants to. God can do anything even if it doesnt sound logical to us humans. He has a reason for everything he does.

And to say that Noah had to drop all the animals off at their locations? Wouldn’t it be possible for the same God who assumed people into heaven to make the animals appear to their destination in an instant??

Have a little faith, somethings you may never understand

 

[Wirraway]

Noah didn’t have to go around collecting the animals. They came to him. “Two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive.” Genesis 6:20.

which animal carried the plague bacillus? which human carried the smallpox virus?

 

[Wirraway]

I dont get why it is so hard for people to believe that God can do anything! like the previous poster’s comments on the manure or the animals on the ark wanting to eat eachother… wouldnt it be possible for a GOD who made man from DUST to take away the animals instincts for a time and sustain them so they dont kill eachother on the ark??? Wouldnt it also be possible that God realized they would be messy and temporarily stopped them from urinating or deficating? Is it so hard to imagine that God can do whatever he wants to. God can do anything even if it doesnt sound logical to us humans. He has a reason for everything he does.

And to say that Noah had to drop all the animals off at their locations? Wouldn’t it be possible for the same God who assumed people into heaven to make the animals appear to their destination in an instant??

Have a little faith, somethings you may never understand

playing the hand wave game takes all the fun out of this debate. since no one is denying God could do anything, there’s no point in discussing any of the practical defects in the whole concept once you invoke that.

but you can’t have it both ways, either say “God did it” and end the discussion for you, or join the fray and explain how a shepherd managed to clear 100 acres of ship-building quality mature oak forest and transport the lumber to his personal navy yard.

 

[StAnastasia]

I dont get why it is so hard for people to believe that God can do anything! …And to say that Noah had to drop all the animals off at their locations? Wouldn’t it be possible for the same God who assumed people into heaven to make the animals appear to their destination in an instant??
Have a little faith, somethings you may never understand

TravisandJill, you are right that God can do anything. But don’t invoke miracles if you are insisting on a naturalistic explanation for the flood and ark story. If God could materialize marsupials in Australia instantaneously, God could also suspend them above the sea for 150 days and dispense with the ark altogether. If you do insist on a literal interpretation of the Noah story, you must account in literalistic terms for all its aspects, not invoking miracle when it suits you.

If you interpret it literally, you have to account for how kangaroos, koalas, wallabies, echidnas, and platypuses swam thousands of miles across open ocean to Mesopotamia, without any food, in order to reach Noah’s ark. You also have to account for how the animals got back to every continent on the flood-devastated earth devoid of vegetation appropriate to their digestive requirements. Remember, if you opt for a literal interpretation, you cannot suddenly invoke a miracle to explain those bits of the story you find inconvenient, because then you are no longer interpreting it literally.

StAnastasia

 

[Wirraway]

TravisandJill, you are right that God can do anything. But don’t invoke miracles if you are insisting on a naturalistic explanation for the flood and ark story. If God could materialize marsupials in Australia instantaneously, God could also suspend them above the sea for 150 days and dispense with the ark altogether. If you do insist on a literal interpretation of the Noah story, you must account in literalistic terms for all its aspects, not invoking miracle when it suits you.

If you interpret it literally, you have to account for how kangaroos, koalas, wallabies, echidnas, and platypuses swam thousands of miles across open ocean to Mesopotamia, without any food, in order to reach Noah’s ark. You also have to account for how the animals got back to every continent on the flood-devastated earth devoid of vegetation appropriate to their digestive requirements. Remember, if you opt for a literal interpretation, you cannot suddenly invoke a miracle to explain those bits of the story you find inconvenient, because then you are no longer interpreting it literally.

StAnastasia

don’t pile on.

and they hitched rides on the giant sea bats.

 

[StAnastasia]

and they hitched rides on the giant sea bats.

Wirraway, what are giant sea bats? Real or imaginary? (Google turned up nothing for me.) Are they large enough to support fourteen kangaroos all the way to India?

StAnastasia

 

[Wirraway]

Wirraway, what are giant sea bats? Real or imaginary? (Google turned up nothing for me.) Are they **large enough **to support fourteen kangaroos all the way to India?

StAnastasia

they’re **giant **sea bats … sorry to make you Look It Up. they were left over figments from my sea faring days when we used to splice the main brace, trice up the Other Ranks and give them a taste of the 'cat, and, uh, do other sailorlike things in a seamanlike way.

 

[StAnastasia]

they’re **giant **sea bats … sorry to make you Look It Up. they were left over figments from my sea faring days when we used to splice the main brace, trice up the Other Ranks and give them a taste of the 'cat, and, uh, do other sailorlike things in a seamanlike way.

La faccia sua era faccia d’uom giusto,
tanto benigna avea di fuor la pelle,
e d’un serpente tutto l’altro fusto;
due branche avea pilose insin l’ascelle;
lo dosso e 'l petto e ambedue le coste
dipinti avea di nodi e di rotelle.*

Dante, Inferno, Canto XVII

 

[Wirraway]

La faccia sua era faccia d’uom giusto,
tanto benigna avea di fuor la pelle,
e d’un serpente tutto l’altro fusto;
due branche avea pilose insin l’ascelle;
lo dosso e 'l petto e ambedue le coste
dipinti avea di nodi e di rotelle.*

Dante, Inferno, Canto XVII

that was the only way to deal with those – other people, dressed funny – enlisted, not like us – who kept showing up on our ship.

but this is true for anyone away from home:

how salt tastes another’s bread
and how steep are another’s stairs

 

[Mike_Cooksey]

Try getting and watching this Video:

“The Quest for Noah’s Ark” "High atop a mountain in Eastern Turkey is a giant 5,000 year old wooden ship containing hundreds of stalls and cages. Is it Noah’s Ark?..

ISBN 0-9667985-4-6

Grizzly Adams Productions Inc., Filmed in the U.S. and Turkey

Based on a book by Charles E. Sellier and David W. Balsiger.