Noah's Ark
Noah's Ark was the immense vessel that God told Noah to build, as recorded in the book of Genesis, chapter 6. The Ark fulfilled its purposes to save Noah and his family from the global flood and to preserve mating pairs of every kind of terrestrial animal.
Construction
Popular conceptions of the Ark have varied with the culture. In the early days of Western shipbuilding, artists depicted the Ark as resembling contemporary ships, though such portraits were typically inconsistent with either the size or the proportions of the Ark. The most accurate portrait during the Renaissance was that made in 1675 by Athanasius Kircher, who thought the Ark to be rectilinear.
Sadly, nineteenth century scholars under the influence of secular scientists like Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin began to take the Flood story less seriously. Artists then began to depict the Ark in a manner befitting an illustrated children's book. A typical portrait of the Ark, even in church windows, gave it the shape of a claw-footed bathtub surmounted by an over-sized pilothouse with a gabled roof.
In 1961, John Whitcomb and Henry Morris published The Genesis Flood, the landmark work that ignited the modern creation science movement. In that work, Whitcomb and Morris discussed the Ark and emphasized its carrying capacity and hypothetical seaworthiness.
Shortly after this, a number of witnesses came forward claiming to have climbed Mount Ararat in modern Turkey and actually seen the Ark, or spoken to those who had. All the putative witnesses described an immense rectilinear structure, though they provided few details of its size and proportions. Artists now began to depict the Ark as a simple rectilinear solid. The most famous such painting was by Elfred Lee, who in 1985 painted the Ark as a long barge surmounted by a ventilatory superstructure running the entire length of its roof. The artist claimed that he based his illustration on the testimony of one George Hagopian, who died in 1972 after granting multiple interviews in which he described to Mr. Lee what he had seen.[1]
Design considerations
The Ark need not have been designed as a ship. It would not have required propulsion, a navigation system, or even anchors. Its purpose was to keep its passengers safe, possibly leaving their course and ultimate destination completely in the hands of God.
Dimensions
The book of Genesis describes Noah's Ark as a wooden vessel 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high. Based on the shortest estimated length of the cubit, this means it was at least 450 feet (135 meters) long, 75 feet (22.5 meters) wide, and 45 feet (13.5 meters) high. (If long cubits are assumed, these dimensions increase to 516 ft by 86.0 ft by 51.6 ft, or 157 m by 26.2 m by 15.7 m.) These proportions are ideal to balance the demands of sea-kindliness, hull strength, and stability. The Ark's size is equivalent to an average cargo vessel by today's standards, which is in line with the limits of timber construction. The account in Genesis 6-8 is workable. Even simple requirements such as the height between decks make good sense.[2][3]The Ark had lower, middle, and upper decks and an additional clearance of one cubit at the roof. This last might refer to an elaborate ventilation system.
In contrast, the Epic of Gilgamesh
suggests that the Ark was cuboidal, rather than rectilinear. Such a design would have been neither seakindly nor stable.[3]Structural elements
A rectilinear structure would be vulnerable to the shock of wave impacts. A curvilinear structure would be able to deflect the waves safely. Furthermore, any ship designed to stay afloat in the rough seas of the Flood would have a keel.
Examination of the ancient war vessels of the Greeks and Romans reveals many common elements that would enhance seaworthiness. They include a tapered bow with a projection below the water line, and a large sail-like projection on the stern. These features would have caused the Ark to head into the wind and fall back before it.[4]
The door of the Ark need not have been on the upper level. In fact, the terms used to describe the decks as lower, middle, and upper, rather than first, second, and third, suggest that the door was at the middle level. The door was probably in the stern of the Ark to avoid compromising the strength of its hull. The word usually translated "window" in
Genesis 6:16 actually meant "midday" and thus would indicate a series of hatches in its roof.[4]Material
The Ark was made of "gopher wood," an unidentified hardwood, and was coated inside and out with a covering that is translated as "pitch." The term gopher wood appears only in the Flood account (thereby making it a hapax legomenon), and thus the Bible gives few clues to its actual meaning.
Techniques
Skeptics have often doubted whether the technology of shipbuilding in antediluvian times was sufficiently advanced to enable Noah, or any other shipwright, to build a ship more than 500 feet (150 m) long. In fact, modern man cannot know the level of antediluvian technology, because all evidence of that technology lies buried under one or more miles of sedimentary rock. In addition, the recent finds of out-of-place artifacts suggest that antediluvian civilization might have commanded a far higher level of technology than modern archaeologists or even Biblical scholars generally suppose.
Tim Lovett suggests that the minimum technology that Noah would have had available to him was that of the ancient Egyptians, which would have been capable of building a wooden vessel as large as the Ark, and certainly within the 120 years probably allotted to the task.[5]
One persistent objection is that a wooden vessel 450 feet or more in length would not be able to stay watertight.[6] Lovett answers this objection with his description of the mortise-and-tenon-planking technique that Greek shipwrights used often and to excellent effect as early as four centuries before Christ.[4] In addition, reports persist of a forty-oar Greek galley built in the fourteenth century BC, though neither ruin nor wreck of such a ship has ever been found.[6]Schedule
The Bible does not definitely fix the date on which construction of the Ark began. Yet the Bible says that God delivered a message in advance of the Flood:"And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years." - Genesis 6:3
While many creationists purport that the reference to 120 years in the above verse was a proclamation that human
life expectancy would be reduced following he flood, others believe it refers to the date when the flood would occur - providing a period of warning, during which Noah preached repentance to a world that, sadly, did not listen. (1_Peter 3:20 , 2_Peter 2:5 )[7] Lovett suggests that Noah began to build the Ark at the same time that he began to preach to his world. Given that the Flood occurred on 17 Bul 1656 AM, Noah probably received God's instruction to build the Ark in the fall of 1536 AM[7][8] and laid the keel of the Ark in the next spring.The Bible further states that God instructed Noah to board the Ark, together with his family and all the animals, seven days before the Flood broke out. (
Genesis 7:1-10 )[9] The Bible then gives the date of the Flood as the seventeenth day of the second month of the six hundredth year of Noah's life, which would be 17 Bul 1656 AM. (Genesis 7:11-13 )[10]The above statements suggest this tentative schedule of the career of the Ark:
- Construction authorized:
Archaeology
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Main article:
Location of Noah's ark
Noah's Ark has not been found. According to Scripture, the Ark came to rest in the mountains of Ararat, which are in Turkey. There have been numerous reports of sightings throughout history, but the region remains largely unexplored. Although the Ark has probably decomposed since the flood, it remains a dream of Biblical archaeologists worldwide that the Ark will be found. The Ark's discovery would substantiate the Biblical account of a recent global flood and God's judgment. Discovering a vessel of that size in Turkey would lend credence to the Bible's account of the Earth's early history and the catastrophic interpretation of the fossil record
.Some believe that they have found the
Ark in northern Iran. A Christian archeological expedition
has found a rock formation that seems to have the same
dimensions as the Ark spoken of in the Bible. The formation
was discovered in the Elburz mountain range on Mt. Suleiman.
Scientists from the expedition have taken slices from the
rocks and run tests on them. They figured out that there are
wood cell structures within these samples. It is impossible
for the expeditioners to ever know for sure whether or not
it really was Noah's Ark, but they do know that it was a
place of great importance to ancient peoples. Explorers have
discovered an ancient shrine near the supposed Ark.
One of the most famous is that of
George Hagopian. 
There have been many supposed "sightings"
of Noah's Ark on or around Mt. Ararat.[11]
“
He was eight years old, Hagopian
said, and it was in the year 1908 [note: another
account says the year was 1905 and Hagopian was 10
years old] when his uncle took him up Ararat, past
Ahora Gorge, passing the grave of St. Jacob on the
way. As the mountain grew more precipitous his uncle
carried him on his shoulders until they came to
something that looked like a great ship located on a
rock ledge over a cliff and partially covered by
snow. It had flat openings like windows along the
top and a hole in the roof. Hagopian had first
thought it was a house made of stone but when his
uncle showed him the outline of planks and told him
it was made of wood he realized it was the Ark, just
like the other people had described it to him. His
uncle boosted him up from a rock pile to reach the
Ark roof telling him not to be afraid, "because it
is a holy ship ..." (and) "the animals and people
are not here now. They have all gone away." It is
also said that Hagopian's uncle tried to shoot the
Ark, but the bullets bounced off as if it were
metal.[12]
”
Ararat anomaly
The Ararat Anomaly is basically an object appearing in pictures on the snowfields at the peak of the Mt. Ararat. This object is often considered to be the remains of Noah's Ark.[13]
Legends
- Main article: Flood legends
Stories of a global flood, and of a favored family that survived it, abound in ancient folklore. John D. Morris collected two hundred such stories and found a surprising number of common elements. Most of the stories collected speak of a global catastrophe, consisting solely of a flood that a god or gods sent to punish the wickedness of mankind. Most stories also tell of a family, forewarned of the flood, who built a ship to save themselves and all the different kinds of animals. More than half the stories say that this ship ran aground on a mountaintop.[15]
The Animals
Genesis does not tell us that every kind of animal came to the Ark to be saved from the flood. God only brought animals "with the breath of life", a phrase that most modern creation apologists associate with land vertebrates (Genesis 7:15 ). One pair of each unclean animal, and seven pairs of each clean animal came on board (Genesis 6:20 ). The majority of the fossil record was laid down during the flood, so there were many more kinds of animals alive in Noah's time. These would include dinosaurs, pterosaurs, marsupial lions, and others; mammoths were almost certainly part of the elephant kind. Noah did not have to round up the animals, because God sent them to him (Genesis 7:2 ).
The capacity of the Ark matches estimates of the number of animals kept by Noah that have since diversified into an apparently much larger number of
species. For example, the variety of modern dogs are believed to have descended from a single ancestral pair.Related News
Archaeologists make astonishing claim about alleged discovery of Bible boat. WorldNetDaily. April 28, 2010.Noah's Ark in fiction
Many novels have been written having Noah as a character, and often as the central character. They include:
- Noah
References
- ↑ Tim Lovett, Noah's Ark: Thinking Outside the Box, Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2008 (ISBN 9780890818075), p. 18-19.
- ↑ Lovett, op. cit., p. 32-33.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "How big was Noah's Ark?" Creation Tips, n.d. Accessed November 1, 2008.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Lovett, op. cit., pp. 24-35, 42-45. See also Lovett, Tim, "Thinking Outside the Box," Answers, March 19, 2007. Accessed October 31, 2008.
- ↑ Lovett, op. cit., p. 40-41
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Miller, Glenn. "Reader's submission on the 'impossible' size of Noah's Ark." Christian Think Tank, June 22, 1997. Accessed November 1, 2008.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 James Ussher, The Annals of the World, Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2003 (ISBN: 0890513600), pgh. 29.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Lovett, op. cit., pp. 60-61
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Ussher, op. cit., pgh. 34
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Ussher, op. cit., pgh. 35
- ↑ Kneisler, Matthew. "Mount Ararat: Expeditions Past/Present." The Search for Noah's Ark, 2007. Accessed November 1, 2008.
- ↑ Kneisler, Matthew. "George Hagopian." in "Mount Ararat: Expeditions Past/Present", op. cit. Accessed November 1, 2008.
- ↑ Ararat anomaly by Wikipedia
- ↑ Durupinar site by Wikipedia
- ↑ Morris, John D. "Why Does Nearly Every Culture Have a Tradition of a Global Flood?" Acts & Facts, September 2001.
Timeline of Noah's Flood
