Noah's Ark
Noah's Ark is the boat built by the Biblical
character Noah. At the command of God, according to the story,
Noah was to build a boat that could accommodate his extended
family, about 50,000 species of animals, and about one million
species of insects. The craft had to be constructed to endure
a divinely planned universal flood aimed at destroying every
other person and animal on earth (except, I suppose, those animals
whose habitat is liquid). This was no problem, according to
Dr. Max D. Younce, who says by his calculations from Genesis
6:15 that the ark was 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet
deep. He says this is equivalent to "522 standard stock
cars or 8 freight trains of 65 cars each." By some divine
calculation he figures that all the insect species and the worms
could fit in 21 box cars. He could be right, though Dr. Younce
does not address the issue of how the big boxcar filled with
its cargo rose with the rainwater level instead of staying put
beneath the floodwaters.
Those not familiar with the story might wonder
why God would destroy nearly all the descendants of all of the
creatures he had created. The story is that God was displeased
with all of his human creations, except for Noah and his family.
Annihilating those one is displeased with has become a familiar
tactic of the followers of this and many other gods.
Despite the bad example God set for Noah's
descendants--imagine a human parent drowning his or her children
because they were "not righteous"--the story remains
a favorite among children. God likes good people. He lets them
ride on a boat with a bunch of friendly animals. He shows them
a great rainbow after the storm. And they all live happily ever
after. Even adults like the story, though they might see it
as an allegory with some sort of spiritual message, such as
God is all-powerful and we owe everything, even our very existence
to the Creator. Furthermore, the Creator expects us to behave
ourselves. But there are many who take the story literally.
According to the story told in chapter 7 of
Genesis, Noah, his crew, and the animals lived together for
more than 6 months before the floodwaters receded. There are
a few minor logistical problems with this arrangement, but before
getting to them, there is one other thing that needs commenting
on. It is obvious that floods are no laughing matter. The destruction
of life and property caused by floods has plagued many animals,
not just humans, from time immemorial. To watch one's family
or home swept away in floodwaters must be a terrible spectacle.
To see one's children drown, one's life and dreams washed away
in an instant, must be a devastating experience. But if one
were to discover that the flood was not a whimsical effect of
chance natural events, not unplanned and purposeless, but rather
the malicious and willful act of a conscious being, one might
add rage to the feelings of devastation. I suppose one could
argue that it is God's world; he created it, so he can destroy
it if he feels like it. But such an attitude seems inappropriate
for an All-Good, Loving God.
the "finding" of the Ark
Yet, as preposterous as this story seems, there
are people in the twentieth century who claim they have found
Noah's ark. They call themselves "arkeologists." Yes,
they say that when the flood receded, Noah and his zoo were
perched upon the top of Mt. Ararat in Turkey. Presumably, at
that time, all the animals dispersed to the far recesses of
the earth. How the animals got to the different continents,
we are not told. Perhaps they floated there on debris. More
problematic is how so many species survived when they had been
reduced to just one pair or seven pairs of creatures. Also,
you would think that the successful species that had the furthest
to travel, would have left a trail of offspring along the way.
What evidence is there that all species originated in Turkey?
That's what the record should look like if the ark landed on
Mt. Ararat.
Still, none of this deters the true believer
from maintaining that the story of Noah's ark is the God's truth.
Nor does it deter those who think the ark has been found. For
example, in 1977 a pseudo-documentary called "In Search
of Noah's Ark" was played on numerous television stations.
CBS showed a special in 1993 entitled "The Incredible Discovery
of Noah's Ark." The first is a work of fiction claiming
to be a documentary. The second was masterminded by George Jammal,
who has admitted that the story was a hoax. Jammal said he wanted
to expose religious frauds. His hoax was seen by about 20 million
people, most of whom probably still do not know that Jammal
did not want them to take it seriously.
During his show, Jammal produced what he called
"sacred wood" from the ark, which he later admitted
was woodtaken from railroad tracks in Long Beach, California,
which he had hardened by cooking in an oven. He also prepared
other fake wood by frying a piece of California pine on his
kitchen stove in a mix of wine, iodine, sweet-and-sour and teriyaki
sauces. He also admitted that he had never been to Turkey. The
program was produced by Sun International Pictures, based in
Salt Lake City, and responsible for several pseudo-documentaries
on Nostradamus, the Bermuda Triangle, the Shroud of Turin, and
UFOs.
the evidence for a universal flood
Stories of floods are not unique to the ancient
Jews.* What geological or archaeological evidence is there of
such a universal destruction of all human societies, all plants
and all animals except for the ones on Noah's boat (or Ziusudra's
[Sumeria], or Utnapishtim's [Babylon])? There should be a layer
of sediment dating from the same time which contains all the
bones of these poor creatures. There should be evidence that
all human societies were wiped out simultaneously. No such evidence
exists of a universal flood. Evidence of a great flood, perhaps
caused by melting glaciers bursting through the Bosporus strait
some 7,000 years ago, has been discovered off the coast of Turkey
by Robert Ballard (who found the remains of the Titanic) and
some (like Ryan and Pitman) have claimed this is evidence of
Noah's flood, but this is pure and inane speculation.* The Biblical
flood is due to rain, not a bursting dam. As archeological anthropologist
John Alden notes
...the story in the Bible is clear -- it
rained for weeks before Noah's flood, and after it stopped raining
the floodwaters receded. The Black Sea flood wasn't caused by
rain, and after the water rose it never went away. And neither
[the Sumerian nor the Biblical] story mentions the most dramatic
consequence of the Black Sea flood, which turned fresh water
into salt. Noah's flood, in short, doesn't sound anything like
the inundation of the Black Sea.
However, for the sake of argument, let's agree
that there was a universal flood, but that somehow the evidence
got twisted around so that geologically and archaeologically
it doesn't appear that the flood occurred. There are still a
few questions we should ask before accepting this theory. First,
how big was this boat? The answer: really, really big! Would
it float? Noah might have been given divine guidance here, so
maybe this boat could float. Remember that this is all done
before the discovery of metallurgy, so the boat is made of wood
and other natural materials. How many forests would it take
to provide the lumber for such a boat? How many people working
how many years would be required? Building a pyramid would be
peanuts compared to building the ark. But remember, people lived
a lot longer in those days. Noah was 600 years old when he built
his giant boat in the desert.
But let's say that, however implausible, such
a boat could have been built using the technology of wooden-boat
building known to the earliest peoples. After all, Noah allegedly
had God's help in building his boat. There is still the problem
of gathering the animals together from the various parts of
the world that, as far as we know, Noah had no idea even existed.
How did he get to the remote regions of the earth to collect
exotic butterflies and Komodo dragons? How did he get all those
species of dinosaurs to follow him home? (Fundamentalists believe
dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time.) By the time he
collected all his species, in twos and sevens, his boat would
probably have rotted in the desert sun.
But let's grant that Noah was able to collect
all the birds and mammals, reptiles, and amphibians, and a couple
of million insects that he is said to have gathered together
on his boat. There is still the problem of keeping the animals
from eating one another. Or, are we to believe that the lion
was lying down with the lamb on the ark? Did the carnivores
become vegetarians for the duration of the flood? How did he
keep the birds from eating the insects? Perhaps, the ark was
stocked with foods for all the animals. After all, if Noah could
engineer the building of a boat which could hold all those animals,
it would have been a small feat to add room to store enough
food to last for more than six months. Of course, Noah would
have to store enough food for himself and his family, too. But
these would have been minor details to such a man with such
a plan guided by God.
Still, it seems difficult to imagine how such
a small crew could feed all these animals in a single day. There
is just Noah, his wife, their three sons and three daughters-in-law.
The "daily" rounds would take years, it seems. Delicacy
forbids me from mentioning the problems of the "clean-up"
detail, but I would have to say that if the noise of all those
animals didn't drive Noah insane (not to mention the insect
bites), the smell should have killed him. At least they didn't
have to worry about water to drink. God provided water in abundance.
Finally, belief in the universal flood or even
belief in the building of the ark are not nearly as strange
as the belief that this event of mass destruction was the direct
work of the Creator to show anger at people who would dare to
enjoy this life and have a good time rather than spend all their
free time worshipping the Almighty.
