Noah's Ark ....How did Noah......................

by KAYTEE 40 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  OnTheWayOut

  I have tons of problems with the whole "ark" story, but coating the
  bottom of the ark is not a problem. I do not believe it was ever built,
  but my answer will be to the way it could have been done (building a
  giant box only, loading all the animals and caring for them is impossible).

  There is no way they would have built the bottom inside a frame, off the ground.
  Too big, too heavy, too much time. I imagine they would have coated and dried
  each piece of lumber before placing it on the level ground. After attaching them
  to each other, they could coat the top again. There would be more than one layer
  for strength, so the final layer wouldn't need coating (at least on the top).

  WTS literature really makes it understandable that such a giant box was feasible.
  They try to distract us from the logistics problem of squeezing all the animals and their
  food inside the box. Even if weined baby elephants were used, there are millions of
  insects, there is dung removal and ventilation problems. There are plants that would
  not survive the flood. I could go on- the point is that it could not have happened.
  WTS does make it clear that such a box of the size listed in the Bible could have been
  built, though. I believe it would have floated, too, and been properly weatherized.
• 

  Narkissos

  From Gilgamesh XI (link in my previous post):

  Just as dawn began to glow
  the land assembled around me-
  the carpenter carried his hatchet,
  the reed worker carried his (flattening) stone,
  ... the men ...
  The child carried the pitch,the weak brought whatever else was needed.
  On the fifth day I laid out her exterior.
  It was a field in area,
  its walls were each 10 times 12 cubits in height,
  the sides of its top were of equal length, 10 times It cubits each.
  I laid out its (interior) structure and drew a picture of it (?).
  I provided it with six decks,
  thus dividing it into seven (levels).
  The inside of it I divided into nine (compartments).
  I drove plugs (to keep out) water in its middle part.
  I saw to the punting poles and laid in what was necessary.
  Three times 3,600 (units) of raw bitumen I poured into the
  bitumen kiln,
  three times 3,600 (units of) pitch ...into it,there were three times 3,600 porters of casks who carried (vege-
  table) oil,
  apart from the 3,600 (units of) oil which they consumed (!)
  and two times 3,600 (units of) oil which the boatman stored
  away.
• 

  twinkletoes

  This is a good point re: tree resin and Noah's Ark
• 

  twinkletoes

  This is a good article re: Tree resin and Noah's Ark

  
  
  The pitch for Noah’s Ark
  by Tas B. Walker, B.E., Ph.D.

  Many geologists claim that Noah could not possibly have built the ark in the

  manner described in Genesis. They argue that pitch could not have been used to

  cover the ark and make it waterproof. Pitch, they claim, is derived from oil or

  coal, and if coal did not form until during the time of Noah’s Flood, he could

  not possibly have covered the ark with pitch.

  ... But coal tar and petroleum are not the only source for pitch. Anyone who

  takes the time to consult a reasonable dictionary of geology will find that

  pitch can be extracted by distilling or heating wood. In fact, prior to the rise

  of the petroleum and coal industries, this was exactly how pitch was made.

  For at least one thousand years, the pitch-making industry in Europe flourished.

  It was the pitch from this industry which assisted in the construction of those

  great wooden sailing ships which figured so prominently in European history.

  Pitch making was a skilled trade, and many European surnames bear testimony to

  that fact today. ...

  So how did they make pitch before the growth of the petroleum and coal

  industries? Their first step was to obtain resin from the pine trees which at

  that time grew in dense forests throughout Europe. A herringbone pattern of cuts

  was gouged into the tree trunk and as the resin ran down the grooves it was

  collected in a pot at the base of the tree. Pine resin is still collected in

  this way in Poland, the Ukraine, Russia, Finland and other European countries

  where pine forests are still to be found.

  When the resin had finished flowing, the trees were chopped down, covered in

  soil or ash, and burned slowly to produce a lightweight black pure form of

  carbon called charcoal. The last step in the process of making pitch was to add

  the powdered charcoal to the boiling pine resins. Different proportions of

  char-coal would produce pitch of different properties. It was this pitch which

  was used to waterproof the large ocean-going wooden ships.

  Now while I cannot say for sure that Noah obtained pitch for the ark exactly in

  this fashion, it does illustrate that you don’t have to be able to extract

  either oil or coal from the ground in order to make pitch. Anyone who had cut

  down as many trees as Noah and his helpers for the manufacture of an ocean-going

  ark would certainly have found out about tree resins.

  
  I found this through the answersingenesis.org website

  Twinkletoes
• 

  Terry

  WTS literature really makes it understandable that such a giant box was feasible.
  They try to distract us from the logistics problem of squeezing all the animals and their
  food inside the box. Even if weined baby elephants were used, there are millions of
  insects, there is dung removal and ventilation problems. There are plants that would
  not survive the flood. I could go on- the point is that it could not have happened.
  WTS does make it clear that such a box of the size listed in the Bible could have been
  built, though. I believe it would have floated, too, and been properly weatherized.

  The older the bible story; the more analog the explanation for how things were done.

  As we get closer in time to the Roman era, God becomes more remote and mysterious in his dealings and few hands-on explanations are given for things.

  You'd think God could just snap his invisible fingers and make people die where they stand. But, nooooooo.....

  ?There is the primitive man's need to make his fiction "work" in the details given. But, the devil is in the details too.

  The amount of water that would have to fall from the sky itself would weigh enough to sink any wooden box with crushing force.

  It reminds me of how parents try to explain Santa to kids as they grow more intelligent with ad hoc explanations that don't quite work.

  Pathetic, really.
• 

  Terry

  Anyone who had cut

  down as many trees as Noah and his helpers for the manufacture of an ocean-going

  ark would certainly have found out about tree resins.

  Ahhhhh...resins to believe!
• 

  hamsterbait

  Would that pitch have kept the Ark in one piece when all the methane from the animal shit exploded?

  HB
• 

  AllAlongTheWatchtower

  I've been away from here for quite some time, but there used to be a person named Running Man who made some excellent posts debunking some of the old testament "facts". The series collectively was called "The Atheist's Book of Bible Stories". I don't know if he still posts here or not, though. One of his posts was about the ark/flood story if I remember right.

  I'm willing to grant Noah his pitch...but the ark story is far more problematic than how to coat the timbers in waterproof goo:

  Planetary expansion: If the whole earth was covered in water, that means the entire surface expanded enough to cover Mt Everest-over 5 miles high. Meaning an increase in the mass of the planet. Impossible.

  PH levels: Ever kept an aquarium? If you have, you know how hard it is to keep fish alive. You can't mix freshwater fish and saltwater fish. Yet, if the entire surface of the earth were covered in water, all the rivers and lakes would cease to exist by virture of becoming one giant ocean. And the salt levels of this giant ocean would be drastically reduced by all the billions of tons of rain. Absolute global fishkill. Unless of course, we are to pretend that Noah had aquariums aboard the ark as well...

  Room: Depending on which figures you subscribe to, between 1.4 million and 1.75 million species have been identified. Since at least half of these are probably microscopic, we'll ignore that. In fact, let's be really nice and just count mammals. *4,630 different species. And don't forget, Noah had instructions to save either 2 or 7 of EACH, depending on whether they were clean or unclean. So...if we assume half are clean and half unclean, that's 4,630 / 2 = 2,315 of each. *(Data as of 2004, current figures may vary due to extinctions and new discoveries)

  2,315 x 2 = 4,630

  PLUS

  2,315 x 7 = 16,205

  = 20, 835 animals crammed on the ark, plus Noah and family.

  I don't care how much you use for the measurement of a cubit, there just wasn't enough room for that many animals. Even if you assume each set of 2 needed only a 10 x 10 x 10 stall on the ark, the number of stalls needed quickly outstrips the amount of surface area available. Unless of course, the ark had some extradimensional spaces...maybe it was a Holy Tesseract.
• 

  moshe

  To my knowledge, no group of eight people has ever attempted to build evn part of an Ark using the stone and copper tools available 5000 years ago. I have been to many zoos and not one was staffed with only eight people - and the Ark would have had far more animals.
• 

  annalice

  My husband just last week asked his brother who is still a witness if the flood happened how did all of the animals get back to their country of origin? for example the buffallo is only found in north america so how did they get back? His answer? Well maybe they just floated back over on some wood or stuff? HA HA HA !!! oh yeah and next week I'm going to take some wood and float over to England for a nice vacation. LOL! They could not answer it so it was said if we came back to the truth our questions could ALLLL be answered. LOL. Many animal such as koalas only eat a certain type of food how did all of the different foods that these animals eat get over to the ark to supply them with enough food not only for their time in the ark but for there journey to it and back? There's more holes on this story than swiss cheese.