Noah, Where Ark Thou?
To any secular scientist, the idea of the Biblical tale of Noah’s Ark and the flood surrounding it, being an actual event that happened in our history would be considered naive, at best. There is no problem having the story of Noah’s Ark remain just a story, but as soon as some religious hardliners twist it around and make it absolutely 100 percent true, issues arise. Certain problems dealing with simple physics and logic cause Noah’s Ark not to hold water.
First, the issue of where all the water came from and where it went. Now, unless all the laws of science which govern our daily lives have changed in the past few thousand years, the water that completely flooded Noah’s world would still be completely flooding our world. Water can’t just go away and never come back. Either it blasted off into space or is still here on the planet. Now, regardless of how all the water went away, the better question is, where did it come from? Outside of divine influence, the amount of water needed to flood the entire world can’t just appear. The water either came out of the ground or was just floating around the Earth waiting to drop down. It would have made much more sense for the water to have come out of the ground, but there is still the issue of where did it go. According to laws of thermodynamics, if the amount of water needed to flood the entire planet came from the sky, the energy that would have been produced from that much mass hitting the Earth would have superheated the atmosphere and incinerated Noah’s vessel (Davis 47). Another point is that if all the water was just hovering around the Earth, it must have been very dark and cold around here since all that water would have blocked out the sun.
So now that it seems impossible for the Earth to have been entirely flooded with water and then magically return to normal, it’s time to move onto another issue, the Ark itself. Theologians have put the size of the Ark at very close to 450 feet in length, 75 feet in width, and 45 feet in height (Garner). These rather sizable dimensions, by themselves, raise certain questions. Like how did Noah and his sons manage to even build it? Seeing as how the common water craft of the time was either a log which had been hollowed out, or a raft made from reeds, it would seem unlikely that Noah would have the technical knowledge to accomplish such a large task. But let us say that he and his sons were able to put it all together. By the time that they would have been finished, which is said to have been 81 years, the older parts of the Ark would have long since been rotting away (Moore 3). However, since the Bible claims that the Ark made it out to sea, let us deal with what would happen if it actually did.
The primary problem with a wooden ocean going craft of the previously described dimensions would be its structural integrity. If the Ark didn’t collapse under its own shear weight while in dry-dock, it would have leaked like a sieve once it actually got into the water. And don’t think that this is just an assumption about the Ark’s ability to keep out water. Wooden sailing ships of just a few hundred years ago had water problems long before they came close to the size of the Ark. They solved this issue by reinforcing their hulls with iron straps, a technology that didn’t exist during Noah’s time since their skills in metallurgy were not all that advanced (Labadie 12). But, as said before, the Bible does state that the Ark was completed and set sail so let’s move onto the issue of all those animals.
It has been determined that Noah would have had approximately 1.9 million species to deal with. If this wasn’t enough, the Bible says that there were two creatures from each specie, a male and a female. This brings the number up to about 3.8 individual animals (Moore 14). As stated before, the dimensions of the Ark are 450 x 75 x 45 feet. That computes to approximately 1.5 million cubic feet within the Ark. However, the interior of the Ark is made even smaller by all the support structures, food, water, and cages. A conservative estimate would reduce the interior air space by about 30% leaving the available cubic feet at only 1.06 million to then be divided up amongst the 3.8 million animals (Moore 16). This means that each animal had to fit into an area no bigger than .278 of a cubic foot, or the size of the average grapefruit. But, let’s figure that Noah can organize like no other and manages to not only get all the animals onboard, but keeps them alive for the duration of the flood, and now it’s time for everybody to get off the Ark.
Even if all the animals got along like best buddies and didn’t want to kill each other, how did they manage to not only spread all across the entire face of the Earth from a single starting point in such great numbers, but also do it in such a short amount of time? This is also a problem with humans. How did a small amount of people, Noah’s family, end up resulting in all the people on Earth today without suffering from any problems caused by what must have been a fantastic amount of inbreeding? Also, since evolution isn’t allowed in this argument, Noah and his family must of had almost every single disease we have now, otherwise such diseases would not exist today (Moore 19). One last hole in the people and animal argument is the matter of Australia.
How did a place that has been an island for many tens of thousands of years get all these native animals? Another thing is that the Aborigines of Australia, which we can prove have existed there as a unique people for at least 30,000 years, have no tale of a massive flood (Australian). And if they did, they wouldn’t be here to tell it. A reason for a lack of a flood story would be that they are not of a belief system which follows the stories of the Bible, including Noah‘s Ark. Even though there are probably Aborigines who follow stories of the Old Testament, the irony is they are all the proof needed to show that a flood never happened. This is a major blow to any kind of global flood story since Australia, being generally very flat and close to sea level, should have been one of the first places to be flooded, but in actuality never was.
Finally, it is time to shoot down, what is considered by some, the golden gem piece of evidence which proves that the flood actually happened, the Grand Canyon. Some claim that the bulk of the Grand Canyon was cut by a single massive release of water in a matter of days and not by the Colorado River over millions of years. The idea that something on the scale of the Grand Canyon was created by one release of water could only have been spawned out of extreme ignorance. The Grand Canyon consists of granite, which can be as deep as 5,000 feet, and you are not going to able to cut through it with one huge release of water according to Dr. Eugenie C. Scott of the National Center for Science Education (Penn).
In conclusion, outside of divine influence in causing a massive flood and then doing an absolutely extraordinary nice job of covering up the evidence of such an event, any kind of flood story, and specifically Noah’s Ark, does not make any sense. Without presenting any hard evidence, the mass belief in an event does not make it true, no matter how much one wants it to be. Ignorance is bliss until somebody asks a question.
Australian Aborigines. Infoplease.com. 2000. 3 June 2003 http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/society/A0805377.html
Davis, Paul. The Mind of God. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.
Garner, Paul. The Dimensions and Stability of Noah’s Ark. The Biblical Creation Society. 4 Apr. 2003. 3 June 2003. <http://www.biblicalcreation.org.uk/biblical_studies/bcs043. html>
Labadie, Patrick. History and Development of Great Lakes Water Craft. Minnesota Historical Society. 1997. 1 June 2003 <http://www.mnhs.org/places/nationalregister/shipwrecks/mpdf /mpdf2.html>
Moore, Robert. The Impossible Voyage of Noah’s Ark. National Center for Science Education. 12 Mar. 2003. 2 June 2003. <http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/3228_issue_11_vo lume_4_number_1__3_12_2003.asp>
Penn & Teller: BULLSH*T! Writ. Penn Jillette. Perf. Penn Jillette and Teller. Showtime, 14 Mar. 2003.
