Noah's Ark Would Have Broken in Half

[Speedwell]

Well, if that means because it is from YHWH , BREATHED (Inspired) by HIM through the men He chose, and guarded by HIM all along, yes - HIS AUTHORITY.....
which
is also, (thank you by the way), why it is TRUTH.

Exactly. It is the truth. Whether it is also, or was even intended to be 100% accurate history is another question.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

Exactly. It is the truth. Whether it is also, or was even intended to be 100% accurate history is another question.

A question answered by Jesus.

We ekklesia immersed in Jesus, one with Him (Echad with the Father) ....

So, no more questions. It is perfectly without error, without sin, known, as SCRIPTURE says, .....

 

[Speedwell]

A question answered by Jesus.

We ekklesia immersed in Jesus, one with Him (Echad with the Father) ....

So, no more questions. It is perfectly without error, without sin, known, as SCRIPTURE says, .....

Jesus is not known to have addressed the question.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

Jesus is not known to have addressed the question.

Most certainly yes.

Ask Him yourself sometime when you have time.

 

[Dale]

Obviously there was, or how would he have built it?
...

The historical account of Noah's Ark is not meant as a parable.

[/quote][/QUOTE]

You say that the story of Noah's Ark is not a parable. There are actually clear signs that it is a parable. When the waters recede, the Ark lands on Mt. Ararat, or a mountain of the Ararat range. Why Ararat? In the ancient Middle East, people thought that Mt. Ararat was the largest and tallest mountain in the world. When the waters recede, the tallest mountain would be the first to be exposed. If the people who put the details of this story together had known that Mt. Everest is the world's tallest mountain, they would have had the Ark land on Mt. Everest.


That's just one sign that this story is a parable about the kind of obedience that God wants.

 

[Dale]

Hi dale,

You wrote:


Let me address this singular claim. Then if you are interested, you could put other claims to the same test. The Scriptures don't say that the design was a box. The Scriptures give the dimensions of the craft just as today's ship builders give the dimensions of their ships. In the dimensions of modern day ships we aren't told that it is so many feet wide and then tapers off to a bow. It gives the width dimension as the widest part of the ship. We know that it likely tapers into a bow because we've seen ships. So, the first problem with your claim is that you seem to believe that because only a single width is given in the Scriptures, then the design must have been a box, despite the fact that even today we give ship measurements in the same way and yet they are not complete boxes. Although, if you cut off the bow, even today's ships are boxes. They just have a point added to the front.

Secondly, ships today are designed to go places. So they have a bow so that they can cut through the water and be directed by a rudder to carry men and machines all around the world. There is no indication that the ark was to be guided in any way other than by the wind and the waves. There is no mention of a rudder even being included in the design of the ark. It was just a big floating craft subject to the wind and the waves for direction, but designed to save some of God's creative work in creating this realm. The ark didn't have an engine or sails so far as we know, so how one would expect it to be guided is beyond me. A ship without an engine or sails won't go anywhere even if you do have a rudder. You can't turn a ship around without some force of energy such is provided through an engine or the capture of wind in sails.

So, the bottom line here is that instead of trusting God's word to tell you the truth, you want to take the current wisdom of man in ship building and say that it just isn't possible that the ark would have survived its voyage. The basic truth about boats and ships is that so long as they displace enough water to make up for their weight, they will float. As others have said, this idea that Noah didn't have any proper tools with which to build such a massive structure is all conjecture. We don't know what Noah had on hand. We do know that he likely had 3 sons as helpers. Despite what the movie shows that Noah was always at odds with his family in his crazy scheme to build the ark, we don't have any evidence from the Scriptures or any other historical narrative that would support such an idea. That's merely cinematic license. We don't know that Noah fought with people as he was building the ark. That's also cinematic license. Sadly, many people find their truth in movies rather than in the source of truth.

Finally, my point is that even if Noah had built the ark out of toothpicks, if the Lord wanted it to float in order that some of His creation could be saved from the death and destruction that the flood was created by God to bring upon the people and all living things upon the ground, then it would float. Just like that ax head floated to the surface by the power of God. Just like the sun stood still in the sky by the power of God. Just as there was light in Goshen, but no light in all of Egypt for three whole days by the power of God. Just like a young woman who had never had sexual relations with a man was found to be with child by the power of God.

However, each is free to believe what they have purposed in their heart is the truth. They can believe '666' the number of man, or they can believe God. For me, I'm going with God. I have no problem understanding that even if a ship design as proven by men couldn't float, that if God's word said it floated...then it floated. Just as '666' will show you all kinds of proof that a woman cannot possibly be with child without male sperm having been introduced in some way to her egg. If God's word says that a woman who had never had relations with a man became pregnant...then she was pregnant.

God bless you,
In Christ, ted

Ted,

In your other posts you seem to be changing the subject. Here you deny that the Ark is a box. I agree that the text is not as detailed as we would like.



The New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia finds from the Hebrew language and other indications that Noah's Ark was most likely a box.

<< The Hebrew name to designate Noah's Ark, the one which occurs again in the history of Moses' childhood, suggests the idea of a box of large proportions, though the author of Wisdom terms it a vessel (Wisdom 14:6). The same conclusion is reached from the dimensions attributed to it by the Bible narrative: three hundred cubits in length, fifty in breadth, and thirty in height. The form, very likely foursquare, was certainly not very convenient for navigation ... >>


Link:
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Noah's Ark

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

If the people who put the details of this story together had known that Mt. Everest is the world's tallest mountain, they would have had the Ark land on Mt. Everest.

If it was a fairy tale like evolution yes.

Since it is real life, they reported what happened - where it landed,
instead of making something up. Actually, they wrote what YHWH said to write.... even better, and always right.

 

[Dale]

Hi dale,

You opened this thread by stating:


I'm not convinced that any believers would agree that the flood was some 'perfectly sensible idea'. We just believe that the account of what God says He did...He did. Is it sensible? Well, if you're judging such a claim as making sense because it does or doesn't fit with the wisdom of man, I'd tell you, as one of those people that you call 'creationists' that no! It isn't sensible. I'd just say that it obviously is possible. But my sole purpose for making the claim that it is possible is that God has caused to be written in His revelation to us of the historical past, that it happened.

It really boils down to how one understands the power of God. Can He cause things to happen within His creation that are completely and utterly inexplicable to us as to how they happened? My answer is yes! Absolutely!! It's the real definition of a miracle. Jesus took jugs filled with water and within merely a few moments of their having been filled, the liquid poured out of those jugs was wine. There is not a scientist upon the earth who can show you how such a thing could be done. It absolutely goes against everything that we know about wine making. First of all, you can't make wine with just water. You can set a jug of water out for years and it will never become wine. Yet the Scriptures tell us that he did it and in front of a full wedding party of people. Can you feed 5,000 people with a couple of fish? You couldn't give 5,000 people a finger pinch of fish with the number of fish that the Scriptures tell us that Jesus had on hand. Yet, the Scriptures tell us that there was so much left over that they filled 12 baskets with the remaining pieces. Friend, you couldn't have filled 12 baskets with what they started with. Five loaves and two fish. Go ahead and ask your scientists how 5 loaves of bread that were likely pretty normal sized loaves being carried by a young boy for his lunch and two fish that were likely just some 12" fish or so that were also being carried by a young boy for his own lunch could feed 5,000 people.

Ask them to show you how a man could walk on water. Have them give you one example of a man just walking out from a shore somewhere today where they can walk on the top of the water. Even in the Dead Sea, which has the greatest bouncy of any body of water upon the earth because of all the salt content, a man cannot walk on the top of the water. It can't be done and there isn't a scientist in the world that can show you how it could be done. But, you want to believe that these same scientists can tell you whether or not a craft that God commanded to be built, could float or not.

Go figure! Come, let us reason together.

God bless you,
In Christ, ted

Ted,

Most of your posts on this thread are an attempt to change the subject. You are starting from the assumption that the first few chapters of Genesis are literal history. Moreover, you seem to assume that creationist views were not questioned until perhaps the end of the 19th century. In short, you assume that non-creationist thinking has only been around for about 10% of the history of Christianity. However, this isn't true at all.

Most Christian theology derives from Aurelius Augustine (354-386 AD). Before Augustine, Christian theology was not systematized, with the possible exception of Origen. So what did Augustine make of the six days of creation? I did a thread that looked at this not that long ago.

From a Dominican website:
<< Thomas [Aquinas] notes that the view that the world developed over six ordinary days “is the more common position and seems more consonant with the letter [of the text] on a superficial level.” But he judges that St. Augustine’s understanding of the six days as signifying different orders of creatures but not different periods in time “is more rational and better defends sacred Scripture against the mockery of unbelievers.” >>

Also: "At times quoting Augustine explicitly, Aquinas speaks of seminal essences or principles given in creation that blossom into full form later. Obviously he is not thinking of Darwinian evolution, but his thought is not incompatible with what modern science appears to confirm."

Link:
Interpreting Genesis 1 with St. Thomas Aquinas | Thomistic Evolution

From another article on the same site:
" ... the perceived problem of reconciling a changing world and a non-changing God who are in relationship with each other is a non-starter. The created order is an evolving one precisely because God who does not evolve knows it as evolving and gives it existence precisely as such."

Link:
How does God create through evolution? | Thomistic Evolution

Link to my thread on this subject:
Evolution in the Light of Augustine and Aquinas

 

[Dale]

Oh ye of little to no Faith....

You obviously have no idea who you are talking to. I take it that you don't believe in non-literal interpretation. Very well, take a look at the following passage, which should be familiar.

26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

--Genesis 1:26-7 NIV


Does saying that "God created mankind in His own image" mean that God has a human body? Or does it mean something else? It must mean something else since the Bible tells us elsewhere that God is spirit. Do we have to take every line in Genesis and go off on a tangent? Or do we look at what God is trying to say to us?

 

[Tolworth John]

In the Bible, God tells us a story about a global flood that lasted for over a year and that destroyed the world. Whether that story has any determinable basis in actual events is unknown. It doesn't need one.

A story that explains why there is over a mile over water bourne sedimentary rock deposited on the earth.

The bible also tells a story of a man who died and came to life again.
Is that only a story or a historical event, because both stories are written as history.

 

[Adstar]

You obviously have no idea who you are talking to. I take it that you don't believe in non-literal interpretation. Very well, take a look at the following passage, which should be familiar.

26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

--Genesis 1:26-7 NIV


Does saying that "God created mankind in His own image" mean that God has a human body? Or does it mean something else? It must mean something else since the Bible tells us elsewhere that God is spirit. Do we have to take every line in Genesis and go off on a tangent? Or do we look at what God is trying to say to us?

Why ask me a question when you say i have no idea what i am talking about ??????

If you believe i have no idea what i am talking about then i would be the last person you would ask any questions to... But yet you do....

 

[miamited]

morning dale,

You responded to my post:

The New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia finds from the Hebrew language and other indications that Noah's Ark was most likely a box.

I rather imagine that in the end we'll find that much of what the Catholic organization believes about the things of God is wrong. But, I'm not denying that the ark was fairly boxy in design. I'm merely pointing out, as you seem to agree, that we can't prove it from the text of the Scriptures. I'm also pointing out that because the ark doesn't seem to have been designed to 'go' anywhere, but merely hold safe that which God had chosen to save from the destruction of the flood, that the designs that we think are necessary for a ship that is designed to ferry cargo from one particular place to another wouldn't necessarily apply. I think it was in one of your posts earlier that you mention it was more like a barge. I agree with that. Just like a barge today, it won't go anywhere other than to just float around on the water, without a pushing engine attached.

I don't know why you would think that I am changing the subject, but be that as it may. You wrote:

You are starting from the assumption that the first few chapters of Genesis are literal history. Moreover, you seem to assume that creationist views were not questioned until perhaps the end of the 19th century. In short, you assume that non-creationist thinking has only been around for about 10% of the history of Christianity. However, this isn't true at all.

Yes, I readily admit, and agree that it should be quite obvious in my posts that I am starting from the position that the first chapters of Genesis are to be taken at face value. As far as when creationist views began to be questioned? One could go clear back to the ancient Egyptians and see that creationism as discussed in the Scriptures, has been in question since at least then. They had different gods and different beliefs as to how things came to exist. I again, readily admit that creationism, as described in the Scriptures, has been in question for several millennia. However, I also believe, according to the words of Jesus, that a whole lot of people are going to get it wrong. All this understanding of who God is and all that He has done. I don't understand on what evidence of any of my writing that you can conclude to yourself that I have assumed that non-creationist thinking has only been around for 10% of the history of Christianity. I rather think that it's your assumptions of what I believe that isn't true at all.

This seems to me to be some general argument that you use in all such discussions, but I don't think you'll find in any of my responses any evidence to support what you're using as your general argument. That arguments against creationism are fairly new and that non-creationist thinking has only been around for about 10% of christian history. I do, however, agree that it has become a more divisive issue within the body of the 'church' than it likely was in much earlier generations.

You then wrote:

Most Christian theology derives from Aurelius Augustine (354-386 AD). Before Augustine, Christian theology was not systematized, with the possible exception of Origen. So what did Augustine make of the six days of creation? I did a thread that looked at this not that long ago.

I honestly have no idea where a lot of christian theology finds it source outside of the Scriptures. I'm not really much concerned with what Augustine believed regarding the creation event. My concern is with what the Scriptures say about the creation event. Again I say to you that Jesus makes a clear point that not everyone who says to him 'Lord, Lord' will be saved. On the day of his Father's judgment we could well see Augustine out there in that crowd crying, 'but I did all those great deeds in your name'. I don't know. But again, I'm much more interested in what the Scriptures say. God at least twice in the Scriptures seems to have clearly accounted the creation event as encompassing six days and we have at least two genealogical accounts from Adam forward. When God repeats something, I tend to think it must be important to Him that we understand whatever it is that He's repeating for our benefit.

I freely allow that each man will believe what he has purposed in his heart is the truth, and I'll tell you that in my heart, what I'm explaining is what I believe is the truth. I have purposed it in my heart.

If you'd like to move to discussing what you believe Augustine believed, we can do that, but I'd have to catch up. I've never really studied Augustine. Be advised though, that one of the reasons an effort was taken to gather what most people of the day believed to be the 'true' Scriptures and then closing them, was to make some attempt to prevent spurious writings from being included. The Catholic organization does generally take credit for this, and if that is true, I'd say that in that, they did a good thing.

Anyway, I think I've made clear my position. You obviously don't agree. That's ok with me. As I grow in my faith, I find that I'm often at odds with what some 'christians' think or believe. I was attending evening services last night and the pastor asked of those attending what Joshua would have meant in telling the Israelites before they crossed over the Jordan to 'consecrate' themselves. One man said that he was telling them to put on clean clothes. Needless to say, I wasn't much in agreement with that answer.

However, let me again point out, and I know this is becoming something of a mantra as others may see me continually refer to it, that it seems quite clear to me that when Jesus spoke to his disciples about the day of his Father's judgment, the 'many' who would come to him were people who we held up as christians when they lived upon the earth. Jesus says that they would be claiming to him to have done great deeds in his name. I can't imagine that any such people didn't call themselves christians while living among us, yet Jesus turns them away. He doesn't refer to them as being 'few' but 'many'. What he speaks of as being 'few' are those who find the truth and follow it. So, perhaps when you make claims based on that you believe that 'many' christians believe, you might want to just take a few moments and check yourself. It would be a sad thing to have given all of this effort while living on the earth to espouse a teaching and truth that you believed to be the truth that God wants you to believe, only to find out in the end, that it wasn't. Yes, I agree, that I too, must look into those things that I believe because I don't want to find myself in that crowd of christians either. I rather want to be found with the few whose faith was that of Abraham. Abraham was made righteous in God's sight because he believed God, not Augustine.

God bless you,
In Christ, ted

 

[NobleMouse]

Matthew 24:36-39 (ESV)

"But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man."

Here Jesus is speaking of a time and an event that He seems to believe actually happened and is representative of how it will be at His 2nd coming. If Jesus said it, it is reason enough to believe it - the ark did not break in half - and we're all here today as evidence it did not.

 

[PlayingForTheLord]

This is a key point. Philosophy demonstrates the scientific method guarantees truth within its domain, that is, the physical material universe.

But doesn't the scientific method often lead to erroneous conclusions about the physical material universe? And aren't scientific discoveries usually vigorously debated? Scientists don't always come to absolute agreement. So how does the scientific method guarantee "truth"?

 

[PlayingForTheLord]

Matthew 24:36-39 (ESV)

"But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man."

Here Jesus is speaking of a time and an event that He seems to believe actually happened and is representative of how it will be at His 2nd coming. If Jesus said it, it is reason enough to believe it - the ark did not break in half - and we're all here today as evidence it did not.

Good point.

Jesus references the Old Testament quite often. Would he do so if it wasn't history?

 

[Tayla]

But doesn't the scientific method often lead to erroneous conclusions about the physical material universe? And aren't scientific discoveries usually vigorously debated? Scientists don't always come to absolute agreement. So how does the scientific method guarantee "truth"?

That's part of the scientific method. Hypothesis, experiments, theory. Getting ever closer and closer to 100%, the best you can do with abduction and induction. Things having radical disagreement are not true.

 

[kjw47]

A question answered by Jesus.

We ekklesia immersed in Jesus, one with Him (Echad with the Father) ....

So, no more questions. It is perfectly without error, without sin, known, as SCRIPTURE says, .....

Jesus also teaches--The Father is greater than I--proving 100% one= in purpose. All of Gods followers live to do the Fathers will, Even Jesus( Matt 7:21, John 5:30)-- Few do this.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

proving 100% one= in purpose.

Sorry , that sounds like the heresy over 1000 years old, never accepted by the faithful ekklesia immersed in Jesus' Name.

 

[Speedwell]

Good point.

Jesus references the Old Testament quite often. Would he do so if it wasn't history?

He well might, if He believed it to be the Word of God.

 

[Dale]

Grant R. Jeffrey - ‎2013 - 256 pages - Religion
A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and ... According to shipbuilders, the ark's design was perfect for surviving a yearlong voyage.
... The Bible records that Noah used gopher wood to construct the ark.

The Ark was a box, so there could hardly be a worse design. Made of wood, and being so large, it would naturally leak. It it had a keel, the water could accumulate in a trough where it could be bailed. In a large box, the water would be spread out where it couldn't be bailed out.