Noah's Ark could float! (theoretically)

[jhunter1163]

The ark was a box (the word "ark" means box or chest, not boat), and it can only have worked as described if it were bigger on the inside than on the outside.

I think it's obvious where this is going.

So the Ark was a TARDIS, and Noah was a Time Lord?

Well, that DOES explain a lot...

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Let's say the lowest limit of LEO, or about 80 km...

I doubt that it was anywhere near that high, since back in those days you could reach the heavens by ladder.

Let's be reasonable here. When the Bible says that God 'opened the floodgates of Heaven' it probably doesn't mean literal floodgates. Genesis 7:4 says "I will cause it to rain on the earth forty days and forty nights", so more likely the water was actually just coming from the clouds as normal.

Also the total quantity of water that covered the Earth was much less than many skeptics propose. Why? Well, firstly the Flood only raised the water level by 15 cubits, or about 7 meters (Genesis 7:17~20 ). This took 40 days and nights, so the rate of precipitation was about 7mm per hour - which is only moderate rain.

Secondly, the Earth was much smaller back then. We know this because it only took Noah 7 days to round up a pair of every animal that existed (Genesis 7:4). That certainly didn't give him enough time to visit Australia to save the kangaroo, or to South America to save the llama. The inescapable conclusion is that those continents simply didn't exist back then. Furthermore, we know that the Earth was much smaller because you could see all the 'kingdoms of the World' from a high mountain (Matthew 4:8) and its 'farthest bounds' from the clouds (Daniel 4:10-11).

Note that this does not mean that the Earth was flat. Any Christian can tell you that the Bible in no way describes a flat Earth, and that it was well known to be round since Eratosthenes measured its diameter in 240 BC. However that not preclude the possibility that the Earth was only hemispherical back then, with nothing on the underside.

 

[Soapy Sam]

I bet the old tub would roll like a barrel on wet grass.

 

[HansMustermann]

Actually, no, the KJV translation of Genesis 7:20 is just misleading. The verb "prevail" there in the original it also means "surpass". So the sentence actually said it rose, surpassing the highest mountains by 15 cubits (about 7m or 22ft).

I mean, WTH, the waters rising 7m would be the most stupidly ineffective genocide ever. I mean, forget mountains, 7m doesn't even cover a moderate mound. And then you wouldn't even need a boat, you could just climb on a tall tree or on the roof.

Hell, there were palaces and temples back then which had a higher foundation than that.

I mean, then you'd probably see the next verses being, "And lo, everyone huddled on top of their temples and towers, and were mightily pissed off at the water damage to their property, but otherwise only a couple of guys locked in a dungeon did perish. And everyone agreed that the god of the Jews must be such a prick just because he's so impotent."

ETA: I mean, wth, Noah's instructed to build a boat 30 cubits high, or about 14m. Allowing for even minimal elevation above sea level to start with, say, 1m or 2m, if the waters roes 7m, that thing wasn't even floating at that point, but still had the keel on the ground. Why not build a platform with a fraction of that wood, then?

 

[SezMe]

..... OSB , MDF, plywood, and of course the one that makes larger superstructure possible, CLT. Some of the same principles could be used in olden times, but the product wouldn't be anywhere near as strong or versatile as new products like CLT.

Humanspeak, please.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Humanspeak, please.

http://www.lowes.com/cd_OSB,+MDF+&+Particleboard+Buying+Guide_42276845_

 

[tyr_13]

Humanspeak, please.

OSB is 'Oriented strand board'. It's usually cheaper than plywood, being a bunch of large flat wood 'chips' glued and pressed together at ninety degree angles. A great go-to for anything that's supposed to be covered and if painted with a few primer coats can work for rough floor spaces. It has good enough strength to be used as structural material.

MDF is 'medium density fiberboard'. It's another product made with scraps, but without the visible chips. This has a much more 'finished' look and takes to more exposed uses.

CTL is 'cross laminated timber'. Like plywood and OSB, the wood is glued (or resined) with the grains at ninety degree angles to the one below. This lets it have a much more consistent strength when forces are applied from different angles. Unlike the others it uses full sized timbers and really isn't used like wood at all. It's a structural element made off-site and then placed as if they were large slabs of preformed concrete, and in fact it replaces that in design. It also burns more slowly than the others or than normal timber.

 

[pakeha]

Maybe you need a closed cup with a valve?

Like this?

Actually there is a thesis that the author of the biblical Noah myth was describing Egyptian barges for transporting obelisks. The largest is thought to have a displacement of 1500 tons and a length of some 50 meters. Iti s depicted on a relief in the Deir el-Bahri temple and is showing the obelisks placed end-to end. This would give the ship dimensions approaching that of the Ark. However, the Egyptians never used perspective, so we must assume that they were really placed side-by side (nothing else would make sense), reducing the ship to one half that size.

Whoever put the Noah myth into words might have seen that relief.

Hans

That's an interesting idea, one that resonates with what I remember of the writings of Robert Graves, who thought the misreading of pictographs was the basis for many, if not all of the earlier biblical stories.

 

[Correa Neto]

Folks, gopher wood had inobtanium fibers. Thus, the ark would resist.
Noah used all the world's gopher trees to build the ark. Thus, you will not find them around now.
The LORD GOD saw that gopher trees would grow nearby the ark's construction site and only there. Thus, only Noah could build a floodworthy ship. Praise the LORD!

Send money and repent.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Folks, gopher wood had inobtanium fibers. Thus, the ark would resist.
Noah used all the world's gopher trees to build the ark. Thus, you will not find them around now.
The LORD GOD saw that gopher trees would grow nearby the ark's construction site and only there. Thus, only Noah could build a floodworthy ship. Praise the LORD!

Send money and repent.

Thanks, I was thinking it was just a note on his to-do list.

1. Buy a **** load of nails.

2. Invent nautical engineering.

3. Gopher wood. Make two trips if needed.

 

[Correa Neto]

The LORD GOD in His OmniWisdom spared Noah and his family of the task of buying or casting a ******** of iron nails, for The LORD GOD created gopher trees with thorns which could be used as nails.

The LORD GOD also granted Noah the ark's blueprints and its building instructions.

REPENT AND PRAISE THE LORD GOD!

And don't forget to send money.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Oh, so nails are an entitlement program?

 

[fuelair]

And steel framed. And smaller than the bible says.

I'm so stealing that for my Doctor Who RPG.........


And where did all the bronze nails come from?

Bronze Age Hardware,Ltd. - through the Amazon.

Or Hut Depot.....

 

[Megalodon]

The LORD GOD in His OmniWisdom spared Noah and his family of the task of buying or casting a ******** of iron nails, for The LORD GOD created gopher trees with thorns which could be used as nails.

The LORD GOD also granted Noah the ark's blueprints and its building instructions.

REPENT AND PRAISE THE LORD GOD!

And don't forget to send money.

Now... to cut these almost-indestructible trees...

 

[Mudcat]

Can we have a sub-forum for Noah's Ark threads?

Nothing new is ever said and yet every aspect of the story must be brought up in each one.

If we can have a sub-thread for something equally stupid like 9/11 conspiracy theories, I don't see why we can't have one for the Flood.

 

[I Ratant]

That depends on which part of the bible you are reading. It says two of each species in Genesis Ch 6 v 19 and in Ch 7 vs 2-3 it says 2 or 7. But then in Ch 7 v 8 and 15 only two of each species actually boarded the ark. As for food they carried none. It is not mentioned in the bible. Nor did they carry any plants or fish. Very embarrassing. The animals must have gone into stasis. So there would have been no need to feed them or to remove the animal waste products. I will tie myself into knots trying to explain the practical issues with the story.

.
You do know why there are no more unicorns?
They were put on the deck with the carnivores... Yummers!

 

[I Ratant]

And the herbivores at the sauropods, right?

.
But no one swatted the mosquitoes! Or the cicadas!

 

[I Ratant]

Indeed. The two-page paper only goes into the buoyancy issue, and not the stresses exerted on the beams the ark would be made of. The Smithsonian article does discuss the latter, essentially stating that the beams would be too fragile for the vessel to be seaworthy.

.
Just thinking of the joints between the fore and aft stringers (logs).. opening up when the boat got into small waves.... glug, glug, glug..

 

[I Ratant]

But as others have pointed out, it's not really an answer at all. It's a brick wall that says I don't know an answer but don't need one. God is a short circuit to all unwelcome questions. Pray, and if god turns your toast into an image of Jesus or your kid dies of leukemia, or nothing at all happens, it's all the same.

Of course this does not prevent theists from knowing exactly what God wants us to do with our genitals and everyone else's.

God is so mysterious he can be easy to understand and impossible to understand at the same time. Neat tricks like that are his specialty.

That said, and back to the original issue, I do seem to recall, though today I'm too lazy to look it up, that the ark story includes a specification of some kind of pitch, which I have heard turns out to be a primitive polymer that actually might have worked pretty well. Of course all this means is that whoever wrote the Bible knew a tiny bit about boat building, but it's mildly interesting.

.
The typical boat of the time on the Tigris-Euphrates was a bundle of reeds.
Actual timber construction would have been unknown at the time of the Flood.

 

[I Ratant]

Isn't that the one that is built on a steel barge?

Hans

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Notice the curved end on the boat. Not a construction practice of the time.
Would a sheep chaser know how to bend timber?