Noah's ark . Evidence for & against?

[Metullus]

Reposted from April, 2005:
Not only must the animals themselves be kept, what about food for them all? Looking at carnivores, lions, for example, eat on average 8 to 9 kg of meat per day, but can eat up to 25 kg (females) or 43 kg (males). Here are some more examples of the food needs of other carnivores:
Bobcat -- 40 lbs/week
Cougar or Leopard -- 100-150 lbs/week
Lion or Tiger -- 200-250 lbs/week
Fox -- 25 lbs/week
Coyote -- 25 lbs/week
Bear -- 100 lbs/week
One animal refuge that keeps 40 large carnivores states that it goes through 10,000 pounds of meat per month, so for every 40 carnivores on the ark, Noah would have needed about 12,500 pound of meat for the trip. If he had 100 carnivores, he needed over 31,000 pounds of meat.

Because refrigeration technology in Noah's time would have been a tad bit inadequte for the job, the best way to keep that much meat fresh would be to keep it "on the hoof," which means they would have had to have literally herds of game animals (plus smaller animals, such as rodents, etc., for the smaller carnivores) just to provide food! So now you've got to have tons of grain to feed not ony the Representative Pairs of herbivores, but to keep the food animals alive as long as they're needed.

Let's not even get into whether Noah took animals by kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, or species. If the anti-evolutionists are correct, then all the species already existed, right? Global species estimates range from 2 million to 100 million species. Ten million is probably nearer the mark. Only 1.4 million species have been named. Of these, approximately 250,000 are plants and 750,000 are insects. We can probably rule out birds and aquatic creatures (or can we?), but that still leaves millions of species of land animals.

What about dinosaurs?

As you can see, the logistics of the whole thing quickly approach the absurd.

Well, feeding the carnivores might not have been much of a problem really, what with all of the fish that would have died off due to silting and saltwater contamination of feshwater... the fishing would have been easy for a while.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Well, feeding the carnivores might not have been much of a problem really, what with all of the fish that would have died off due to silting and saltwater contamination of feshwater... the fishing would have been easy for a while.

That only brings up the issue what they did with all the salt water fish. Or alternately, what they did with all the salt water fish. If the whole world was covered by one huge water body, and all the lakes, rivers and oceans were mixed up for a hundred and fifty days, the water would have become either too brackish to support salt water fishes, or (more likely when you consider how big the oceans are) too salty to support fresh water fish. Noah would have needed an aquarium in the ark to preserve all the fresh water fish. That is of course, unless salt water fish evolved to be fresh water fish right away.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Thanks, folks. I'm familiar with the reconstructions of the last (there may have been several) Black Sea Basin refillings, and with the Utnapishtim legend. (I have to thank Erich Von Daniken for the fact I read the Gilgamesh Epic as a teenager!)
I'm likely to have to discuss the whole Ark legend with someone I prefer not to offend (for personal reasons), but would like to put straight (for reasons of simple honesty).
That's why I'm after the daft stuff as well as the genuine (such as Ballard's dive research), because the person concerned has clearly absorbed a lot of nonsense and it helps to read that, in order to best point out flaws in the arguments.

I'm off to check the links you have attached.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Hmm.
The Wyatt video dates from the late 70s . He looks about 35, which makes him 60+ now. Is he still pushing the Turkish site as real?

The Nat. Geographic dispatches from Robert Ballard seem to dry up in Sept 2000. Anyone know of subsequent evidence?

I'm amused by the humour section which lists all the geologists' explanations of the Turkish site. Actually, they are not so contradictory as they sound.

Incidentally, in the first Wyatt video- notice the guy cutting up the sacrificed goat (could be a sheep, it's hard to tell) during the dedication ceremony of the "ark park"?

Ironically, I find myself in agreement with the first part of the article here
http://answersingenesis.org/docs2/4377news9-14-2000.asp
when it points out the the Black Sea flood appears to have little in common with Noah's flood. Indeed it does not. The Black Sea flood, for one thing is explicable in physical terms, while a flood which literally drowned Earth's highest mountains is not and has left a remarkable dearth of evidence.

I incline to the view that the reason floods are a common element of cultures around the whole world is that floods have indeed happened all around the world and that people tend to have a remarkably parochial worldview.

Here's an experiment. Take a cheap, preferably plastic world globe. Place your thumb over any global population centre that includes a coastline. Press lightly, so you depress the thumbprint by about a millimetre.
Now think what an actual crustal depression on that scale would mean in terms of flooding and how it would be described by the survivors.
("There was this thumb...")
Not that floods happen like that, but it gives some sense of perspective.

Also Ballard's flood is a specific case of a wider phenomenon. In 5000BC, Britain was stillpart of Europe. Really. You could walk across without getting your feet wet. Just. Within a century or so, that was no longer possible. The human race as a whole has experienced post glacial rise in sea level. Coastal plains have been inundated world wide. And people were there to see it and hand down stories of the flooded lands.
Given that such floods are slow events involving no obvious rain, "Springs under the Earth" would be a reasonable explanation, especially in areas with high water tables , like river flood plains.

 

[Disco]

From what I understand, Ron Wyatt is dead. Several faithful have carried on in his name. You do realize he found just about every Christian religious artifact ever mentioned in the Bible?

MHB

 

[Soapy Sam]

Thanks. I don't believe I had heard of him till today. Your comment does not surprise me at all.

 

[senorpogo]

And since obviously those who believe in Noah's Ark don't believe in evolution...

That's over 2.5 million animals (known species only) + however many unknown species still exist (estimated over 5 million more arthropod species).

-Andrew

Do biblical literalists believe it's okay for a brother to sleep with his sister? I mean, they don't buy into the evolution mumbo-jumbo so they probably don't really believe in genetics much, so wouldn't that mean that brother/sister copulation is okay? Heck, isn't it a logical conclusion that, since we all come from Adam and Eve, brothers and sisters have had to do the nasty quite a bit especially during the first few generations?

 

[Outhere]

Shouldn't it be "Noah's Arks?"

I've always wondered how Noah got the polar bears and penguins and elephants and kangaroos. So he must have built many arks and sent representatives around the world (easier when the world was flat) to collect the exotic animals that did not live in the Middle East.

Then comes the question of how they built cages enough to hold all these animals and their food supplies, since elephants won't eat what penguins dote on--and where they got the trees to build the cages--perhaps this explains why the Middle East has few trees, except Lebanon where the cedars grow.

This would have taken a lot of time, but time could be slowed down in those days, as Joshua found out when he commanded the sun to stand still.

Had enough codswallop? I have.

 

[Bikewer]

I forget which one of Stephen Jay Gould's books it was, but he had a highly amusing scenario of all the specialized species of the Earth madly running along in front of the expanding human population to get to their respective "homes".

The Australian species must have had a particularly rough time....

 

[gnome]

Actually, recent evidence shows that he actually just took the DNA from two (or seven) of each animal. If you read carefully "He tooketh two strands of every beast" (Gen 5:45) which clearly indicates two strands of DNA. Plus the 1945 expidition led by Lord Cronely of the UK, the one where he brought back actual wood to be tested (they ended up having to burn it in a fire to survive a blizzard, our loss I guess) he states that admidst the wood were thousands of teeny-tiny glass bottles. The samples he brought back mysteriously disappeard when they again reached the city of Yerevan. Lord Cronely was deeply upset at this as some bottles were unopened and he thought he could use them to bring back the dinosaurs.

If "strands" refer to DNA it would be of unprecedented significance. What do linguists think, looking at that verse with knowledge of ancient languages?

 

[elgarak]

Book: What are we up to, sweetheart?
River Tam: Fixing your Bible.
Book: I, um...
[alarmed]
Book: ... what?
River Tam: Bible's broken. Contradictions, false logistics - doesn't make sense.
[she's marked up the bible, crossed out passages]
Book: No, no. You - you can't...
River Tam: So we'll integrate non-progressional evolution theory with God's creation of Eden. Eleven inherent metaphoric parallels already there. Eleven. Important number. Prime number. One goes into the house of eleven eleven times, but always comes out one. Noah's ark is a problem.
Book: Really?
River Tam: We'll have to call it early quantum state phenomenon. Only way to fit 5000 species of mammal on the same boat.
[rips out page]​

Joss Whedon, "Firefly - Jaynestown". Episode written by Ben Edlund

 

[Questioninggeller]

Recently some fundametalist Christian websites have announced "the Ark" has been "found" by Bob Cornuke. There are websites that mistakenly call him a "Dr." when his degree was awarded by a unaccredited institution Louisiana Baptist University in connection with another unaccredited institution ran by his business/travel partner, Chuck Missler.

Cornuke's big evidence for his "discovery" is "beams" that "look like petrified wood." Cornuke has even been featured on Ripley's Believe It or Not. But the formation he found is not petrified wood. Even fellow fundamentalist/creationists Insitute for Creation Research dismiss his claims.

The "reseach" by people like Cornuke and other pseudoarchaeology is a waste with no evidence to even enter into a discussion with. I am thinking of Bertrand Russell's analogy of a tea cup in space.

 

[joller]

My problem with the whole story:
First of all, feeding the animal etc. is not a problem, God could keep them alive in good health without food, since God is omnipotent.
Of course, a pair of each specimen is not enough to retain the genetical diversity we can find in most of the species today.

The problem is, God is omnipotent, right?
Why the flood? He could just selectively terminate the sinners. If he wanted to be spectacular, turn them into salt or something, or stone, to remain as a warning for everyone else.

If he wanted to cause a flood, he could just flood the world while only selectively killing those he wanted to. I.e all humans bar Noah and his family.
No need for the ark etc.

That's it, although God is supposed to be omnipotent and omniscient, he isn't portrayed as such in the bible.
Did he know the first parents would sin? Even if that was planned, there were definitely better ways of escaping from egypt. Why the plagues? How many innocent egyptians died because of the plagues, and they didn't support the pharoah?

For someone who's omnipotent, there's definitely a lot of friendly fire taking place in the bible.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Recently some fundametalist Christian websites have announced "the Ark" has been "found" by Bob Cornuke. This websites mistakenly call him a "Dr." when his degree was awarded by a unaccredited institution Louisiana Baptist University in connection with another unaccredited institution ran by his business/travel partner, Chuck Missler.

Cornuke's big evidence for his "discovery" is "beams" that "look like petrified wood." Cornuke has even been featured on Ripley's Believe It or Not. But the formation he found is not petrified wood. Even fellow fundamentalist/creationists Insitute for Creation Research dismiss his claims.

The "reseach" by people like Cornuke and other pseudoarchaeology is a waste with no evidence to even enter into a discussion with. I am thinking of Bertrand Russell's analogy on a tea cup in space.

Aha! Good one. Thank you. This may well be the smoking gun in the hand of Colonel Mustard in the Library (standing over the corpse of a pterosaur). As it were.

Some nice pics in the "beams" link. Pity people can't realise that you need a scale in geology photos. (traditionally some wazzock staring at the rock, or a coin or compass if it's a small rock).

The distant shots make it clear the outcrop dips at the same angle as the other rocks on the ridge behind it. Looks like shale to me. The surface discolouration is just that- most of the frost shattered fragments show grey , fresh surfaces.
Geology is a field subject and lots of things look alike in photos. The pronounced cleavage might be bedding, or could be an induced metamorphic structure. (I don't think so, but it would be dishonest to say I'm sure). No idea why their "Petroleum Geologist" would say it's an igneous dyke. No it's not. It's not even transcurrent. If it's igneous at all, it's a sill, but I see no reason to think it's igneous.

It's definitely rock though- and it doesn't look like petrified wood to me, pretty colours or not. Nor are those tool marks, they are just fractures.
Ye gods, look at the place. It's high altitude semi desert. Rock falls apart in places like that from frost action.

Nungies.

ETA- Should have read all the links. The ICR one pretty much says what I just said.

OK. Credit where due.

 

[Questioninggeller]

ETA- Should have read all the links. The ICR one pretty much says what I just said.

OK. Credit where due.

Cornuke claimed to find numerous biblical sites, and just the believer's luck, he will take people on the "research" journey-- for a price ($4,000). If you can't afford that he sells videos, self-published books, and accepts donations.

I used the ICR link because you can know that Cornuke is off his rocker if John Morris of Institute for Creation Research is willing to debunk him. ICR and Morris are part of the young earth creationist crowd trying to convince people that creationism is fact.

 

[Yeah_Right]

Admittedly I haven't read the whole thread, but for my two cents on the subject, there are widespread flood myths of course, but they aren't all similar. I recall one Native American myth where the world was flooded by the tears of a child. The idea there? When children cry they never seem to stop. And of course there is the rather simple idea that everyone knows what flooding is like, and given man's vivid imagination, he would certainly have it occuring on a grand scale.

 

[Corpse Cruncher]

Actually, recent evidence shows that he actually just took the DNA from two (or seven) of each animal. If you read carefully "He tooketh two strands of every beast" (Gen 5:45) which clearly indicates two strands of DNA. Plus the 1945 expidition led by Lord Cronely of the UK, the one where he brought back actual wood to be tested (they ended up having to burn it in a fire to survive a blizzard, our loss I guess) he states that admidst the wood were thousands of teeny-tiny glass bottles. The samples he brought back mysteriously disappeard when they again reached the city of Yerevan. Lord Cronely was deeply upset at this as some bottles were unopened and he thought he could use them to bring back the dinosaurs.

Dna extraction back then in that era? Sounds far more plausible than a boat containing vast amounts of animals, plus feed and bedding and the odd good human.


I would be more inclined to believe it was the first large boat purpose built that could transport animals for sale etc.

 

[Scott Haley]

It's amazing that people can believe that God loves everyone, as a good father loves his children, and at one time, he killed almost everyone in the world.

 

[SRW]

It's amazing that people can believe that God loves everyone, as a good father loves his children, and at one time, he killed almost everyone in the world.

You need to read the small print in the parenting and being a god books. Lots of people overlook it.

 

[Soapy Sam]

I used the ICR link because you can know that Cornuke is off his rocker if John Morris of Institute for Creation Research is willing to debunk him. ICR and Morris are part of the young earth creationist crowd trying to convince people that creationism is fact.

Indeed, Point clearly taken. Still, Morris' comments about the geology in that quote do appear consistent with what I can see in the photos, which is not true of Cornuke's original claims . The geologist quoted in the Cornuke item may have been taken out of context.