I listen to a lot of podcasts. I was looking around for some new ones when I stumbled on some podcasts by How Stuff Works. One of the podcasts tackled the question “Fact or Fiction: Could Noah’s Ark Really Have Happened?” Curious about what they might have to say, I gave it a listen. They hit on some criticisms I’ve heard before — like if there really was a vapor canopy above the atmosphere, as the Bible suggests, that the increased atmospheric pressure would make human life impossible, and that there doesn’t seem to be anywhere close to enough water on earth to cover all the land.
They talked about the fact that flood myths appear all over the world (suggesting that it might be true), and the possibility that the flood myth was just an exaggerated account of a real flooding. Overall, not a very through discussion about the plausibility of Noah’s Ark.
But, then, right at the end it got weird and non-committal:
Also, as you mentioned, it’s just impossible – atmospherically, meteorologically – for the water to have risen to the point that [it covered the] top of a mountain … [Robert Ballard] went diving at the bottom of the Black Sea to see if he could find any remains [of the Ark], and he didn’t. But, that’s not to say that the Ark didn’t exist, and it was never built. It could be simply that it wouldn’t have sunk into the Black Sea. Perhaps there was a different locale. And, so, really comes down to a question of ‘how much evidence do people really need?’ It sounds like it comes down to question of faith … So, if you want some empirical answer to whether or not the Ark existed, you could simply say, “the wood disintegrated”. Or skeptics could say, “It never really did happen.” But, we know for sure that there was the possibility that the world could have flooded based on the annual rise and fall of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, or there could have been an ice-cap. Whether or not anyone built an Ark to withstand the flood is a question that I think people have to answer on their own.
I see this all the time with popular magazines and television. They present a little bit of information – hopefully, stuff that people haven’t heard before so that they look knowledgeable and informative – and then retreat to a totally bogus non-committal conclusion so that they can please everyone, and not anger the religious people who actually think the flood was a historic event.
First of all, it’s obvious non-sense that the annual flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates or an ice-cap could cause a global flood. Maybe she meant that those things could’ve caused a local flood that was greatly exaggerated, or maybe she was looking for anything that could superficially justify “we know for sure that there was the possibility that the world could have flooded”. Based on the editing of the clip, I had to wonder if management forced them to go back and sound more conciliatory towards global-flood believers. (I can only imagine the kind of hate mail they would receive if they actually said that Noah’s Ark was fiction.)
How do we know that Noah’s Ark didn’t happen?
There are already a bunch of arguments out there about Noah’s Ark that I’m not going to discuss because they’ve already been discussed to death. They include:
- Could a person in 2350 BC build a wooden ship 450 feet long that was sea-worthy? (The only known wooden ship approaching this size was the USS Wyoming. It was 450 feet long, completed in 1909, and the water tended to flex the planks in high seas so water seeped in and had to be pumped out.)
- Could Noah fit all the world’s animals on that boat, including space for food?
Instead, I think the bigger problems for Noah’s Ark are:
(1) The Bible goes into quite a bit of detail about ancestral lineages, and how old people were when they gave birth to the subsequent generation. This allows us to calculate backwards and figure out when the global flood supposedly happened. According to the Bible, the date of the global flood ends up being around 2350 BC. This date is simply not realistic. Ancient civilizations go back earlier than that. Egypt, for example, has a series of dynasties leading back to 3000 BC. (See my post “Creationism versus Archeology”.)
(2) If the 2350 date were correct, then human civilization would’ve had to undergo an extreme population explosion in the millenium following the flood. According to Biblical sources, there would have been millions of Jews leaving Egypt, so assuming a global population of 40 million around that time (~1350 BC), and comparing that to global population estimates later in history (an estimated 200+ million by 0 AD), would require an incredibly high population growth between 2350 BC and 1350 BC (5,000,000 fold increase in 1,000 years), and a much lower population growth after 1350 BC – usually less than 5 fold population growth within any 1,000 year period between 1350 BC and 1800 AD.
(3) The distribution of animals is not what we would expect if there were a global flood killing all life. If all life was limited to the top of a mountain in the Middle East in 2350 B.C., then how to explain the distribution of animals across the world? All the kangaroos on the Ark went to Australia? How did the animals get to the Americas? If they crossed via an ice-bridge in the Bering Strait, then the Americas should be limited to animals that are warm blooded and capable of traveling hundreds of miles across snow. This means no reptiles, no spiders, etc. Yet, the Amazon contains a wide variety of animal biodiversity. And why didn’t American desert animals stay behind in the deserts of the Old World? (See related post: “Creationism versus Animal Biodiversity”)
(4) Genetic evidence shows that human beings are far to genetically diverse to be descended from a single family in 2350 B.C. If Noah’s Ark were true, then all men alive today would’ve gotten their Y-chromosomes from Noah, and all human mitochondrial DNA would come from Noah’s wife and the three daughter-in-laws. Studies of the human Y-Chromosome show that you’d need far more than 4,300 years to accumulate that many mutations. Human beings could not be descended from a single male in 2350 B.C. What the studies show, instead, is that, in order to explain the number of mutations in the human Y-Chromosome, you have to allow for roughly 60,000-90,000 years. Similarly, human mitochondrial DNA requires roughly 160,000 years to accumulate that many mutations — showing that Eve could not have lived 6,000 years ago as the Bible says. (See Carl Zimmer’s article on Y-Chromosome Adam and Mitochondrial Eve.)
(5) If the entire human race were repopulated from a single family in the Middle-East in 2350 B.C., then we would expect the highest levels of genetic diversity to be in the Middle East. Populations who moved to Africa, Europe, Australia, etc would carry only a subset of that genetic diversity with them. In reality, the highest levels of human genetic diversity occur in Africa. For example, the Khosian (in South Africa) have some of the most diverse genetics. If the Bible predicted Noah’s Ark landing on Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, genetic diversity would at least align with the Biblical story. Unsurprisingly, humans appear to have arisen in the same location as our closest genetic relatives – chimpanzees and gorillas. (See National Geographic’s Genographic Project, which uses genetics to trace the migration paths of humans over the past 200,000 years.)
I suppose young earth creationists could side-step issues two and three by invoking miracles. For example, they can say that God miraculously allows a population explosion, and God miraculously moved animals back to their original locations (after miraculously moving them to the Ark in the first place — afterall, it’s not reasonable to suggest that Noah gathered all the world’s animals). Flood-believers already have to invoke a whole series of miracles (God sending enough rain to cover the earth, God talking to Noah, God removing the excess water from the earth after the flood, etc). Of course, if you add enough divine miracles to your story, nothing is “unreasonable”. However, it would be odd to say the other three can be cleared up by invoking a miracle — it’s not understandable why God would want to do a miracle in those cases (unless he was trying to deliberately obscure that a flood happened).
So genetics and archeology show that Noah’s Ark didn’t happen. Some Christians, Jews, and Muslims might suggest that Noah’s Ark did happen, but it was more than 4,400 years ago (i.e. the Old Testament is wrong about that detail). It still causes problems because you’d have to push back the date tens of thousands of years in order to allow for that level of human genetic diversity.
Check out what other cultures have recorded about The Flood. A statistical analysis of these presents some interesting results. Also, The notion of a “Vapor Canopy” (that might have caused a flood) based on Genesis is contradicted in the same chapter in which it appears. Check out this discrepancy and a lot of other biblical misconceptions and mysteries in
http://www.eloquentbooks.com/ManAndHisPlanet.html
Every time I come to this site I am amazed at the things that are being discussed. I mean, the fantastic things that some people hold dear are absolutely ludicrous. Of course no one built a giant boat with two of every animal. Of course the entire earth didn’t flood. Of course people didn’t routinely live outrageously long lives. Anyone with an ounce of common sense can see how that flies in the face of any and all empirical evidence. It simply doesn’t make any sense, and deep down, everyone knows it isn’t true. The fact that these supposed events need to be debunked in print at all says a lot about the damage a widespread belief in magic has done to the human race. People everywhere need to wake up. It is complete and total nonsense, and it is really annoying. Tiny – Thanks for fighting the (impossibly uphill) battle for me and many others who hold similar beliefs (based on fact!).
Yet the question is not about faith, hope, or God; the question is if Noah’s Ark is real and has been found. Like Atlantis, the ever-elusive Ark will continue to be “found” by those looking for it—whether it exists or not.
Which facts? Please, list them. Then list your sources.
Take your time:)
It really shows just how ignorant of history the bible’s authors were. It’s really amazing that anyone can entertain such an idea these days, though.
Add in the fact that, even though myth of floods occur in many cultures, they are no means universal. Even just limiting it to myths that detail origin stories (such as previous worlds being destroyed and only a few people surviving), they vary between floods and fires, two things that primitive people had problems with. That’s just going off memory. Talk Origins has a fairly detailed listing.
all flood material: http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-flood.html
flood stories: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html
(the site was incredibly slow to load, so YMMV)
There was some interesting material on the Ark posted at FRDB (formerly the II forums): Here is one:
http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=53338&highlight=ark+naval+paper
We had some interesting discussions about creatures, reproduction, windows and ventilation, food, etc, plus all the vapor canopy+ fun. Even thermodynamics and the burning of the entire earths atmosphere. A simple search can lead to quite a few threads on the subject, if anyone is interested.
I think that people read the Bible and think of it all literally. They think if it says the sea was split it literally was. The Bible is an interpretation in my opinion. So maybe something similar to the ark happened but not exactly how it is written. You gotta have a little faith in some things and sometimes things are unexplainable.
My RE teacher says that things like this may not have actually happened but they may be some kind of symbollic representation of a higher idea *yawn*. one of the things creationists overlook is that when they decide to leave all the fish in the water because they can swim. all the freshwater fish (and amphibians etc.) would die. all the saltwater fish would also die because the concentration levels would be different. oops. God just wiped out several trillion innocent animals.
Are you seriously considering the possibilities of a global flood and a cargo vessel that might survive it, or are you simply looking for any excuse to try and discredit the Bible? If Bible-bashing is important to you, it seems like maybe you should address the actual text, rather than arbitrary interpretations.
On the other hand, try to remember that history IS interpretation, and the real debate here is one of trust and authority: “Religious Authority” vs “Scientific Authority”. A direct approach to that debate would seem less disingenuous, don’t you think? Clarify the issues, please. Simplify. Try to be careful when lumping all of your distrustful feelings toward ‘religion’ together with the notion of Scripture; and be careful when lumping all of your grand feelings toward ‘science’ together with the interpretation of whatever current paradigm it labors under. Pay attention to the distinctions, people!
Creationism does not = Christianity. Religion does not = Magic. Empirical evidence does not = proof. Biblical interpretation does not = Faith.
I was raised in a family (and Christian school) which believed in the literal interpretation of Genesis and the belief that the global flood was a historical event. The fact that some Christians don’t believe in a literal flood does not mean I cannot address the idea (still held by many Christians) that a global flood actually happened.
Take a look at the answers to this YahooAnswers question, if you don’t believe me that many Christians continue to believe in a literal flood story:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081229111627AASR6WU
Most of those responses agree that a flood happened. A few quotes:
“Yes, I believe it. Jesus did too. At Matt. 24:37-39, he said: ““When the Son of Man returns, it will be like it was in Noah’s day. 38 In those days before the flood, the people were enjoying banquets and parties and weddings”
“Sure. Why not? Just because you do not understand something doesn’t necessarily make it untrue”
“I believe in everything what Bible says even if it is weird or immposible. But remember, in God’s eyes nothing is immposible. God can do everything.”
“Yes, I do believe that it rained for 40 days and 40 nights, and yes, I believe that Noah not only built an ark where there has never been rain before, and yes, I do believe he not only did that, but he preached righteousness for the 120 years that it took him to build the ark- Remember who created the weather. Not man, but the infinite, creator God.”
“You’re asking Christians yeah? Well is it in the Bible? Then you have your answer. True Followers of Christ follow His Word.”
I wonder how Christians who don’t believe in the flood deal with Matt. 24:37-39, where Jesus mentions the flood and Noah as if they are historical events. Or the lineage of Jesus in Luke, which includes Noah.
> the real debate here is one of trust and authority: “Religious Authority” vs “Scientific Authority”
I reject that argument because its fundamental premise is to simply setup two “authorities” against each other, which leads to questions like “whom do you trust — God or man?” It sidesteps the real arguments and problems in favor of a kind of “argument from authority” – where we are simply supposed to choose between religious and secular “authorities”.
The Old Testament is an account given to moses by God after the exodus from Egypt. Moses, a meek man is describing to his Clan the history of The Chosen race. A hostory with names familiar to the clans. Geneology and family and there history Was as imprtant as anything to the ancient Hebrews.
HumanKind was created on the 6th day. The Chosen race was a specific race that would eventually beget the messiah or Christ. Moses Account is to the Hebrews of the History of the Chosen Race. The secret missed is that to the Hebrews, all other races were in many places of the old testament called beasts. The Ark inhabitants were Noah and his family, whose decendents in that time were recognizable to the hebrews, as well as other races. to think that other races came from the hebrew line is a false understanding.
we agree about what tiny frog says because in gods eye every thing can be seen and besides respect what’s the command of god.thanks .
i think that the flood was a local thing. to them the whole world was probably that region in which they lived in. there were not that many people around then.
from adam on to then, they were in a sense relatives and im sure stuck close together as they grew and expanded out. not just packing up by themselves and just tracking the globe and setting up elsewhere.
look at all the different races of people. if you have two people of same race you get same race.
and in the day it mentions nephlim were always there , indicating they were before them so clearly there were people already there.
you had adam & eve then cain and abel – when cain killed his brother and was cast out why did god need to put up a sign about not killing him or those who did would be “punished wrose than cain” makes no sense unless there were peol already there.
then it says that cin went to i think nod or some town. where did it come from?
so many things one has to say mracles did it but tats just starts to sound stupid after having to continue to use that to justify your thinking.
i’ve seen what the bible shows as to the decendants of adam & eve and it really wouldn’t be that many people that the whole world would have been filled.
so why th eneed to flood the whole earth? why is there no evidence?
to say it was a miracle and a miricale covered it up is goofey.
adam & eve were then jews and placed on earth with other races , is that what someone is saying?
Concerning point (2) If a population of 8 people increased by less than 16% every 20 years, from 2350 BC to 10 BC you get over 200 million people.
My personal interpretation is that the Bible contains a generation gap.
It starts out with G-d creating Adam, the first man (the first intellectually capable Homo Sapien). Then Cain kills Abel and is afraid of going out to where the ‘others’ can kill him. Here I figure others refers to the less advanced human species. Eventually we get Noah- 1656 years after Adam evolved, so still like 100,000 BC. During the next presentation of generations, I believe there’s a huge generation gap. That would allow us to place Abraham a few centuries after 2000BC. To account for it, I would like to point out how each of the names of the descendants seems to have a symbolic meaning. For example, Pegem represents the ‘division of peoples’, which I suppose we could place around 70,000 BC. ‘Beget’ would refer to indirect birth. If at 30 years A begets B, then A gives birth to whoever’s lineage will lead to B. This might have been clearer in the language of the time (or I like to believe that Moses or whoever wrote the Torah ‘saw’ what was happening and recorded it. The ‘beget’ thing might just be how the author knew how to express what he was ‘seeing’).
Then we have to question the plausibility of the Flood taking place in 100,000 BC. Many of species (living in the water) could have survived just fine (of course one can debate the salinity of the water and how that killed off certain species). Some land insects could have stayed underground (although a flood like that would have eroded a bunch of ground, so let’s just put them on the boat). Now suppose that the boat ended up somewhere in Africa, where life seems to have began.
Here’s where I run into problems: Traces of animals are found in every country, and there countries were pretty distinct 100,000 years ago. For two kangaroo-like animals to go from Australia to the Ark and from Africa back to Australia, it would have taken divine intervention. Quickly moving waters, some type of physical ‘boat’, etc. Rapidly moving waters could be possible, seeing as some crazy shit must have happened with the waters. In addition, there are other times where scientists wonder how the hell could this animal have gotten from here to there. There are possibilities.. that’s all I’m saying.
I’ve been looking at the Torah critically recently, especially with respect to Noah’s Ark, but I’ve found that science just doesn’t prove it impossible.
I just have one question: We need to remember that we cannot switch paradigms when thinking about complex things like this. We need to consider ALL the sides. Also, if one is to think from the paradigm of “god does exist and we can have faith in him,” then it is essential to remember that it isn’t about our human understanding and how we can construct devices, like scientific reasoning, to explain the supernatural in a convention that makes us comfortable. This is fucked up and wrong.
I mean, consider this: If God made man in his image, then how can we expect ourselves, only as small pieces of some grand creator, to fully understand how he works and operates? Imagine a child watching his father build an intricate watch. Though the child does not entirely understand the intricacies of the process, he understands why it is happening and what the watch will be for. And this watch, lets say, is being made for the child and for his betterment, as he’ll need it to tell the time to go to school when he gets old enough to go, and old enough to understand why the watch is important.
Sheesh, and you tell Christians we have to open up our minds? Why not open your minds and hearts and just ask God to reveal himself to you… don’t close off yourself to learning something you never thought you could because you were afraid of what the answer would be!
Great info, though, its coming in handy for a teaching I’m working on. You did some good research.
Ugh, I started that out wrong. I meant to say, “I have just one comment,” instead of, “I just have one question…” my bad.
Amos-
I enjoyed the part about not being able to fully understand how G-d operates.
I would argue, however, that there’s nothing wrong with constructing devices to help us understand religion in the context of science. We all have a natural desire to find consistency among our beliefs. It’s pretty harmless.
Problems arise when people study science subjectively in order to appease religion (i.e. we found Noah’s ark!), or when somebody outright rejects scientific findings because of religious doctrine.
Even so, who are we to say that the universe didn’t begin 5000 years ago? For all we know, the universe, with its past and present, could have instantaneously been put into place 5000 years ago (I think it’s bullshit, but some people believe it) and we wouldn’t know the difference.
Like we have faith in religion, we have faith in science. We take for granted that truth is what our senses observe. We take for granted that scientific research brings us closer and closer to the ‘truth’.
I plan to be a physicist, and I expect the next couple generations of physics to shape my understanding of religion. It seems perfectly fine to me
I’ve read the original article as well as the responses, and I must say that almost every single one makes sense if looked at with an open mind. I myself am… Agnostic, I suppose you’d have to call me, with a strong bend toward “logical”, scientific thinking. It is my OPINION that the Noah’s Ark myth is simply that: a myth. However, I have come across strong arguments to the contrary.
For instance, the fact that the Ark could have easily held all of the animals. I did the math myself, and, given the average size of the animals, how many there were, as well as the grandiose size of the Ark itself, it is irrefutably possible. The problem comes when asking how the animals got to Noah in the first place. To say that God made it so is a bit of a cop-out. The Bible clearly says that the animals came to Noah of their own volition, but this is just not possible. A lot of them would have had to cross oceans to do this, something which most of them could not have possibly done. I’m not one to poo-poo the beliefs of others, but sometimes science trumps religion/mysticism/what-have-you. Transversely, sometimes the opposite happens.
Ultimately, belief in the Ark and it’s myth comes down to the one word that makes me the angriest: FAITH. At it’s core, faith is a beautiful thing. The ability to believe something even though physical evidence proves it to be false, (or at the very least, improbable), is something I sometimes envy. Wouldn’t life be easier if all your questions were answered by that one word? Unfortunately, most of us, even those who claim to have complete faith in something, (in this case, the Bible), cannot be pacified by the simple answer. We cannot just blindly say: Sure. Why not? If the Bible says it, it must be true.
That, to me, is why faith is so dangerous. Faith has caused more death and destruction than logic: The Crusades, Witch hunting, 9/11. What can we take from these examples? Well, I, for one, take the idea that faith breeds chaos. Would the Pagans have continued to live in peace had one man not claimed to be the Son of God? Most likely; because the senseless slaughter would not have happened in the name of One True God. Would the World trade center be here today had some Islamic extremists not had FAITH that their God wanted infidels destroyed? Probably. A quick disclaimer: I said extremists, this does not mean I blame Islam for what happened. I blame zealots, same as the Christian Crusades.
Since this has gone on for far too long, I will close. It is important to strike a clear balance between faith and logic. Faith is good, in doses. It gives us hope and a sense of what may be in store for us. Logic is also good, as it tells us how things work, and whether or not to place our faith in something that is improbable, if not impossible.
Far too many honest believers have been kept from the broader meaning of Genesis.
Peter teaches a “perished” world, which we can better relate to Genesis 1, 8. That world could have been driven by higher atmospheric pressure of different gasses.
A calculation based on conservation of orbital angular momentum showed a closed shell (Oort Cloud) blown away by re-combination of gases formed by “light” energy. Hydrogen and Oxygen mixed return to water. Rainy days as earth centered the broken atmosphere makes sense.
The assembly of what are now planets orbited at 7 AU.
The year was 18.5 Earth years, challenging begat times and questioning how the hereditary data could have been retained through the “PERISHMENT”.
The approximate 10 billion Earth-year blank period before the Genesis 1 creation showed inability of the one who would be like the Most High to create. The very good was usurped based on a lie.
Our world is promoted as God’s creation. It is not, however beautiful and worthy of love it may appear.
I too love debating Noah’s Ark because it is so ludicrous if taken as a literal structure / event… Yes, the second you say “God did this,” you cannot refute it, hence end of discussion. Here’s my standard reply… IF God was going to perform the plethora of miracles it would take to “float” the Ark myth (pun intended), why didn’t he just wipe out the human race other than Noah’s family. You’re talking one miracle as opposed to MANY MANY miracles? Was God pissed at all the animals in the world as well? The genetic diversity argument is GREAT and applies to animals as well! It’s hard for me to accept how many otherwise intelligent and nice people accept the story without question. They say I need faith. I say, there is a difference between faith and BLIND faith. Heaven’s Gate followers had blind faith!
How do you keep a species that has a shorter life span than forty days .how do you collect anacondas via the amazon ,fresh water species ?.and birds ? and feed animals that eat other animals to survive bing goes the two by two theory
pandas and gorillas treble there own weight in food the logistics are mind boggling how you know male from female ?
opps homos .How many species of just butterfly ,fresh flowers for humming birds ,common sense prevails and some of the smaller dinosaurs ,albatross .cormorants food how do you know what to feed and when imagine two elephant on the rampage or rhino ,the aged kimohto lizards and there long life and how many we have today do the maths and perpetuating the species ,it would take at least four of today’s supertankers would be for the basics ,a wooden vessel would break in rough seas basic engineering ,how many people to collect all the beings …………mind boggling ,disease and nocturnal beings and the cleaning up
ask a zookeeper the logistics? ? and what about the moa and kiwis from new zealand sorry chaps its bollocks
@pip stanger,
If a species has a shorter lifespan than forty days, it must reproduce on the ship. If an animal needs to eat its weight in animals, you must have some extra animals that come on merely to serve the purpose of being food, grasses and plants that either were brought on or washed onto the boat. If you say none of the freshwater species could have survived, I’m sure some saltwater ones could undergo evolution and eventually give rise to freshwater ones.
I think that the idea is generally that the animals gravitated to their boat on their own, via thoughts and desires that G-d placed in their heads, perhaps via divinely inspired coincidences like an animal hopping on a tiny piece of land that travels miles over the water. You also have to factor in the fact that the animals (humans included) were ancestors of the species that we observe today, so there would be plenty of time to spread across the globe.
If one is to believe that the Flood occurs exactly as written, then G-d must play a role, and if one is supposing that G-d plays a role, He has created the present, past, and future simultaneously in such a way that all these ‘coincidences’ and ‘random thoughts’ would arise.
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