Noah’s Ark: How Did I Do?

I’m shamelessly plugging my own blog here, but I’m looking for opinions. I’ve been blogging my reading of the Bible and have reached the flood. I know I have missed many things, my hope is that some of you will help me fill in the blanks. This is an atheist blog, but for other points of view I’m also posting this in r/christianity. I’ve pasted the blog post below. The original can be found here: http://www.rational-alchemy.com/home-page/1197-blogging-the-bible-7-genesis-7

Noah was allowed to save his immediate family; his wife, sons, and their wives, due to his righteousness. Of the animals, God apparently found righteous examples in each and every species*, seven each of the clean species and two each of the unclean** species.

This parade of little Noahs lasted for seven days, after which the flood began. The flood was caused (on the six hundredth year, second month, and seventeenth day of Noah’s life, in an oddly specific detail) by the fountains of the Earth gushing forth while the windows of Heaven opened. Not by, y’know, normal rain. Because that would be silly.

This covers the first half of Genesis 7. The second half, in typical Biblical fashion, restates the first in case we didn’t get it, until the flood has hit its peak at fifteen cubits in height, covering even the tallest mountains. The rain stopped, but the waters remained for one hundred fifty days while all of God’s remaining creation, every man, woman, child, animal, and probably most plants died a horrible, terrifying death for the sin of simply living.

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I can’t even begin to express how sickened I am by the behavior of this “benevolent” God. It arbitrarily exterminates nearly all life on Earth, life it created and directed. Even the children, the infants? They, too, were corrupt? So the moment before birth, the death of that child would be an abortion, a mortal sin, but the instant afterwards they were corrupt, evil creatures deserving only a gruesome death at the hands of their loving creator? And in his infinite wisdom he can’t think of a single other option?

Before this devolves into an angry rant, I’ll discuss some of the specifics. First, the waters rose to 15 cubits, enough to cover the mountains. Last chapter the dimensions of the ark were given as 300 cubits long, 50 wide and 30 high. Somebody wasn’t doing their math, but I will. Here’s how I worked this out, if I made an error (and knowing me, I probably did) someone can correct me***. The peak of Mount Everest is 29,029 feet above sea level. Assuming the flood just barely covered it, dividing its height by 15 should give us roughly one cubit. So, one cubit is 1935 feet. that would give the ark a length of 387,000 feet, a width of 96,750, and a height of 58,050, twice the height of the highest mountain. Does that seem a tad improbable to anyone? No wonder Ken Ham is running low on funding.

But let’s assume this figure is incorrect. Because it has to be, I must be missing important information, but then, the Bible isn’t very good at detail (or reality). How big would the ark need to have been in order to accommodate every species (with enough left over after inevitable territory disputes), their food, waste, and exercise room? Don’t forget also that aquatic species need room as well, whether the floodwaters were salt or not, those species who require the other would need a very advanced aquarium as well. The construction would have to be massive, just to hold everything. But let’s not forget the floor plan. Many of these species do not get along, they would need to be both sequestered, and be given enough room to maintain health, all while being serviced by very few humans who would need easy central walkways. The floors of the ark, at least in certain areas, would have to be heavily reinforced to withstand the weight of the elephants**** and other large animals. Because there would be far too many animals present to have effective manual waste management, the ark would also need sophisticated waste elimination mechanisms. I’m thinking of a giant poo trebuchet, but that’s just impractical. Would it have been as big as I described before? Probably not, but still damn big.

Finally, at least for me and this particular gripe, let’s discuss how the ark was built. This was a job given to only eight people (Noah, his wife, Shem, Ham, Japheth, and their wives*****) to complete in a very short time. It isn’t said exactly how long Noah had to complete his project, but it doesn’t matter. He could never succeed. He needs, with eight people, to complete a project on a larger scale than we see even today, something that, in modern times, would require hundreds, if not thousands, of people and decades of expert planning and construction. Not only would he need to learn and implement the engineering required, he would need to learn enough veterinary medicine to keep his charges alive for the journey. And let’s not forget resource gathering, he'd need to clear cut whole nations, transport the timber, learn how to use and construct the forges necessary to create his tools. And this is just a simplification. This is not a true story. One could argue that God could have given him the knowledge and endurance to build the ark, and given the animals the ability to survive without eating, screwing, or pooping. But if he could do that he wouldn’t have needed the damn ark. He probably could have come up with something better than genocide as well.

The flood was described as being from the fountains of the Earth and from the windows of Heaven. This supposes that there was a huge reservoir of water both above and below the Earth. Fine, after the ark, I’ll just accept it. These waters have been mentioned before after all. Anton Chekhov famously said, “One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.” So, it makes fine literary sense for a story, but has horrible implications if we take this as reality. God had planned this genocide from the beginning.

And to end this chapter, I’ll quickly raise a question which I’ll (probably, I haven’t read ahead) answer in the next. How did all of the various species cross the oceans, traverse the continents, in order to reach the ark?

• Some say that instead of species, it was actually kinds, to save space. But that’s just silly, they would later have needed to evolve....

** So, wash them? Actually, there is a fairly long list used by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. It is touched upon later in the Bible, notably in Leviticus, so I’ll elaborate when I get there save for this: The list seems somewhat arbitrary, especially considering God made everything to be perfect (not withstanding all of the corrupt ones he needed to drown, of course) and as perfect beings, created by a perfect God, they can’t be unclean. Many people speculate that “unclean” animals were actually the ones most likely to make people sick upon ingestion.

*** Hi, Kai!

**** And, according to some literalists, dinosaurs. But let’s keep our assumptions slightly less crazy for now.

***** How undervalued a Christian woman must feel. Women in the Bible aren’t even respected enough to be named.

NOTES:

It is utterly impossible for me not to have missed important topics in this chapter. As I consider these posts to be alive, mention things you would like me to address and I will revisit this and add them in.

I also added an addendum to chapter 6 to address a point I forgot to mention.