After the flood
After several months, water began to subside, and the Ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat (Genesis 8:4). After waiting another forty days, Noah sent out a dove to see if there was dry land for it to land on, but it returned. He waited seven more days, and sent it out again, and it returned with an olive leaf. After another week, he sent it out yet again, but this time it did not return. He knew then that the time had come to disembark.
God commanded Noah to take his family and all the animals out of the ark and concluded a covenant with him, in which he promised never to flood the Earth again, and imposed a basic set of laws on humanity, the "Noahide Laws". God symbolized his promise with a rainbow, to remind his people after each storm that there would never again be a storm as big as the one that he had caused.
The flood under scrutiny
Critics of the account, suggest that the flood was (if there truly was one), though quite large, was just a local one that affected the Persian Gulf region. The breaching of the sill at the Strait of Hormuz is proposed as the cause: as sea level rose from glacial melt following the Ice Age, and the lower Tigris-Euphrates valley was flooded to form the Persian Gulf. There is also the explanation of the breakthrough that formed the Black Sea, which possibly ties the Turkish mount Ararat with the biblical account. However, the Bible is very clear on how the deluge happened. It doesn't speak of a flood, but of 40 days of continuous rain, which is something very different.
Concerning the rain: it can be calculated how much water is needed at minimum to flood the entire earth (taking the average circumference of the earth and then add 15 cubits, using the smallest cubit used in the days of Noah). This amount of water must have fallen to the ground in just 40 days of continuous rain. The amount of kinetic energy in the rain, which would be transferred as heat upon impact, would be enough to heat the surface of the earth to several hundred degrees Celsius. Since water boils at 100 degrees Celsius, rain would be impossible.
The tradition that Mt. Ararat itself was the resting place of Noah's Ark is widely known, but not supported by the biblical account. (The Book of Genesis states only that it came to rest "upon the mountains of Ararat.") This concept can be traced back to a hoax in 1933. In a Russian-language article from the early 1930’s, in a White Russian refugee publication called 'Mech Gedeona' (Sword of Gideon), there were pictures of what looked like a giant boat on a mountainside, said to be Mount Ararat. It was then discovered that the author of Mech Gedeona had taken the story from another refugee publication called Rubez. And Rubez had gotten the story from the German newspaper, the ‘Koelnische Illustrierte Zeitung’, which published the story on April 1, 1933. On April 8, 1933, the newspaper confessed that the article was an April Fools Day hoax. This however has not deterred expeditions from searching for the Ark on Mt. Ararat.
The details of how Noah knew to build an ark to preserve his family alive is explained as a legend built up around a momentous event in the early expansion of the human race. Skeptics also find the idea of an all-good, all-powerful God destroying humanity and all other life on the planet (except Noah, his family and the animals on the Ark of course) simply because He was displeased with them highly questionable and immoral if it were true. Modern biblical scholars suggest this story may mean the ancient hebrews taught there is a limit to evil and God's forgiveness.
It is unclear what is meant with 'kind' of animal. There are many different possible definitions of species—based on morphology, on genus, on differences in DNA or in the possibility to create viable offspring. Since most Christians who believe in the literal account of the flood deny that evolution takes place, at least as far as speciation and/or macroevolution is concerned, each species of landanimal that can be found on the planet today must have been on board of the Ark.
There is no evidence that all current species of animals fanned out over the planet from one spot, that is, the place where the Ark rested after the flood, wherever that was. There is no explanation why certain species can only be found at certain continents, such as marsupials in Australia. Some creationists explain this by stating the earth looked much different then it looks now. Species live on a continent because they moved their from the Ark and were subsequently cut of by seas or oceans from the rest of the world. Again, there is no evidence of such a journey, and the geological processes involved would have to have been impossibly fast, since according to the Biblical account, this happened not more then 6000 years ago. This would mean the Noah story is an artistic theological lesson, taught in the language of myth. This is a common method used by ancient and primitive peoples. Biblical oral story tellers and writers are very skilled and ingenious in this; which seems to be their highest form of art.
While the flood might explain the extinction of species such as the dinosaur, it gives no explanation for the extinction of any marine life, which of course would not have drowned. Also, the Bible mentions that Noah took 1, 2 or 7 pair of EACH landanimal on board (more precisely, every landanimal with the breath of life in its nostrils). Why he would not have taken any dinosaur on board is not explained. It is impossible that dinosaurs didn't breath or breathed through their skin like some insects simply due to their size.
There is also little chance that so few humans and animals would have survived for long. With such a small genepool, they would have become extinct soon because of the negative effects of inbreeding. Creationist counter this by claiming DNA was much more perfect back then and inbreeding would not cause the problems it causes today. Even if true, this still leaves the problem of too little genetic diversity to survive plagues or sudden changes in the environment.
Many flood accounts
Although many cultures have stories of a great flood, the story of Noah’s Ark is probably the best-known of these.
The next most notable is the Sumerian story of Utnapishtim (found in the Epic of Gilgamesh) which has broadly the same structure and plot as Noah’s Ark, suggesting the possibility that the Biblical depiction has drawn influence from the archaeologically older Sumerian account. But, both of these also has quite a difference. Noah also has a counterpart in Greek mythology, Deucalion. In Indian scriptures, a terrible flood was supposed to have left only one survivor - a saint named Manu, who was saved by the god Vishnu in the form of a fish. Many more extra-biblical variations of the flood account exist in cultures around the world: for fuller details, see Deluge (mythology).
Modern searches
The three most popular locations for the Ark are the Ethiopian highlands, somewhere in the mountains of Ararat and most specifically Mount Judi in the Ararat range both of which are in eastern Turkey. Ethiopia is also known as the country where (allegedly) the Ark of the Covenant can be found,in the care of the Coptic Church. Whether insightful or misguided the only archaeologist to have claimed to have possibly located the Ark's final resting place was Ron Wyatt. Since his death he has been heroized by many bible-believers; a plethora of sites coming into existence concerning him, many fabricating information about him and his discoveries.
An Italian archaeological group named NARKAS is the most recent of numerous groups claiming to have pinpointed the location of Noah's Ark close to the top of Mount Ararat, which straddles the border of Turkey and Armenia. Photographs of this alleged discovery (with a link to Babelfish to supplement their Italian descriptions) are available on their website [1]. The images can be interpreted as being a layer of rock that is weathering differently than the layers above and below it.
In 2004, there is yet another expedition going to Mount Ararat in Turkey to try and locate the Ark.
References
The New American Bible: St. Joseph Edition, Illustrated, Catholic Book Publishing Co, New York, 1970. Between pages 4 and 5 is a fine illustration of the ancient Hebrews' view of the world and cosmology. Many bible readers are unfamiliar with this.
, Robert D. Ballard, Malcolm McConnell, National Geographic, Oct, 2001
External links
Source | Copyright
Related categories
