Noah's Ark: Encyclopedia II - Noah's Ark - Biblical literalism and the Ark narrative

Noah's Ark - Biblical literalism and the Ark narrative

Many conservative Christians (especially in the United States) and Orthodox Jews are believers in Biblical inerrancy, the concept that the Bible, as the word of God, does not set out to mislead, and hence should be interpreted literally whenever there is no clear reason for any other reading. They also tend to trust in traditions regarding the composition of the Bible. Literalists therefore generally accept the traditional Jewish belief that the Ark narrative in Genesis was written by Moses. There is less agreement on when Moses lived, and thus on when the Ark story was written - various dates have been proposed ranging from the 16th century BC to the late 13th century BC.

For the date of the Flood, literalists rely on interpretation of the genealogies contained in Genesis 5 and 11. Archbishop Ussher, using this method in the 17th century, arrived at 2349 BC, and this date still has acceptance among many. A more recent Christian fundamentalist scholar, however, summarising the current state of thought in the light of the various Biblical manuscripts (the Masoretic text in Hebrew, various manuscripts of the Greek Septuagint), and differences of opinion over their correct interpretation, demonstrated that this method of analysis can date the flood only within a range between 3402 and 2462 BC.^[7] Other opinions, based on other sources and methodologies, lead to dates outside even this bracket - the apocryphal Book of Jubilees, for example, providing a date equivalent to 2309 BC.

Literalists reconcile apparent contradiction in the Ark narrative as resulting from the stylist conventions adopted by an ancient text: thus the apparent confusion over whether Noah took seven or only two of each clean animal into the Ark is explained as resulting from the author (Moses) first introducing the subject in general terms - seven pairs of clean animals - and then later, with much repetition, specifying that these animals entered the Ark in twos. Literalists see nothing puzzling in the reference to a raven - why should not Noah release a raven? - nor do they see any sign of alternative endings.

Apart from questions of date, authorship, and textual integrity, literalists devote much attention to technical matters such as the identity of "gopher wood" and details of the Ark's construction. The following sets out some of the more commonly discussed topics:

• Gopher wood: Genesis 6:14 states that Noah built the Ark of "gopher" wood, a word not otherwise known in the Bible or in Hebrew. The [[Jewish Encyclopedia believes it was most likely a translation of the Babylonian "gushure in erini" (cedar-beams), or the Assyrian "giparu" (reed).^[8] The Latin Vulgate (5th century AD) rendered it as "lignis levigatis", or "smoothed (possibly planed) wood". The Greek Septuagint (3rd-1st centuries BC) does not specify any type of wood, it mentions building a square box and tarring it inside and out. Older English translations, including the King James Version (17th century), simply leave it untranslated, but many modern translations tend to favor cypress, (although the word for "cypress" in Biblical Hebrew is erez) on the basis of a misapplied etymology based on phonetic similarities, while others favor pine or cedar. Recent suggestions have included a lamination process, or a now-lost type of tree, or a mistaken transcription of the word kopher (pitch), but there is no consensus.^[9]
• Seaworthiness: The Ark is described as 300 cubits long, the cubit being a unit of measurement from elbow to outstretched fingertip. Many different cubits were in use in the ancient world, but all were essentially similar, and literalist websites seem to agree that the Ark was approximately 450 feet in length. This is considerably longer than the largest wooden vessels ever built in historical times: according to disputed claims the early 15th century Chinese admiral Zheng He may have used junks 400 feet long, but the schooner Wyoming, launched in 1909 and the largest documented wooden-hulled cargo ship ever built, measured only 350 feet and needed iron cross-bracing and a steam pump.^[10] "The construction and use histories of these [late 19th century wooden European] ships indicated that they were already pushing or had exceeded the practical limits for the size of wooden ships." ^[11] Literalist scholars who accept these objections - not all do^[12] - believe that Noah must have built the Ark using advanced post-19th century techniques such as space-frame construction.^[13]
• Capacity and animal welfare: The Ark had a gross volume of about 40,000 m³, a displacement nearly equal to that of the Titanic, and total floor space of around 8,900 square metres (96,000 ft²). The question of whether it could have carried two (or more) specimens of the various species (including those now extinct), plus food and fresh water, is a matter of much debate, even bitter dispute, between literalists and their opponents. While some literalists hold that the Ark could have held all known species, a more common position today is that the Ark contained 'kinds' rather than species - for instance, a male and female of the cat 'kind', rather than representatives of tigers, lions, cougars, etc. The many associated questions include whether eight humans could have cared for the animals while also sailing the Ark, how the special dietary needs of some of the more exotic animals could have been catered for, questions of lighting, ventilation, and temperature control, hibernation, survival and germination of seeds, the position of freshwater and saltwater fish, and the question of what the animals would have eaten immediately after leaving the Ark, and how they could have travelled to their present habitats. The numerous literalist websites give varying answers, but are in general agreement that none of these problems are insuperable.^[14]

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Biblical literalism and the Ark narrative", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki