Gods, Myths and Heroes - Part 82

More About Noah's Ark

We've covered Noah's Ark before.  It's a children's favorite, but it is one of most absurd stories in the entire Bible, and that's saying a lot.  It also demonstrates the twisted morality of the Bible: God destroys almost every living thing in the world, including innocent children and animals, because he gets pissed off at some wicked men.  Obviously, God needs to go to anger management classes.

The Bible says that all the animals went into the Ark, two by two.  That includes snakes, like the corn snake and boa constrictor above that are my follower Arnie's pets (thanks, Arnie).

Kangaroos somehow swam from Australia to get to the Ark, and then swam back afterwards.  Above, Olympic skier Gus Kenworthy with some kangaroos.

Although marine snails could have survived the flood, there are about 35,000 species of land snails that must have crawled onto the Ark two by two.  That would be quite a trip if they had to cross the ocean.  Actually, it would be quite a trip no matter where they came from.

There are over one million species of insects.  Apparently they all came onto the Ark two by two.  That was nice of God to save 3500 species of mosquitos, 2000 species of termites, and 4500 species of cockroaches.

And there are 400,000 species of beetles (not including this Beetle).

But I have a much simpler argument why we should reject the whole story of Noah's Ark.  It's based on simple math.

The Bible says that the waters rose fifteen cubits and the mountains were covered (Genesis 7:20).  How long is a cubit?  It's the length of your forearm, from your elbow to the tip of your fingers (not the length of the whole arm being measured above).  Of course, that length varies, but a cubit was typically reckoned as 18 to 20 inches.  That would make Noah's flood about 25 feet high.

I'm sorry, but a 25 foot flood would not cover any mountains, like Mt. Ararat (16,854 feet) where the Ark came to rest, let alone covering Mt. Everest.  Therefore, the Biblical story of Noah's Ark is false.

Note: some Biblical translations of Genesis 7:20 say that the waters covered the mountains to a depth of fifteen cubits.  But the original Hebrew says

חֲמֵ֨שׁ עֶשְׂרֵ֤ה אַמָּה֙ מִלְמַ֔עְלָה גָּבְר֖וּ הַמָּ֑יִם וַיְכֻסּ֖וּ הֶהָרִֽים׃

which means "five and ten cubits upward did prevail the waters and were covered the mountains".  It doesn't say that the mountains were covered by 15 cubits.  It says that the waters prevailed upward (i.e. they rose) 15 cubits.  That figure was probably copied from an earlier flood story (see commentary on the next photo).

Above is a map of the flooding if global warming melts all the ice on earth, which would raise sea level about 65 meters, which is over 200 feet.  That would be disastrous for places like Florida, but even that wouldn't cover any mountains.

However, a 25 foot flood would be huge on a flat floodplain like Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), above, where these British soldiers were in 2003.  In fact, the Biblical flood story is cribbed from a Babylonian flood story in Mesopotamia.  That story, deciphered in 2014 from a cuneiform tablet, even has animals going into a boat two by two.  That story was not written by God. It was written by Babylonians about a thousand years before the Bible was written.

Religious zealots might argue that the Bible doesn't define the cubit.  What if a cubit is bigger, so 15 cubits is enough to cover the mountains?  Then the Ark could end up on a mountain like the one above.

In that case, if 15 cubits will cover Mt. Everest, a cubit would be about 1935 feet.  Now, the Bible says the dimensions of the Ark were 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high.  With our new cubit size, that makes the Ark 110 miles long, 18 miles wide, and 11 miles high.  I don’t think so.  So, we're back to a 25-foot flood that doesn't cover the mountains.

Conclusion: the story of Noah's Ark in the Bible is a charming fable, but it's false.  To borrow a phrase from Shakespeare's Macbeth, it is "a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing."  If you think the Bible is the word of God, then God is an idiot.