NOAH 'S Liberty Ship
b y A r c h i t e c t 9 f e i r B e n V r t
Director of the Studio for Synagogal Arts Haifa Kiryat Shmuel
tic commands to Noah (Gen. 6:14- 16) that the ark should have a door in its side, a skylight and three decks. The Scriptures mention three di mensions: the vessel was to be 300 cubits (492 ft.) long, 50 cubits (82 ft.) wide, and 30 cubits (49 ft.) high. That would make it somewhat larger than a World War II Liberty ship. A fter exhaustive reckoning, Ben-Uri concluded that to meet such require ments, the ark had to be what he calls a “ prismatic rhomboid.” Essen tially, his version is a long bar whose cross section is shaped like a dia mond. 2,000 Animals. Such a vessel could have been built while lying at an angle on one side. Animals could easily climb a gentle incline on a side and enter through a door. As the ark began to float, it would right itself; as a result, the door would tilt and become a skylight in the roof, and water could not enter the craft from its sides. The design, according to Ben-Uri( could easily accommodate three decks and provide a capacity of some 5,500 tons, enough fo r at least 1,000 pairs o f animals. An Orthodox Jew, Ben-Uri argues that his version o f the ark is evidence that, for all of today’s demythologiz- ing, the Bible has a basis in fact. “ I believe,” says he, “ that the Bible is a true account o f what actually hap pened. It is up to us to unravel its secrets.”
The Numbers from 1-24 are correct relations to the NUMBER OF HE BREW LETTERS for every 7 letters you have SO Cubits in the building scale: GENESIS VI, 14: the Number of Hebrew letters are 7 time 7-210 Cub. GENESIS VI, 15: the Number of Hebrew letters are 8 time 7-240 Cub. ALL VI, 16: the Number of Hebrew letters are 9 time 7-270 Cub. All Hebrew words together are in letters 24 time 7-720 cubits such scale makes the line around the ARK both the LENGTH and twice the same shape for the roof and the bottom. W HAT DID HISTORY’S most famous boat look like? Though many religious scholars doubt the story of Noah and the flood, there has been no lack o f efforts to depict his ark. Medieval artists tended to portray it as a big houseboat. In the most re cent Hollywood version, The Bible, John Huston pictured it as a preg nant sampan. Now, an Israeli with sound credentials has produced per haps the most logical rendition of Noah’s ark to date. Last week in Jerusalem’s Hechal Shlomo (Solo mon’s Palace), the seat o f Israel’s Chief Rabbinate, the model went on display — and it looked totally dif ferent from earlier versions. It is the work o f Meir Ben-Uri, 59, one o f Israel’s leading religious painters and synagogue designers, who made a long, scholarly study of the historical evidence. Many geolo gists reckon that around 4000 B.C. a flood devastated what is now Iraq; archaeologists have dug up cunei form tablets in the region relating the tale o f a man who survived by building a vessel. Ben-Uri reasoned that the ark was probably built o f either bamboo or light-weight wood, both common to southern Iraq. To reconstruct the de sign, he relied entirely on God’s cryp
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— Used by permission o f “ Time” 2-2S-68. DECEMBER, 1968 39
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