The Ark of Noah—Fact or Fiction? By Harry Rimmer, Sc.D.*
P ERHAPS we should call this article “ Ignorance and the Ark,” for like so many other so-called scientific objec tions to the truth of God’s Word, the arguments that are directed against the record of the ark spring out of ignorance. On this, as upon all other Scriptural subjects, the person who challenges the inspiration and truth of the Bible succeeds magnificently in just one particular: he advertises a bound less personal ignorance of the subject upon which he speaks. We have often observed that objections made to the Biblical account of Noah’s ark are never made from the standpoint of knowledge, but from the viewpoint of misunderstanding. Many years ago, we spent part of our childhood in a small town, which had its local infidel, as did most such centers of residence. It was his constant boast that he was too “edu cated” to believe the Bible, and after “ thorough” study; he had rejected it entirely. One day, in an informal discussion, this wise unbeliever hanged himself, as calves are said to do when they have plenty of rope! Turning to the teacher who had for an hour confounded him in every point, the exasper ated infidel asked, “ Do you believe the story of the ark that Noah built?” “ Three hundred cubits long, fifty wide, and thirty high.” “ It must have weighed several hundred pounds?” the ques tioner slyly continued. “ Certainly,” replied the victim, “ It probably weighed sev eral hundred tons!” “ Then,” cried the infidel in unholy, gleeful triumph, “ if the Bible is true, as you claim it is, how could those two priests in Exodus pick up the ark and carry it across the Red Sea?” It is not too much to say that this is a typical attitude. The critic who wisely discourses on the scientific impossibility of the story of the ark, hardly knows that there was an Ark of the Covenant, as well as the ark of the deluge! No believer ever need fear what science may say about the ark of Noah, for science has said all it can say here, and its statements substantiate the account of that ark as the record is given in the Book of Genesis. The story of the ark has frequently been picked out as a weak point in the Bible’s claim to full and absolute inspira tion. However, the critics may as well give up hope; there are no weak points in the Book. Every section of the Scrip ture that is or has ever been under fire has emerged from the crucible secure for all time. Especially is this so when the point has been a scientific one. Some time ago we were delivering a series of addresses in a small town in Texas, and we came into violent contact with a local infidel who had gained a good deal of pseudo-scientific information. Vain speculation and wild guesses all were ac cepted by him without question. He was somewhat feared locally because of this superficial knowledge of scientific lan guage. We locked horns many times, until finally he said, “ I don’t want to talk to you any more; you talk to me as though I were an ignorant fool!” We replied, “ That is the finest case of self-analysis I ever saw!” Although he was angry for a while, he came back to see the “wherein” and “why for.” To open the issue, he challenged the truth and historicity of the account of the flood. He began by saying, “ Now, take that ridiculous story of the ark. You certainly can’t claim that story is scientifically possible.” *Reproduced by permission from the book T he H armony of S cience and S cripture . Copyright by Research Science Bureau, Inc. The teacher replied, “I certainly do.” A foxy gleam lit the eye of the infidel. “ Tell me,” he said, “How long was the ark?”
“ Certainly it is,” we replied. “What’s wrong with it scien tifically?” “ Just this,” he answered. “ It was utterly impossible for Noah to get two animals of every kind into an ark the size of the one he built.” “ Let’s examine your argument,” we replied. “How many different kinds of animals are there?” He looked at us for several seconds with a blank expression, and then said, “Well, how many kinds are there?” “ Oh, no,” we said, “ this is your argument; you go ahead and make it.” After some attempt to evade, he said, “Well, I don’t know how many kinds of animals there are, but I will soon find out.” Upon this note he departed. When we saw him again later in the day, he cried out in triumph, “ I know now how many kinds of animals there are!” “ All right,” we said, “how many kinds are there?” He said, “ There are one million different kinds.” Now of course he was wrong. His figures were highly inaccurate. But since it was his argument and not ours, we let him make it. So we contented ourselves by replying, “ What is the argument now?” He answered, “ It was utterly impossible for Noah to get two million animals into an ark the size of the one he built.” “ But,” we said, “he didn’t have to. Out of all the living creatures known to the science of biology, sixty per cent of them live in the water, and a flood wouldn’t hurt them.” “ Even at that,” he answered, “forty per cent of two million animals is a whale of a lot.” “ You are forgetting,” we retorted, “that out of the forty per cent that live on the dry land, seventy out of every one hundred are insects, which do not take up much room.” Upon which he got somewhat excited, and raised his voice to shout, “ But you have to admit that two elephants will take up a lot of room!” Whereupon we smiled and said, “ But think of all the in sects the size of fleas which could be parked on two elephants, all of them counting and yet not detracting much from the available space.” In some exasperation he said, “Well, no matter how you try to whittle it down, even ten per cent of two million animals could not possibly get in an ark the size of the one that Noah built.” “ All right,” we said, “How big was the ark?” He replied, “ What do you mean, ‘How big was it?’ ” We said, “ Exactly that. How big was the ark?” After considerable embarrassed silence, he was forced to admit that he did not know. He did not know whether the ark was ten miles long by five miles wide or whether it was ten feet long by twenty feet wide. We concluded this phase of our discussion by saying, “Now do you see why we talk to you the way you claim we do? What an intelligent argument is this! Here is a totally unknown number of animals, and here is a boat of absolutely unknown size. Yet you claim it is scientifi cally impossible to get an unknown number of animals into a boat of an unknown size!” By this time he was quite wroth, and departed, saying, “ I will find out how big the ark was!” We had the last word, however, by calling after him, “ You should have found out before you rejected the story.” The next day he came in grim determination to say, “Now I know how big the ark was.” “All right,” we answered. “How big was it?” He said, “ It was three hundred cubits long by fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high.” “ Could that hold two of every kind of animal?” “ No, sir, it could not.” “Why? How long, or how much, is a cubit?” T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
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