carefully preserved and is black all the way through. The pitch ma terial soaked into the wood and gradually saturated the complete piece. These pieces of wood which have been brought down from Mt. Ararat are not rotted at all, al though obviously being very old. Since there are no hardwood trees growing for miles in any direction the question is how all those tons of wood got up on a level of 13,500 feet. The Lord could have easily done it in this manner. Noah was told to construct the ark 300 cubits long. No one knows exactly what a cubit is, but most Bible scholars consider it to be about 18 inches. This would make the craft about 450 feet long. Con sider the length of a football field from goal post to goal post and back again halfway. It was a gigan tic boat. It was not a boat in the sense that it had a keel since it was only an enclosed barge. Noah really was not going anywhere. It was simply to be a place of safety and refuge in the storm. Addition ally, it was approximately 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. This would provide excellent ventilation. Cod also told Noah about the necessary provisions for the expe rience (vs. 21). From Genesis 1:29 we see that man was basically a vegetarian. The same was true with the animals. It was after Noah left the ark that man began eating meat. He was told too, what ani mals to take inside. “Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female; and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female" (Genesis 7:2). Taking two of each animal has obvious reasons, but why seven? The purpose was not Page 47
sure what it really is. I have a piece of what it may be. It is jet black and obviously saturated with a bi-
THE WOOD NOAH USED Gopher wood was used to build the ark. This may have been from the cypress tree, an evergreen.
tuminous substance. Some experts consider it equivalent to oak while others believe it to be cypress. It may well be that there were giant trees existing in the Mesopotamian Valley in the days of Noah. Apart from the California redwoods, there is probably no tree alive from which one could make a log 150 feet long. Before the flood the climate and the environment must have been paradise. After the great deluge conditions changed drasti cally. As an example, the age of man dropped severely. Noah was told to pitch the ark from within and without. I studied my Bible for 25 years before real izing why this material was put on the inside, too. It is my conviction that the Lord wanted to preserve the ark. All of those explorers and scientists who claim to have seen the ark hold that the timber is
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