The Impossible Voyage Of Noah's Ark

Farrell Till presents some interesting information concerning Noah's ark and the Genesis flood---from creationists. From the Errancy Discussion List, 1-5-97:

One of the best works I have read on Noah's ark is Robert Moore's 

"The Impossible Voyage of Noah's Ark," which was published in the

Winter 1983 edition of *Creation/Evolution.* I highly recommend 

it. So far, we have discussed only the 300-foot limit in our 

exchanges, but Moore discusses at length many problems that 

the ark would have encountered. While you are trying to find 

reputable naval architects who will confirm that the 300-foot 

limit would not have been a barrier to building a seaworthy 

barge 450 feet long, I want to present some of the other 

problems to you. You have insisted that the ark floated "gently" 

on the water, whereas the science of meteorology would require 

a scenario that would make hurricanes seem like mere soft 

breezes.

In "Impossible Voyage..." Moore presented the scenarios that even
creationists themselves have stated as the type of forces that the 
ark would have had to endure. In *The Creation Explantion,* 
Robert E. Kofahl and Kelly L. Segraves said this about the flood: 
"The Flood was accompanied by violent movements of the earth's 
crust and by volcanic activity of momentous proportions. 
Tremendous tidal waves and rushing currents scoured and deeply 
eroded the continental surface. Entire forests were ripped up and 
transported large distances to be dumped where the currents 
slowed" (p. 226).
  
John C. Whitcomb and Henry Morris certainly need no 
introduction to creationists. In "The Genesis Flood,* they 
presented the following scenario: "Even after the forty days, 
when the greatest of the rains and upheavals diminished, 
the Scriptures say that the waters 'prevailed' upon the earth 
for one hundred and ten days longer. This statement... would 
certainly imply that extensive hydraulic and sedimentary 
activity continued for a long time, with many earlier flood 
deposits perhaps re-eroded and reworked.... The only way in 
which land could now appear again would be for a tremendous 
orogeny to take place. Mountains must arise and new basins 
must form to receive the breat overburden of water imposed 
upon the earth" (pp. 266-267).
  
Would such forces at work on the earth's crust have caused 
turbulance? Whitcomb and Morris certainly thought so: "Yielding 
of the crust at even one point, with resultant escape of magmas 
and water or steam, would then lead to earth movements causing 
further fractures until, as the Scriptures portray so graphically, 
'the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up' 
(Genesis 7:11). Truly this was a gigantic catastrophe, beside 
which the explosion of the largest hydrogen bomb, or of hundreds 
of such bombs, becomes insignificant" (pp. 242-243).
  
The creationist J. E. Schmich presented this scenario: "The 
worldwide ocean of the Genesis flood was swept by wind storms 
that would make modern tornadoes seem lik a zephyr" ("The 
Flood and the Ark," *Creation Research Society Quarterly,* 
11:2, pp. 120-122).
  
These are not the claims of despicable atheists. These are 
statements that have been published by men who are recognized 
as the foremost spokesmen for the scientific accuracy of the 
Genesis flood record. Some of us on the errancy list tried to get 
you to investigate the meteorological implications of a flood like 
the one described in Genesis, but you ignored our statements. 
Now I have presented to you statements from leading creationists, 
who agree with our claim that meteorological conditions in Noah's 
flood would have subjected the ark to unimaginable forces and
stresses. If anything, their scenarios are far more extreme than 
anything skeptics have proposed, because, of course, they are 
trying to present scenarios that would have the flood as an 
explanation for the geological record. If you want the discussion 
to continue, I am going to insist that you address this issue and 
present evidence that the leading arkeologists are wrong in the 
scenarios they presented and that the ark merely floated
"gently" on the water.

Farrell Till

Ark Technology

Noah allegedly had the technology to build a seaworthy 450 ft. long wooden ship that could carry massive cargo for a year. How did this technology disappear after the flood? Since the flood, builders of wooden ships have failed to go past the 300 ft. long limit for such a vessel as the Ark. From the Errancy discussion list, January 1997:

MATTHEW
Indeed, the flood itself argues that technology levels would have been lowered following the flood.

TILL
To the contrary, Noah lived for 350 years after the flood (Gen. 9:28), and Shem lived for 500 years after the flood (Gen. 11:11). These two had developed a shipbuilding technology that surpassed anything that the world has ever seen, because they were able to make an all-wooden ship that was 150 feet longer than the barrier that would later baffle modern shipbuilders. Yet that remarkable technology disappeared from the face of the earth, even though Noah and Shem had centuries to teach it to others before they died. The fact that no remarkable ships like the ark were made after the flood is enough to convince reasonable people that the ark was just a legend.

MATTHEW 
Mr. Till, no technology lost following the flood? It seems incredible that Noah's family alone contained all the technology of the world. Furthermore, no additional arks were needed after the flood. God did not ask for another.

TILL
Now that's a strange comment for a biblical inerrantist to make. According to the Genesis story of the flood "all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both birds, and cattle, and beasts, and every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth, and EVERY MAN, all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, of all that was on the dry land died" (Gen. 7:21).

Now if this is a true statement, the only humans who survived this disaster were Noah and his wife and their three sons and their wives, eight people altogether. So why does it seem incredible to you that "Noah's family alone contained all the technology of the world"? Who else would there have been? So if Noah was so advanced in the ability to smelt and forge iron, as you seem to believe that Aubrey has brilliantly proven, how do you explain that this technology disappeared after the flood? Surely, Noah and his family would have recognized the value that iron had in construction work and would have used it extensively. So why don't archaeologists find sites dating back to Noah's time that contain numerous iron objects? Furthermore, since Noah lived after the flood for 350 years and Shem lived for 500, why didn't their knowledge of iron forging and shipbuilding spread with the growth of their descendants?