INTRODUCTION

What is the thought that gets into your mind when someone enunciates, “Noah’s Ark”?

As early as childhood, the story of Noah’s Ark has been taught. Literally speaking, when

someone says ark, the picture that flashes in mind is a shape of a claw-bathtub that floats in the

water – nothing special. However, for a Christian, the thought that will come in mind when

someone says ark is the story of Noah’s Ark. Noah, a firm believer of God, was tasked to build

an ark to survive the biblical flood that was bound to happen. In present time, that event was

considered as the greatest triumph of all time.

The story of Noah’s Ark, as presented in Genesis 6-9 in the Bible provides a story of

God’s judgment for the sinners. He regretted having made man because people were growing

more and more evil in their deeds and thoughts. For this reason, God said that He will wipe

everything living on earth – men and animals (Genesis 6:7). God then decided to bring flood

over the earth to wash away every sinful human being. Noah and his family were the only ones

who remained faithful to God. Therefore, before the flood took place, God instructed Noah to

build an ark that can house him, his family, and the animals. The ark symbolizes God’s grace and

salvation for Noah and his family.

This biblical event has been argued upon by many researchers. They say that the

worldwide flood described in Genesis 6-9 is not historical, but rather a combination of stories

because there is no such evidence for a worldwide flood. Furthermore, it would not make sense

for constructing a huge Ark within 120 years, and it would not have necessary to shelter within

the Ark each kind of animal in existence [ CITATION Ant00 \l 1033 ].

 Many questions and doubts arose, especially given the fact that science and religion are

opposites. Science is concerned with the natural and focuses on testable claims and hypotheses

while religion is concerned with the supernatural and is focused on beliefs. Scientifically

speaking, the story of Noah’s Ark is a clear example why the Bible seems unbelievable because

of events that have no evidence per se.

This paper focuses on Genesis 6-9, the story of Noah’s Ark itself. It will give a deeper

understanding about the concept of the scripture for us to have a better interpretation about it that

we can use as a foundation for serious research studies. The following section will utilize the

hermeneutics approach for Biblical Research, in order to interpret the flood, the Ark, the man,

and the animals in the story in an appropriate understanding of the inspired text. The

abovementioned statements are glimpse of what this study is all about and will further be

discussed and interpreted in which it can be very informative, and will later be found interesting.
The Ark

One of the popular stories in the book of Genesis that most of us are familiar with is the

Noah’s Ark which has been discussed endlessly in human history. It is about the story of how

God instructed Noah to build an Ark of God that will make a great flood to extinguish the

wicked of the Earth. Since Noah and his family have been very obedient, God asked Noah to

make an ark save every 2 kinds of animals together with his wife, sons, and sons’ wives (Genesis

6:18-19).

Building the Ark shows distinctly the concept of a global flood and it would make no

sense to create such a large ark for such a local flood for 120 years (Cremades, 2000). Although

geologists and anthropologists did numerous scientific studies on the occurrence of the flood

itself, little knowledge on Noah's Ark is known and conclusive physical evidence about the

remnants of the Ark is not found, despite numerous settings studied during this century. While

little is known about the real form and structure of the Ark, the dimensions and also the material

of the Ark were mentioned and clearly described in the bible. This is enough to enable us to

study the existence of the Ark during the great flood (Sarfati, 2010).

In the study of Cremades “Studying Noah's Ark: A Teaching Strategy For A Science And

Religion Course” He states that in Hebrew gopher is a kind of wood, which is not known, used in

building Noah's Ark. The tree is a hard light wood which has a good deal of pitch that becomes

ideal for using for making the ark. The measurements of the Ark were 437 feet long, 73 feet

wide, 44 feet high, there are three decks, a door in the side, and an Ark “window”. The Ark was

interpreted clearly as a rectangular box by Biblical creationists for several years. This contributed

to its scale. Capacity was able to easily understand and how the Ark should have handled the
payload effectively. However, the Bible does not specify that the Ark should be a rectangular

box The Bible does not, though, expand in the form of Noah's Ark beyond these magnificent

total measurements — longitude, width, and depth. Ships have been defined as such for a long

time without implying a block-shaped hull. What the Bible provides are simple directions for

constructing the ark, but it doesn't provide much necessary information about building the ark.

The brief descriptions in Genesis do not address other essential details, such as drinking water

preparation, excrement disposal, or the way out of the ark which could have helped in viewing

how the ark looks like. Also, Noah had no idea how many animals would come, and neither is

this registered (Lovett, 2007).

While it has always been a very popular theme, it cannot be properly portrayed by

scholars, since the explanation in Genesis 6 is limited (Sarfati, 2010). The Bible states that the

Ark ceased after the great flood at the mountains of Ararat in the seventh month, on the

seventeenth day of the month (Genesis 8:4-5). This has been an opportunity for most researchers

to find where the ark is since it has been a debate since then, but after all the studies that have

been conducted by geologists, Noah’s Ark is still nowhere to be found. One reason imposed by

Dr. Snelling in his study is that Mount Ararat, the volcano now named, just rose after the retreat

of the ocean waters which have reshaped the earth’s geology and thus continued to evolve since

then. Mount Ararat is therefore a volcano after the flood, which continued to erupt and formed

well.
Bibliography

Cremades, A. (2000). Education Department of Seventh-day Adventist. Studying Noah's Ark: A

Teaching Strategy for a Science and Religion Course.

Sarfati, J. (2010). Flood models and biblical realism

Snelling, A. (2017). Is Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat?

Wolpert, L. (2009). The relationship between science and religion.