Written and compiled
by
Keith Hunt
THE ARK,
ITS SIZE AND PURPOSE
Woodrow in his book asks the questions if you can for
certain know how large the ark was, did it take 120 years to
build, and if the flood was REGIONAL were there some people in
other parts of the world who were not effected by that flood?
Genesis 6:15 gives the dimensions of the ark 300 cubits
long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high. Some say that was
proportionally ideal - being six times as long as wide.
The problem arises with knowing how many inches to the cubit
it was back in Noah's day, or Moses day, as it was Moses who is
held by most scholars as writing the first five books of the
Bible.
If we go with 18 inches to the cubit, then the dimensions
would be as Woodrow states, 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45
feet high.
Woodrow suggests that the door way would not have been over
13 feet high, because dividing the three levels would give 15
feet to each level. with this calculation Woodrow says there had
to be large supporting beams to hold the weight of each level,
hence the doors ways would be, or could be, about 13 feet in
hight. This would of course mean large Elephants and Giraffes
would not be able to go through the door ways as Woodrow
suggests.
But the problem with this reasoning is that the top floor
may have been open at first and a ramp may have been built to
allow these huge animals to ascend to the top of the ark and then
a ramp could have been built to have them descend to a floor that
did not have to have a doorway at all. After all the animals were
in that top shaft door closed tight, so no other humans could
have a way into the ark.
Now if as Woodrow suggests the cubit in past ages differed
and was smaller than 18 inches in length during Noah's time, then
of course a smaller ark would have been built, which if it was
only for a regional flood would have sufficed. Woodrow quotes
from Harper's Bible Dictionary these words:
"Metrology (the science of measurement of mass, length, and time)
presents a confused picture in Palestine ... and the peripheral
countries ... Not even well-grounded Babylonian metrology adhered
to the same standard throughout its history. In the matter of
weights and measures, the Hebrew people were influenced by
Babylonian, Egyptian, Canaanite-Phoenician, and Greco-Roman
systems ... With the coming of each new conqueror, and with every
fresh trend in trade, weights and measures continued to vary."
Woodrow gives proof from the Bible itself that a cubit may
have varied in length at times and in different ages. Esther
5:14; 7:9 shows the gallows which Haman was to be hanged on was
50 cubits, and so if we go with 18 inches for a cubit the gallows
was 75 feet high. Either it was built with a high foundation as
to make sure everyone from a far distance could see Haman get
hanged, or the cubit was much less than 18 inches during the time
of Esther.
Woodrow does SPECULATE with things in this section of his
study, but he does admit it is only "speculation." He wonders
that if the ark was 450 long how it could have been built as the
tallest tree in the world is a California Coast Redwood at 366.2
feet.
Once more I will say that looking at what is TODAY does not
mean if was that way in Noah's time. Maybe there were trees
taller than the tallest trees of today in existence during Noah's
life time, or there were ways of building ships back then that
are lost in building today. Science is still amazed at how the
GREAT PYRAMID of Egypt was ever built.
As Woodrow himself admits, this is all conjecture and
speculation for we simply cannot be certain as to the length of a
cubit in Noah or Moses' time.
And with all that said, we come back to the conclusion that
none of what we have talked about concerning the size of the ark
can prove a world-wide flood or a regional flood.
LENGTH OF TIME IN BUILDING THE ARK?
Most people have either been taught or have presumed from a
too casual reading of Genesis 6, that Noah was building the ark
for 120 years. Of course this also makes it easy to believe that
the ark was so large that it took 120 to build it. Genesis 6:3
says, "My spirit shall not always strive with man ... yet his
days shall be a hundred and twenty years."
This is talking about God allowing mankind to continue
living, doing "their own thing" for another 120 years, and then
JUDGMENT would come upon them, if they did not repent of their
wickedness. The "ark" of Noah is not mentioned here. It is not
till later verses AFTER God once more looked upon mankind and saw
their violence that God turned to Noah (who remained faithful to
the Lord) and told him He would destroy the evil doers, but save
him and his wife and three sons and their wives. Then Noah was
told to build the ark.
Ralph Woodrow has correctly seen that 120 years before the
flood Noah was 480 years old, for at the time of the flood
Genesis tells us Noah was 600 year old - see chapter 7:11. The
sons of Noah had not yet been born. They were born when Noah was
500 years old (Gen.5:32). It was AFTER his sons were born and
married that Noah was told to build the ark. Look what Genesis
6:14-18 says, "Make you an ark ... I do bring a flood of waters
... and you shall come into the ark, you, and your sons, and your
wife, and your sons' wives with you."
It should now be clear from putting these verses together
that Noah was NOT working on building the ark for 120 years. We
really have no teaching from the Bible any more than this. We
just do not know have long it took Noah to build the ark.
NO RAIN BEFORE THE FLOOD?
The Bible passage used which supposedly supports this idea
is Genesis 2:4,5.
"These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth
when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the
earth and the heavens, and every plant of the field before it was
in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the
Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was
not a man to till the ground..."
I have heard this "no rain before the flood" teaching, MANY
times over the last 40 years. It is so used that it is taught
by many as something the Bible is quite certain and dogmatic
about. Many are certain that no rain fell before Noah's flood,
which they say would have made Noah the greatest laughing joke on
the earth, and especially as he was building this wooden ship for
120 years. The people believing and teaching this "no rain"
before Noah doctrine, say that the earth was covered with a type
of water vapor, I guess something like the heavy humidity that is
in Florida, but even more so, because Florida does get rain.
Maybe they think it was a really wet due every night. But
whatever they think the climate of the earth was like before
Noah's flood, they believe Genesis 2:4,5 is teaching that there
was no rain until it started to rain at Noah's flood time.
But a careful reading of this verse says no such thing. God
created the plants before they were in the earth, that is, before
they were seeded. They were created full grown and mature. And
they were created full grown because there was RILL THEN no rain
upon the earth. God did not create the seeds first and have them
grow up through the action of rain and sun. He created them full
grown plants before it had rained and before man was created.
This was done on the THIRD day (Gen.1:9-13). Yet on the 6th day
mankind was created.
All this passage says is that up to the creating of mature
plants and trees, it had not rained.
The Bible does not say when it first rained, but to try and
use this passage in Genesis 2 as teaching it did not rain until
the time of Noah's flood, is to me, reading into a few verses
things that are not meant to be read into them.
And another teaching that has often been a part of all the
story telling of Noah's ark is that Noah preached for 120 years
to others to come on board and save themselves. Noah we are told
in the New Testament was a preacher of righteousness, but there
is not one word in either the Old or New Testament that he
preached to others to save themselves by joining him on the ark.
God told Noah that it was he and his wife and his sons and their
wives that had been shown grace to be saved from death, but God
told Noah that He would destroy all the other wicked people, that
and "end" to them was coming (Gen.6:9-13). We are told that God
saw that all others on the "erets" - earth - land - had corrupted
their ways (verse 12). We are given no suggestion that with
Noah's preaching (by word or life) ANY would REPENT. There is
nothing in the Bible to suggest that Noah tried to persuade
others to come on board the ark and save themselves.
WERE ALL PEOPLE EVERYWHERE ON THE PLANET DESTROYED?
The writers of the Bible sometimes wrote in a way that would
make THEIR hub of the world seem like the WHOLE world. Certainly
we can know from the Bible that God worked with people that were
in a particular AREA of the MAIN HUB of a certain progressive
population of the planet. The part of the planet we know and call
as "The Middle East."
The Gospel of Luke chapter two, verse one, is a fine
example. What was happening in the Roman Empire in Palestine,
concerning "enrollment" (Margin of the KJV Bible), is written as
if ALL THE WORLD should be enrolled. So when Peter wrote in
1 Peter 3:20, "few, that is, eight souls were saved" in the
ark," it could be assumed he meant only 8 lives were saved from
off the entire planet, but it may have meant that in the context
of the "erets" or land, that Noah lived in, there were only 8
human lives saved from destruction from the flood of Noah's time.
Peter was possibly NOT trying to teach that Noah's flood
destroyed every single human life from the entire planet earth,
with only 8 person escaping that destruction with their lives.
If the flood was regional and not world-wide, though it
covered a very vast area, it then would not have killed people
thousands of miles away from the land where Noah lived.
The Indians in Canada have a recorded history that goes back
10,000 years. Now either the famous chronology of Usher is
completely way off the mark of true chronology, or Noah's flood
was no where near in the century B.C. where it is usually placed
(according to Usher's chronology, which would still mean Usher
was incorrect). Or, it would mean the Indians of North America
were not in the least effected by Noah's flood. Oh, they may have
"stories" about it in their history, but nearly all people have
stories of super magnitude from other parts of the world, in
their history telling. Huge physical tragedies on the earth do
have a way of getting around and becoming stories related in a
nations history files, passed on from generation to generation.
The Bible is not a history book on all parts of the planet
earth, and the nations of peoples in various parts of this globe,
but is mainly focussed on the area of the Middle East.
Yet people have been taught by many well meaning and sincere
Christian writers and leaders that the New Testament and Jesus
Himself, were very dogmatic about "the truth" that ALL persons
except 8, on the entire planet were destroyed. The writers of the
book "The Genesis Flood" present the proof for this teaching in
saying that Jesus taught this was true in the passage found in
Luke 17:26-30.
But as Woodrow in his book on this subject has correctly
stated,"When we turn to this passage, however, it is far from
conclusive that "all" means all people throughout the
entire world."
The verse reads: "In the days of Noe...they did eat, they
drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the
day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and
destroyed them ALL. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot;
they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted,
they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it
rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them
ALL"(Luke 17:26-30).
Ah, did you notice it? Did you see that Jesus used the word
"all" in both Noah's flood and in the day that Lot went out from
Sodom. In Lot's situation, the "all" we know did not mean ALL on
the ENTIRE planet, for the fire from the Lord that came only
destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. "The Lord rained upon
Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire ... he overthrew those
cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities"
(Genesis 19:24,25). Obviously this "all" did not include the town
Lot fled to, or the other cities and people in the Middle East,
or in China, or the Indian people in North America.
This verse and these words by Jesus have a CONTEXT, and the
"all" is used WITHIN a CONTEXT of the thought Jesus was relating
to His listeners.
A newspaper headline may read: "Flight 103 has Crashed - ALL
are Dead!" The "all" here does not mean all people on the planet,
and we do not take it to so mean. We all know the "all" is used
within a certain CONTEXT.
We must all (pun on all is intended) be careful how we read
"all" as used in the Bible or other literature. The "all" for
Lot's time had a context of not being all people on the planet,
and Jesus used Noah's "all" in the same breath, without any
qualifying words to clearly tell us that Noah's time meant all
people on the whole planet, while Lot's destruction did not.
All then destroyed by the Noah's flood could very well be
the all on the "erets" - land - area where Noah and the hub of
the world of people God was dealing with, was located, and not
anything to do with the Indians of North America.
I must agree with Ralph Woodrow's examination of verses that
use "world" in connection with the flood; i.e. Hebrews 11:7 and 2
Peter 2:5. The Greek word is "kosmos" and Woodrow gives the
meaning from Strong's Concordance (#2889); "arrangement, i.e.,
decoration, and by implication the world (in a wide or narrow
sense)."
I believe as does Woodrow that in the case of Noah's flood,
it is best to understand this Greek word in a narrow sense - not
the entire world. There is a "figure of speech" often used in the
known as "synecdoche," - a whole is used for a part, and a part
for a whole (Bullinger's book "Figures of Speech in the Bible"
explains it all in detail) and so even words like "all" can be
used in a limited sense. I have already given you "all the world
was taxed" (Luke 2:1). Another would be Acts 2:5, "men out of
every nation under heaven" assembled on the day of the feast of
Pentecost. This surely did not include the Indians from North
America, or the native people of Japan.
NOAH A MISSIONARY TO AMERICA?
We learn from 2 Peter 2:5 that Noah was a "preacher of
righteousness" - if that means he was preaching the ways and
judgment of God to come, then did noah travel to the American
continent to preach the way of the Lord and His destructive
judgment to come, if we suppose the flood was going to be
world-wide? I really do not think many believe Noah travelled
outside his land.
And we do know, if we stay with Usher's chronology for the
creation of mankind, that people were living in China, India, and
North America before the time of Noah's flood, according to
Usher's chronology. I have already said that the Indians in
Canada have a history that goes back 10,000 years, a history way
before Noah' flood, if you stick with how Usher tried to figure
Bible chronology.
And this is one reason to me, as to why God did it this way.
He could have decided to destroy them a hundred different ways.
Noah was to be a witness to them, a preacher of righteousness and
a witness that destruction was coming to his civilization for its
great sins. This was the hub of the world at Noah's time, and
that hub of people had sinned mightily, but some other tribes in
other parts of the world had probably not degenerated in sins as
Noah's society. There is in Scripture no reference to Noah ever
having travelled to distant lands to preach destruction to them
for their great sins. A regional flood would be best fitted for
this context of Noah preaching of righteousness and sin.
As Woodrow says, some who believe in the local flood, say it
was in one sense universal, in that all mankind did perish,
because all mankind was still in that part of the earth. But
today the facts are in, and unless you are closing your eyes and
refusing to admit the facts that have been clearly found, mankind
had wandered to distant lands, including North America.
As stated before, the Canadian Indians have a recorded
history that goes back 10,000 years. This was all brought out in
the large series of documentaries called "A People's History" -
about the history of Canada. Painstaking research was done for
MANY YEARS before this series was produced and aired on Canadian
TV.
Was Noah's flood BEFORE 10,000 B.C.? I doubt there is a
fundamental scholar that would be so daring as to claim it was.
A local flood would solve all these chronology questions.
Ralph Woodrow points out some of the passages written by the
Jewish Pharisee historian of the first century - Josephus. They
indicate he did not believe every person on the planet perished
in Noah's flood. It is worth recording those passages here.
Josephus writes concerning the words of Nicolaus of Demascus:
"There is a great mountain in Armenia ... upon which it is
reported that many who fled at the time of the Deluge were saved;
and that one who was carried in an ark came on shore upon the top
of it; and that the remains of the timber were a great while
preserved. This might be the man about whom Moses the legislator
of the Jews wrote" (Antiquities of the Jews - 1957 edition, 1,
3:6).
Josephus goes on to say:
"Now the sons of Noah were three ... these first of all descended
from the mountains into the plains, and fixed their habitation
there; and persuaded others who were greatly afraid of the lower
grounds on account of the flood, and so were very loth to come
down from the higher places, to venture to follow their examples.
Now the plain in which they first dwelt was called Shinar."
(Ibid., 1, 4:1).
Who might have been those others who were persuaded to come
down from the high places?
Woodrow takes us back to Genesis 4 and 5.
EVIDENCE MOST HAVE NEVER NOTICED!
In the fourth and fifth chapters of Genesis two family lines
are mentioned descending from Adam, the line of which Noah was
part, the other line being Adam, Enoch, etc. and Lamech and his
three sons - Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal-cain.
Most universal flood teachers would say all these were
destroyed in the flood, that is both lines, except Noah of course
and his three sons, were killed in the flood. As Woodrow points
out, that gives us a problem, for Moses who wrote Genesis speaks
of descendants of Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal-cain, as STILL LIVING
when he wrote Genesis.
Note it: Genesis 4:20-22.
"Jabal ... was the father of such as DWELL in tents, and of such
as HAVE cattle. And his brother's name was Jubal: he was the
father of all such as HANDLE the harp and organ. And...
Tubal-cain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron
(Genesis 4:20-22).
Did you notice it? The writer says "DWELL" not "dwelled" and
they "HAVE" not "had" cattle. They "HANDLE" the harp not
"handled"
If they had all been killed in the flood, this tense of the
words used would be incorrect!
Woodrow then gives two quotes, one form the INTERPRETERS
BIBLE which say they were "nomads, musicians, and metal workers
existing at the time of writing." and HASTING'S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF
RELIGION AND ETHICS, which states, "...this wording implies 'an
unbroken history of civilization' and that the writer of this
section did not, obviously, regard the flood as 'a universal
Deluge.'"
Were some of these descendants of this line of people, the
Indians of Canada and North America that claim they have been in
North America for at least 10,000 years? Or people closer to
home as when Moses wrote all this, but knowing that some people
in a different area of the known world at the time, had indeed
not been effected by the flood of Noah's day. From the tense of
the words he used it would indeed imply this was the case.
Genesis 10 tells us how the descendants of Shem, Ham, and
Japheth divided and migrated. or as the Hebrew word used for
"divided" can mean - "dispersed" (Strong's concordance #6504).
Woodrow's thoughts are that the descendants of the three
sons of Noah were dispersed among other nations that were not
effected by the flood. It certainly is food for thought when we
take everything else we have seen into consideration.
There are those who believe that there are great problems
with trying to claim all peoples of the earth descended from
Noah's three sons. One of those problems Ralph Woodrow brings out
in his study is the huge population of some parts of the earth
and its cities, in a very relatively short span of time after
Noah's flood.
LARGE POPULATIONS?
According to Genesis 10:8-12 we have only three generations
to a mighty area of the world by Nimrod.
A few generations later we have Abraham travelling among
large populations and well developed nations of people. We can
see from Genesis 15:19-21 that Canaan was populated by many
tribes of people. Woodrow points out that 26 cities in Canaan are
mentioned in Genesis at this time in history. He then talks about
what Genesis 12:15 tells us about Egypt and Genesis 14:1-16 about
certain kinds who had captured Lot.
Woodrow calculated for us the time from Shem becoming a
father in Genesis 11 to the time Terah, the father of Abraham,
and it adds up to 222 years.
No one is completely sure how old Terah was when Abraham was
born, but even allowing 75 years or so, say a total of 300 years,
from Noah's flood to the birth of Abraham, that time span can
hardly allow for the great nations and cities that we find in
existence at Abraham's time.
Let's say Shem, Ham, and Japheth each had 76 children
between them, that gives us 76 people on earth, plus Shem, Ham,
and Japheth and their wives (6 of them) - a total of 82 people on
earth for one generation. But pairs for reproduction would be 38
pairs, rounding it off. Say those 38 pairs all had 30 children
(being very generous here for sure), that gives us 1,140 people
plus the 76, and if Shem, Ham, and Japheth and their wives were
still alive, we can add them in also. But let's just take the
1,140 - that gives is 570 pairs for reproduction. If they all had
30 children we would have 17,100 people plus the 1,140, plus the
76, plus the 6, if still all alive back to just after Noah's
flood.
We could go on like this for a few more generations until
Abraham was born.
Not that many people on earth by the time of Abraham, and I
have been very generous I would say with how many children each
couple had, and I did not include some children dying as
children, or from death in other ways.
The way Genesis reads at the time of Abraham the population
of even just that part of the world reads like a MUCH LARGER
population than could EVER have come from just 8 people left
alive on Noah's ark.
But the universal flood advocates are at this point very
willing to agree that the chronology in the Bible and that used
by Usher as about 400 B.C. for the creation of mankind, is
FLAWED, or just is not what we should understand as it seems to
read.
WHEN WAS NOAH'S FLOOD?
As Woodrow says the writers of "The Genesis Flood" book
suggest there may be "gaps of an undetermined length in the
patriarchal genealogy of Genesis."
They would claim the flood of Noah's time was many centuries
before what appears in the chronology of Genesis. Some hold to an
Hebrew way of saying things, that saying "son of" or "so in so
begat" could mean generations are missed out and only certain
names are mentioned. A kind of "short hand" for what otherwise
would be more pages of boring names and lists of chronology.
To use such "gap" chronology here and not think of using it
from Abraham to David or David to Christ, is to say the least
inconsistent and the worst, trying to make your "theology ideas"
fit the Bible as you choose and when you choose.
As Woodrow has said in his book on this subject, "The
regional flood viewpoint, on the other hand, can leave
the years from the flood to Abraham exactly as they are - without
gaps or guesses - allowing that only part of the world's
population was destroyed. This provides a satisfactory
explanation for the existence of developed civilizations only a
few generations after the flood at the time of Abraham."
Yet, some Christian scholars, in the last 100 years or more,
with all these difficulties of a universal Noah's flood teaching,
have come to say and write that Noah's flood was REGIONAL and not
universal or world-wide.
The land that came to be know as Mesopotamia, mainly now
within the country called Iraq, is the largest lowland of the
Middle East, about 45,000 square miles. Some scientists do admit
that there is evidence there to believe at one time a huge
inundation did take place on those plains of Iraq.
Woodrow quotes from HARPER'S BIBLE DICTIONARY and the old
well recognized work of M'CLINTOCK AND STRONG to add support that
it is correct to understand this part of Iraq was covered with
water at some time in the past, and probably that time was event
of Noah's flood.
There are a number of ways God could have flooded that
Mesopotamia region, as Woodrow points out. With earth upheaval
acting as a dam, or with the command of His voice and will as
water "upright as an heap" (Exodus 15:8).
As the Scriptures say, nothing is impossible with the Lord.
OVERVIEW
With this chapter and the previous ones, it is to me beyond
reasonable doubt to conclude that there was only ONE VIOLENT
UNIVERSAL flood of the entire earth, and that is the one that WAS
OVER AND DONE WITH AS WE ARE BROUGHT ON THE SCENE IN GENESIS 1:2.
This one universal flood destroyed the age of the world of
the Dinosaurs and the huge vegetation that lived in that age. An
interesting point to note here is that scientists say that some
of the great Dinosaurs had such an appetite that they would have
consumed today's elephant for a mid-morning snack. It was so
violent that even all the sea creatures were destroyed. All upon
the earth at that flood was destroyed, hence God had to create
all that we read about in Genesis chapter one. It was the time
when seams of coal, oil, natural gas, were created by the
violence and pressure. It was the time when diamond seams were
formed. It was the time when through much violence the strata we
often see in rocks, such as evident in the great Canadian
Rockies, was formed. So quick and violent was this flood (that
was upon the earth as Genesis 1:2 tells us) that some mighty
animals of that age have been found preserved in some parts of
the world, still with the grass and vegetation in their mouth,
that they were eating when the violent flood covered them.
What many have tried to attribute to the flood of Noah's
time, was in actual fact done by the violent flood that came upon
the earth through the battle Satan the Devil and his angels had
with the Eternal God and His righteous angels. The scares of this
battle can still be seen on places like the earth's moon and the
planet Mars.
I have covered this battle and that ancient age in other
studies on this Website.
................
TO BE CONTINUED
December 2004
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