Ever wondered what man could have accomplished in the 1,600 years before the Flood? Could Noah really have built a massive ship? If you have been influenced by evolutionary ideas, maybe you think he couldn’t.
What we sometimes forget is that man at that time was a relatively recent creation of God, given a perfect brain and an immense life span. Imagine if everyone in your neighborhood was as smart as Einstein, as clever as Galileo, and as observant as Newton. Add to this nearly 1,000 years to learn, to experiment, and to increase knowledge. What could be invented?
Consider this simple historical progression. In the 1500s, mining was on the upswing and a big problem was water would flood the tunnels. A simple suction pump solved this, except, curiously, the pump did not lift water any higher than 32 feet.
In 1630 Baliani presented this problem to Galileo, who was joined in 1641 by Torricelli. Torricelli suspected the answer had to do with air pressure, and he invented the mercury barometer to prove it.
Then 1675 came along, and French astronomer Picard, using Torricelli’s barometer, noticed that it glowed when shaken. Hauksbee, a pupil of Newton, discovered the glow was static electricity, which let to the invention of a basic battery that enabled Oersted to electrify a wire and produce a magnetic field.
From this, Sturgeon invented the electromagnet, which enabled Faraday to generate the electricity that von Helmholtz used to activate a tuning fork, which inspired Alexander Graham Bell in 1875 to invent the telephone!*
From 1630 to 1875 is 245 years. Allowing an average life span of 70 years, we have a little over 3 generations, which would equal only about one quarter of the life span of our pre-Flood builder Noah!
It seems clear that pre-Flood man had the intelligence, the time, and the potential to develop a world that was much more advanced than we are used to thinking about!
*Timeline from James Burke, Connections (Little and Brown Company, 1978) pp. 72-79.
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The book of Genesis states that Cain built a city: 4:17 That Jubal was the father of those who play the harp and flute. 4:21 That Tubal-Cain was an instructor of craftsmen in bronze and iron. 4:22.
So much for the myth of the stone age. It just never happened. Pre-flood people were advanced and civilized people who lived in cities (as opposed to caves), although some lived in tents. Culture and refinement is shown by their musical instruments.
Had the world not been destroyed by Noah's flood, civilization today would probably have been much more advanced.
Yes, but an advancement in technology doesn't mean an improvement in human nature. I'm sure you agree.
The stone age did, in fact, happen. Jericho Strata XIII-X (City Ia-Ic) contained stone tools (though no polished stone), but no metal or pottery. Strata IX-VIII (City IIa-b) contained stone tools and pottery, but no metal. The later strata/cities reflected a more developed phase of civilization, when metal-working was already known in Canaan, at other sites, at least.
All that means is that the people built Jerico in that fashion. Maybe they didn’t have better technology, or maybe they had it but didn’t use it. Or perhaps the engineers and architects from Babel migrated into Asia, Egypt, and South America, leaving the tradesmen to occupy Canaan.
What about the evidence found in caves such as Blombos in South Africa. Jewelry and art from 75,000 years ago. Are the paleoanthropologists and geologists just lying?
Check out this article and additional links to other articles about Carbon-14 Dating, etc. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v5/n4…
If they were that advanced, how come there are no claims in the Bible of spaceflight?
How is your ark project going? Will it take more than 1600 years to raise the money?
Maybe instead of laughing, you should be grateful that tax dollars are not spent on building the project. This is money coming from people giving their money to AiG.
I find it amazing how people can complain or make fun of anything, anyway.
Do you actually think people lived to an average age of 70 years from 1630 to 1875? The whole article is a convoluted mess.
What in the world does that mean? It was allowing an average life span. Note the word allowing.
How amazing! The logic in the argument is completely flawed, the reasoning is stupid, superstitious and utterly anti-scientific. Still the author is able to honor people like Galilei, Torricelli and Faraday. These people helped us to replace belief in old non-sense books like the Bible with scientific analyses!
Unfortunately, your ideas about how the scientists denied the Bible is flawed. They all were amazing Christians.
Also, when the "science" of the Catholic church was denied, we must remember that that it was the ideas of the Romans and Greeks, not the Jews. The fact that the Catholic church persecuted the scientists is sickening to me and entirely nonbiblical.
Just a question about your banner. I was taught that only Noah and his family (8 people according to my memory) built the ark. So who are all the other people? Slaves, neighbours or cousins. If they helped to build the ark, why wouldn't your god allow them in to save their lives?
Whether Noah had help or not building the ark is complete speculation. But the people chose to stay odd the ark. Noah preached repentance and righteousness for at least 120 years before the flood, and no one listened. Certainly he would have warned them about the impending flood, just as Jonah warned Ninevah about God’s judgment, but if they didn’t listen then there was nothing he could do. The flood didn’t begin until after God sealed the door of the ark shut, so certainly the people would have thought Noah was ridiculous to lock himself and his family inside a boat with a bunch of animals.
While not necessarily slaves, it says nowhere that only Noah and his family alone built the ark.
Like AiG points out, Noah was probably extremely wealthy. (After 800 years of life, that would most likely be the case.)
As to your second question, the reason God didn't save the people is not because of utter hatred, but because the people wouldn't allow themselves to be saved. They laughed at Noah and denied that there would ever be a flood. As Jesus said, just like it was in the days of Noah, so too in the days of the Son of Man.
This is so true. I read somewhere (forget where) that Biblical "stone age" man had electricity and the makings of the internal combustion engine. And this was before the Greeks and the Romans! But you'll never hear "scientists" and "archaelogists" mention it because it doesn't fit in with their "Biblical man" = "primitive man" narrative.
A battery was found in Egypt. The Mayans had knowledge of flight, thanks to an aerodynamic glider found (a motorized replica of it flew beautifully). Back to Egypt, some Egyptologists believe the pyramid was built to be a source of wireless power that broadcast over the entire country, built using the same aquifer-driven method discovered by Tesla some 3500 years later. “Religious” documents in India speak of advanced flight abilities. Some people scoff and say this is ludicrous, but here is a closer-to-home example: scientists in the mid-1800s had the theoretical know-how to put someone on the moon, except that there was no suitable source of fuel and no one even considered it because at that time, even the airplane hadn’t been invented.
While all science must be taken under extreme consideration. This is very cool how some say that something like electricity could've been used a long time ago. I'll have to look into this myself!
I would not doubt it if they knew of nuclear fusion. They lived a long life, had one language, and more powerful intellect. Does anyone seriously think that they would have had stone tools?
Really? Creationists fawning over the pace of scientific discovery? Perhaps it should be mentioned that the same series of breakthroughs also helped us understand the nature of the atom and radioactive decay.
How about Gilamesh? Here are basic reasons this is a myth.
1. There are over 2million animals that have been catagorized (more to go) on earth.
2. Two species are too small of a gene pool to continue a species.
3. After the earth flooded for a year what did these animals eat?
4. Noah dropped off each of the 2,000,000 animals in their habitats?
How about Gilgamesh? Even in legend, Gilgamesh was far after Noah's day. I personally like how almost every (if not all) ancient culture has a legend of the global flood. Could the Bible have copied off of every ancient culture? Not likely.
Anyway, on to your points.
1. The 2 million animals today come from centuries of breeding and/or microevolution. There were probably not as many animals, I may be out on a limb but perhaps even only hundreds of animals actually on the ark. Don't let the cutesy little ark paintings fool you. There were hardly that many animals, plus the ark descriptions are diluted.
2. Think about mice and other rodents. They breed like crazy. The small herbivore population was definitely safe. Now how about large herbivores? Probably had to breed by natural selection. That's my answer to such a diverse population of species. That and a couple hundred centuries. Also, just to nail the coffin, there were many different other animals who had seven brought aboard. We don't know what exactly those animals were, but there were most likely a sizable amount.
3. Plants and any animals that reproduced quickly. It wasn't long before a group of producers refurbished the lands.
4. Migration, my dear Watson.
Even if God had handed Noah exact blueprints, completely removing the question of how smart Noah had to be to design the ship, this article doesn't say how Noah and his sons could have built the ark in such a short time.
the bible doesnt state that it was just noah and his sons who had to build the ark, he couldve hired out and had others help
The ancient Sumerians were still astounded when the Earth was created hundreds of years after they had invented agriculture and city-states.
There has been no archaeological evidence unearthed that would support the ability of Pre-Flood humanity to build something on the order of the Ark. The technology required would have far exceeded that needed to build the primitive cities existing at the time, so the presence of cities means little. Also, the cities would have had to have enough excess capacity to pour resources into a project that had zero return on investment (by which I mean food and energy, and not just money). Noah would have had to be the richest person alive to be able to afford this.
All of that is even assuming a building technique could be found. Johan Hoibers' 1/2 scale Ark built a few years ago had to be made over a steel hull to keep it from collapsing under it's own weight. Perhaps the mythical "gopher" wood had unique strength? In that case, your own attempt will certainly fail.
It is far more likely that the Flood is an allegorical myth which describes a massive shift in societies worldwide caused by the dramatic emptying of an immense glacial lake in North America in ~6000 BC. The drainage of Lake Agassiz happened rapidly, caused huge climate change and would have lead to the destruction of coastal villages and entire populations. The story of Noah and his sons likely represented the pre-flood world, and the three continents on which civilization rebuilt afterwards. This seems especially likely given that some sources suggest the ark took a century plus to build. The changes and disasters brought on by Lake Agassiz might have easily have lasted that long.
If you do build it, I will come see it… I get down your way every few years.
~Ed
ps: Your icon picture for your ark has a few problems. That bow was never used in ancient ship building, and it's being built in a desert. Was Noah a Bedouin Sheikh?
I hate it when people claim that just because there is no archeological evidence yet means that it couldn't possibly have happened. Does this mean science is finished? We've found all of the answers and we don't need to keep searching. No.
Who's to say that Noah wasn't the richest man alive? Take the Biltmore house, the largest household in the United States. A whole town had to be built in order to build this one house alone. It still had the resources capable of building such a monster.
Take a closer look into how AiG studied building the ark. I recommend "Noah's Ark: Thinking Outside the Box". In fact, I recommend all of the DVDs and studies by AiG.
As to your third point: it's not poetry, if it was then God would've been a big liar or an idiot. I know that both aren't true. Why begin a book that would change the lives of billions, change cultures (sometimes, unfortunately, those cultures would do things against the book), and create huge differences elsewhere with a definite myth? It makes no sense!
Ps: The icon picture is a picture, not an exact representation. You don't know that the bow wasn't used. And notice the tree stumps around the ark.
What you're forgetting, of course, is that just prior to the 1500's there was about a 1000 years of hardly any technological advancement. So you can't just go around extrapolating those numbers. Also, why was there no technological advancement in the Dark Ages again? Oh yeah, that's right, Christianity closed down all thought except Christian thought, that was why.
A definite wrong. The so called "Dark Ages" actually is a term used by humanists to compare their time to the Middle Ages. It was a search for pride in themselves.
The technological advances didn't stop, the use of rotating field changed the face of agriculture forever. You just don't consider these advances as important to you, but they are still used today as highly important. You get most of your food that way probably. Also, the monasteries didn't just copy the Bible, they copied dozens of science books. Unfortunately, the Catholic church unbiblically denied the people literacy and what you consider "important" advances in technology. That was the Greco-Roman influence on the church that was the culprit, not true, biblical theology.
Sorry, but I can't really buy this…for one thing, the cartilage in people's joints would have worn away from the simple wear and tear of joints rubbing against each other long before they hit their 900th birthday!
And cartilage does not regenerate on it's own. Even if everything was as you people say it was, that problem shoots down their being able to live for that long since they'd be crippled in their joints centuries before reaching 900 years.
Hmmm. This is REALLY interesting, and its making me think. I don't know much about this stuff so correct me if I'm wrong. But what if noahs ark WASN'T a regular ship (remember we dont know what gopher wood is) but was actually some kind of — I don't know, space ship? Could the world before the flood have been a different world COMPLETELY like maybe Mars? They just found that water used to flow on Mars — a lot of it! I dont know if this is true but its sure interesting! What do you think?
"given a perfect brain"? Wow. You clearly weren't with such flawed reasoning.
From Galileo to Graham Bell, therefore the flood?
Really?
One thing that I must disagree with AiG is that we didn't have a "perfect brain". That may be not what they meant, but if we had a total Fall in space-time history, our intelligence would've been harmed too.
But it certainly doesn't say that the intellect of man was brought to low portions as evolutionists believe. As the bible states, humans had tons of intelligence and years on them. I just don't think that their intelligence was perfect.
Noah would have needed space for a minimum of over 6 million animals on his wooden boat. Just collecting together that number of animals in one place would be impossible today, with all the technology available to us, let alone herding them all on to one wooden boat.
1.The Bible doesn't say that Noah rounded up the animals. God brought them to Noah's ark.
2. The Ark is huge, not like the dinky, cutesy kid's pictures.
3. There weren't that many animals at that time. The amount of animals we have today are mostly brand new because of breeding.
All the collected resources of all the zoos in the world couldn't manage to keep all these creatures alive for mor than one month, and no modern shipyard would be able to make a floating zoo big enough to house and feed so many animals of such variety, and certainly not using gopher wood as the principle building material.
The people in Noah's time were obviously far more technologically advanced than we could possibly imagine, and more than just constructors of bronze and iron. "Stone age" indeed? They were clearly far more advanced than us to have done all this. And to think that they subsequently shipped off all the marsupials to Australia, the lemurs to Madagascar, etc., without them leaving a trace in Europe, shows that they were amazing.
It's a little strange that Noah's family then went back to living in tents, herding goats and shunning all the high-tech wizardry at their fingertips, but I'm sure the Bible has an explanation for it.
I highly doubt that you are really thinking this through, John Lee. The Bible only has them up to iron and bronze in my opinion. The animals definitely migrated and then were naturally selected.
If Noah had high-tech stuff, do you think eight people can suffice to maintain it all. Think about how cars are made. Could eight people obtain the resources, mold them in shape, and then make them work. Not for long, probably.
John, how about you write down for yourself if you and your family were hit by a sudden disaster that wipes out all of civilization. You're given a century to procure. Money isn't a barrier, and you can't go back to anything you've left behind You still wouldn't, in practical cases, would have the technology you have. Only the very basics. I doubt that even if a whole civilization survived that, they would simply return to the high-tech equipment they once had.
Oi vey. What can be stated without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.
We all have the same evidence, but different interpretations of the evidence. Check out answersingenesis.org and search some of the articles about evidence for the Flood.
You know, it would really shut up those evilutionists if you built your Ark in a manmade dry lakebed, and then filled it up with water once it was done, to show that it was absolutely possible to build a ship that big that floats.
I mean, they can just refuse to accept philosophical arguments like this blog post, but they sure wouldn't be able to argue with a ship that enormous ACTUALLY FLOATING, would they?
It's almost a pity that you intend to use methods as close as possible to Noah's, because it would obviously be absurdly easy to do if only you could take advantage of the 4,400 years' worth of refinements to shipbuilding techniques since he did it!
It'd be nice if the comments section was a little less one sided. Can't an atheist get his comments approved, or is atheism too vulgar for the interwebs?
Unfortunately, many of the comments that have been posted from people who don't agree with our literal interpretation of the Bible are laced with profanities. The purpose of our ministry is to provide answers to the skeptical questions of our day.
OK, I can get behind that, but I'm wondering: after the flood, when Noah released all the animals, did the kangaroos swim to Australia? I guess that might be almost believable, since they have huge legs and feet, compared to the rest of their body. How about koalas? Or kiwis?
Did they walk from Mt. Ararat all the way through the deserts in the Middle East (which had no food, you know, because of the flood), through the out skirts of the Himalayas, down the Indian subcontinent (no food), jump in the ocean (koalas don't eat fish), and start swimming? 6428 miles (no food, and no fresh water)? I'm finding it difficult to believe that two koalas (that sleep most of the day) toddled thousands of miles to the ocean, and then threw themselves in.
Good questions. Precisely why we're building the Ark (to get people to think about these things, and have answers). Here's an article that you might find helpful: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/how-…
I highly doubt koalas existed. There was probably a marsupial that was able to accomplish this trek. The food was there, there was nothing holding back the extreme growth of producers (you know, because of the flood).
As AiG points out, the water levels decreased to make the land bridge between Asia and Australia. The marsupials probably spread that way throughout the entirety of the Ice Age (which we both agree lasted for centuries). When the land bridge started to leave, the marsupials ran for their lives to Australia, where they dispersed into koalas and other marsupials. Natural selection and microevolution can do that, not macro.
If that looks ludicrous to you, I'll go back through the list of mass extinctions in the macroevolutionist's story and go through some weird pop-ups. I believe some evolutionists say that once reptiles were saved from extinction because the last two groups of slow, lazy animals that were almost genetically the same met at a chance appearance with each other at a fertile field.
You’re right, admin, it’s clear that the world would have been far more advanced than what we believe it to have been. Given 1000 years of Einsteins, Galileos, and Newtons, any civilization would easily have come up with inventions such as telescopes, hybridization, and penicillin. Yet our beliefs about pre-Flood times are based on what we see both in the Bible and in archaeological findings, and in neither of these places do we find any indication that such easily-innovated ideas existed. I don’t know what to make of that.
As smart as Einstein? He beleived in the big bang theory and evolution, and you have to be a pretty dim bulb to believe that stuff. You shoudl say, "As smart as Kirk Cameron."
I have to believe that 99% of the comments are being censored.
In a nod to credibility, I challenge the owners of Ark Encounter to build this replica ark using exactly the same technology, materials, and manpower, as described in Genesis. No power tools, no Douglas Fir, Seqouia or Redwood beams, no laminated beams, etc. (Cedar of Lebanon acceptable, and some other substitutes.) No calculators, slide rules or computers. Use approximately seven people.
After the replica is successfully built using Biblical conditions and technology, then I will consider that the real Ark could have been built. But then if you can get platypus, kangaroos, penguins, polar bears, pandas, all polar creatures and all tropical creatures, to show up unbidden from various continents at the exact spot where the Ark was being built, then I will be a believer.
It should also be done without any money beyond one family's income, obviously.
So which family's income? the richest neighbor? or the poorest? The laws of probability (or common sense) don't predict past events and cannot be used to say something didn't happen.
So, I could ask for evidence supporting your 'pre-flood' fantasy, but really, do you even have a slither of evidence supporting Noah's flood in the first place. Oh, right, I'm not supposed to question.
The quick succession of discoveries since the 1500s has more to do with the Renaissance (the rediscovery of ancient ideas) and the Enlightenment (as a consequence of people switching from drinking a depressant (beer) to a stimulant (coffee). In the 1500 years before the Renaissance there was little to no progress because a lot of knowledge was suppressed by certain institutions such as the Catholic Church.
The progress in technology since the 1500s towards the 19th century cannot logically be transposed towards a time earlier in Earth's history. Afterall, the technology within the Roman civilisation which lasted from around 750 BC to 400 AD changed very little when comparing the scientific boom initiated by the Renaissance. Why should one choose the Renaissance/Enlightenment progression in technology rather than the Roman 'lack' of such progress as a measure of how quick technology develops?
I like the effort, but this argument does not make sense, even to me.
If we are created in gods image. Does god get cancer?
Reasoning, intellect, emotions, conscience are all examples of how we are made in the image of God. God has not been affected by the curse. See this article for more info about how we are made in God's image: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/cm/v4/n1…
Wait…what?
You entire argument is based upon supposition. An absurd supposition, exactly. "It seems clear that pre-Flood man had the intelligence, the time, and the potential to develop a world that was much more advanced than we are used to thinking about!" How do get to that?
We get this from Genesis 4…where man was able to build cities (carpentry, stone masonry, etc.), heard livestock, forge instruments of bronze and iron, etc.
DEAR FRIENDS- WITH GOD NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE……
wow, i am in awe of the arguments on this blog, was the united states not built on christianity?
I'm a believer,but am curious to know about their living conditions on the ark.did they have cooking facilities? fresh water? bathrooms?
What everyone seems to forget is that in Genesis 2, as the author is describing the rivers flowing from Eden, he deviates to talk about the land of Havilah, which was apparently abundant in pure gold just lying around. It is hard to imagine, since all of the gold today has been buried by the flood and must be mined, but apparently Havilah just had it sitting out in the open. Gold is an excellent conductor of electricty. Thus, at least this one resource was just sitting there to be used, and it would be an insult to our ancestors to insist that they never even experimented with natural resources like this for 1600 years.
Whatever all the discussion! I could build an ark. Ain't nobody can prove I couldn't do it, except me after I didn't do it. Maybe Noah's neighbors said he couldn't do it. Anyway I think this Chinese Proverb actually must have come from Noah: “Those that say it can’t be done should get out of the way of those doing it”
Yes, Noah built the ark, but no, there weren't computers and spaceships in Noah's time, and here's why:
Though men lived much longer before the flood, their thoughts and desires were all evil all the time (Genesis 6:5) and the earth was full of violence (Genesis 6:11). Given the physical strength of man's pre-Flood body (think Hemmingway's "Old Man And The Sea" but x10), combined with such a long lifespan (think Anne Rice's "Interview with a Vampire") and anarchy, and you get the idea of how any group of nerdy scientist types would have been treated. It is not surprising that technological advances were few back then, but it certainly wasn't because man was primitive. Only by God's grace, because Noah walked faithfully with God (Genesis 6:9), did God protect him and allow him to build the ark in such a dark time.
It was actually because of Christianity that we have the technologies we do today. The Dark Ages were because of the fall of Rome with the arrival of Barbarians, and it was the Monks who kept knowledge alive and eventually birthed the Renaissance. Science is the search for Truth, and most pioneering scientists were Christian. Only by the Judeo-Christian ethical foundation of our laws is peace promoted which enabled those scientists to study and discover and advance knowledge. But it took all these events in history to convince men that God's way is right. Left to our own desires, as the Bible reminds us throughout its pages, man is utterly wicked (Jeremiah 17:9) and in need of a Messiah.
And yet, with all our knowledge and our written history, so many do not believe the message of love that God has revealed through the Bible and through Jesus Christ who died on the cross for our sins. We are most fortunate to live in a time when though our bodies are frail we can have access to God's Word and can see the history of those before us and be given the chance to put our trust in Jesus as our only hope for salvation.