Why the Design of Noah’s Ark Matters



This session is from the BibleProject Classroom class Noah to Abraham, taught by Dr. Tim Mackie. The entire class is available for free on the BibleProject app at https://classroom-beta.bibleproject.com/noah-to-abraham

In this session, we take a closer look at the design of Noah’s ark. Tim walks us through the ways that the ark’s design calls to mind earlier images of the garden in Eden.

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39 thoughts on “Why the Design of Noah’s Ark Matters”

  1. The location of the window is unambiguous in the text if you pay very close attention to exactly what it does and does not say: the window was just below the roof, along both sides (and possibly the ends as well), and it was just less than a cubit tall. The point is not belabored, probably because it is not especially important in the grand scheme of things; but the information is there.

    Also the prototype temple is not Eden; it's the one in heaven, of which the earthly temples are all only copies. This is implied in a couple of Paul's letters, can be inferred from the Revelation, and is explicitly stated in Hebrews.

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  2. Another interesting fact: Modern day ship engineers say that if you wanted to build a very large ship where the purpose is just for it to float (and not move forwards etc…) then the dimensions given for the ark are the optimal dimensions.

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  3. no ark, and no flood. The bible has some vague nonsense about the size of this ark. No evidence it ever was built and certainly no evidence it could have withstood the violence that the bible describes for the flood.

    There's also the problem of how this ark was built if everyone but noah et al were "evil". Where did they get the wood? The time to build it?

    Why did no one else think to get on a boat when the flood waters were suposedly rising?

    How did animals get to this ark? it would take years for them to get from the various parts of the earth. And no the nonsense about "kinds" doesn't work since there is no evidence of some population bottleneck for animals at all.

    How could it have fit enough food?

    What did the animals eat after the flood?

    This story is ridiculous. And no, the claim that every culture has a "flood" myth doesn't work either since surprise, the ancient egyptians didn't notice this nonsense, no matter when christians want to invent that it supposedly happened.

    The geology also shows that this nonsense is a lie. A massive flood lays down a single layer, sorted within itself. It cannot make individual layers, salt deposits, layers with dessication cracks on their tops, etc.

    Rather than your god simply annihilating humans, it causes misery and death for every thing. That takes some stupidity and evil.

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  4. An example of how REAL historical things are types and pictures of actual spiritual REALities. Both are REAL and God uses them as a comparison picture for what Jesus accomplished through his ministry.

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  5. Several early Jewish sources indicate that God told Noah to suspend precious stones or pearls inside the ark to light it; in some traditions, it is a jewel-encrusted heavenly book.The gem would glow during the night and grow dim during the day so that Noah, shut up in the ark, could tell the time of day and how many days had passed.This was the explanation given by the rabbis for the sôhar that the Lord told Noah to construct in the ark. The word is rendered “window” in the King James Version of Genesis 6:16 but “light” in some other translations.

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  6. Amazing stuff! This is so simple, yet so profound. Tim is merely showing us how the Bible is meant to be read through these common literary connections. Once you see these it is so obvious… just don't tell Ken Hamm :/

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  7. If protestants would look to the early Christian fathers of the East, they would find that all these "surprises" in interpretation and meaning have already been thoroughly and beautifully explained, explored and expounded upon. 😢

    Perhaps protestants will eventually come to see the other "surprise", that Noah's ark was the ark of salvation, just like the Virgin Mary's womb was the ark of salvation.

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  8. Yes important but also what's important is that the Bible says when Jesus comes, i.e. the Rapture, it will be as the Days of Noah. Well….that could be any moment. Look up!

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