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http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/12/0 ... incinnati/

The Creation Museum will announce details Wednesday afternoon of its planned expansion.

Answers In Genesis, which built and operates the religious-themed attraction, plans to build a full-scale wooden replica of Noah's Ark based on biblical descriptions.

The $24.5 million project will be constructed by the same team that built the Creation Museum.

The religious ministry is soliciting online donations to help construct the project, which they expect to draw an estimated 1.6 million visitors per year.

Ken Ham, president and CEO of Answers In Genesis, cites poll data showing that an estimated 63 percent of Americans would visit a full-scale replica of Noah's Ark if one were built in the U.S.

I'll bet people will be sorely disappointed at the size of a full-scale replica.

"based on biblical description". Right. In other words, get what little you can and make up the rest. No doubt it will eerily look like a Cog or a Holk (Hulk) despite neither of those types existing back then.

Thanas wrote:"based on biblical description". Right. In other words, get what little you can and make up the rest. No doubt it will eerily look like a Cog or a Holk (Hulk) despite neither of those types existing back then.

We have the general measurements in cubits, they're not all that impressive by modern standards. (Assuming a cubit is about 20 inches.)

The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits

General Zod wrote:

Thanas wrote:"based on biblical description". Right. In other words, get what little you can and make up the rest. No doubt it will eerily look like a Cog or a Holk (Hulk) despite neither of those types existing back then.

We have the general measurements in cubits, they're not all that impressive by modern standards. (Assuming a cubit is about 20 inches.)

The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits

Yeah, but that does not help us with regards to the shape of the ship, the construction methods used etc. I doubt they will do it the same way as ancient ships were constructed simply because the end result will look rather alien to modern eyes.

Thanas wrote:

General Zod wrote:

Thanas wrote:"based on biblical description". Right. In other words, get what little you can and make up the rest. No doubt it will eerily look like a Cog or a Holk (Hulk) despite neither of those types existing back then.

We have the general measurements in cubits, they're not all that impressive by modern standards. (Assuming a cubit is about 20 inches.)

The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits

Yeah, but that does not help us with regards to the shape of the ship, the construction methods used etc. I doubt they will do it the same way as ancient ships were constructed simply because the end result will look rather alien to modern eyes.

True. It's almost guaranteed to be a disappointment to everyone except to dyed in the wool fundies.

General Zod wrote:

Thanas wrote:"based on biblical description". Right. In other words, get what little you can and make up the rest. No doubt it will eerily look like a Cog or a Holk (Hulk) despite neither of those types existing back then.

We have the general measurements in cubits, they're not all that impressive by modern standards. (Assuming a cubit is about 20 inches.)

The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits

Well, that's not especially impressive, but it's not small even by modern standards. There are larger objects afloat and on land, but...

Length 152 m
Beam 25 m
Height 15 m
(height not draft; that's presumably from the keel to the highest point on the ship)

Compare to, say, the late 19th century protected cruiser USS Olympia:

Length: 105 m
Beam: 16 m
Draft: 6.5 m

Having been aboard Olympia, I'd guess that not counting the funnels and masts, she's around fifteen meters "high," possibly a bit more, if we measure from keel to pilothouse. Just a guess, but I think a reasonably good one.

Now, that's a five thousand ton warship we're talking about, and one that is quite noticeably large from the point of view of someone inside it. And the Ark was supposedly bigger, about half again as big, in both length and width.

Of course, the really interesting question is whether their replica Ark would float or be at all seaworthy. I'm guessing "no," because as far as I know, historically ships of that displacement weren't built until iron structural members became available. The only exception I know of were the Chinese treasure ships, and I don't know enough to sort out whether they really were as big as Chinese records claim, or whether the ships of that size were seaworthy.

Even so, I'd love to see these people try to take their Ark out on a real body of water- even the Great Lakes, let alone the ocean. It would be entertaining to watch.

Similarly entertaining to watch them try to fill it with all the birds and beasts...

Why does Ken Ham have to make MY backyard his base of operations?

Bastard...

...and yes, Thanas, no doubt it will have characteristics more suited to a 15th century illuminated manuscript depiction than an ancient ship.

Simon_Jester wrote:Now, that's a five thousand ton warship we're talking about, and one that is quite noticeably large from the point of view of someone inside it. And the Ark was supposedly bigger, about half again as big, in both length and width.

Of course, the really interesting question is whether their replica Ark would float or be at all seaworthy. I'm guessing "no," because as far as I know, historically ships of that displacement weren't built until iron structural members became available. The only exception I know of were the Chinese treasure ships, and I don't know enough to sort out whether they really were as big as Chinese records claim, or whether the ships of that size were seaworthy.

Even so, I'd love to see these people try to take their Ark out on a real body of water- even the Great Lakes, let alone the ocean. It would be entertaining to watch.

Similarly entertaining to watch them try to fill it with all the birds and beasts...

Hard to say if it is possible to do so with ancient construction methods. The largest Roman ships (the Nemi ships) of which we know that have been build, have dimensions of 73x24 m and 71x20m respectively. Plutarch also mentions ships of proportions that is close to the ark:

At the same time, moreover, he had laid the keels for a fleet of five hundred ships, some of which were in Piraeus, some at Corinth, some at Chalcis, and some at Pella. And he would visit all these places in person, showing what was to be done and aiding in the plans, while all men wondered, not only at the multitude, but also at the magnitude of the works. Up to this time no man had seen a ship of fifteen or sixteen banks of oars. At a later time, it is true, Ptolemy Philopator built one of forty banks of oars, which had a length of two hundred and eighty cubits, and a height, to the top of her stern, of forty-eight; she was manned by four hundred sailors, who did no rowing, and by four thousand rowers, and besides these she had room, on her gangways and decks, for nearly three thousand men-at‑arms. But this ship was merely for show; and since she differed little from a stationary edifice on land, being meant for exhibition and not for use, she was moved only with difficulty and danger. However, in the ships of Demetrius their beauty did not mar their fighting qualities, nor did the magnificence of their equipment rob them of their usefulness, but they had a speed and effectiveness which was more remarkable than their great size.

However, keep in mind that these were products of thousands of years of experience. That is not true for the people of Noah's ark, who would have found it impossible to build any of those vessels. Indeed, we do not even know that they have any large vessels at all.

However, I bet one of them saw ships like those described by Plutarch and then based the description of the ark on them.

Thanas wrote:Hard to say if it is possible to do so with ancient construction methods. The largest Roman ships (the Nemi ships) of which we know that have been build, have dimensions of 73x24 m and 71x20m respectively. Plutarch also mentions ships of proportions that is close to the ark:

Plutarch wrote:...At a later time, it is true, Ptolemy Philopator built one of forty banks of oars, which had a length of two hundred and eighty cubits, and a height, to the top of her stern, of forty-eight; she was manned by four hundred sailors, who did no rowing, and by four thousand rowers, and besides these she had room, on her gangways and decks, for nearly three thousand men-at‑arms. But this ship was merely for show; and since she differed little from a stationary edifice on land, being meant for exhibition and not for use, she was moved only with difficulty and danger....

(quote from Plutarch pared down)

This implies that Philopator's ship, similar to the legendary Ark in scale, was not very seaworthy, even on the (relatively) calm Mediterranean. Which will probably also be true of the replica Ark these fundies plan to build. Which is why I'd find it so amusing to watch them take the thing out on a large body of water: we'd get to see the hull bending and rippling in the waves, seams starting and letting water in... you get the idea.

Based on my admittedly limited knowledge of seafaring, I'd say that in the most literal sense possible, God help anyone who tried to take something like the Ark out onto a real ocean in storm conditions. I have to wonder whether the thing would last forty hours, let alone forty days.

However, keep in mind that these were products of thousands of years of experience. That is not true for the people of Noah's ark, who would have found it impossible to build any of those vessels. Indeed, we do not even know that they have any large vessels at all.

I'm not sure, from the passage you cite, what the dimensions of the ships built by Demetrius were.

If we look at better-documented wooden ships of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, I don't think we find any over about 100 meters long that weren't either very heavily reinforced with iron structural reinforcement, or very unseaworthy.

The schooner SS Wyoming is an example of a wooden ship built to the scale of the Ark in the early 20th century, for instance... with iron reinforcements, and she still had major problems with leakage, ultimately sinking in a storm off Massachusetts.

Somewhere around 70-80 meters, I suspect we'd find a practical limit on what you can do with all-wooden construction even using the most modern ship-building techniques. You can cheat a bit by keeping the ship in calm waters, not taking her out in a storm, having a small army of slaves to pump water out of the hold, and so on. You can cheat a lot by bracing the hull with iron to keep it from flexing the way that wooden planks that size will. But there are limits.

However, I bet one of them saw ships like those described by Plutarch and then based the description of the ark on them.

Those ships date to the Hellenistic era, yes? If so, they postdate the legends of Noah by centuries. My guess is that the proto-Israelite shepherds saw the smaller ships of their own era and decided to greatly exaggerate the description of such a ship to come up with the dimensions of the Ark:

"You Phoenicians think you're so great because you have a hundred-cubit galley? Well my ancestors built a three hundred cubit ship, and saved the world from the wrath of God! How do you like that, huh?"

Simon_Jester wrote:I'm not sure, from the passage you cite, what the dimensions of the ships built by Demetrius were.

Similar or the same as Ptolemy, so they were seaworthy.

Those ships date to the Hellenistic era, yes? If so, they postdate the legends of Noah by centuries. My guess is that the proto-Israelite shepherds saw the smaller ships of their own era and decided to greatly exaggerate the description of such a ship to come up with the dimensions of the Ark:

"You Phoenicians think you're so great because you have a hundred-cubit galley? Well my ancestors built a three hundred cubit ship, and saved the world from the wrath of God! How do you like that, huh?"

Maybe, but keep in mind that the earliest Genesis source we apparently find is from the Dead sea scrolls, which were well after the Hellenistic era. I am not sure if the dimensions are mentioned in the older texts as well, but I am no theologican. Of course, your theory is very likely.

1. Where are they going to find the gopher-wood?
2. Are they going to boil the pitch themselves, or just use roofing-tar?
3. Are they even going to bother putting it in water, or just have it 'after the flood', poised upon Arafat?

Hey great! Maybe they can convert it into the world's first 100%-wood floating apartment complex and ship themselves off to fucking Turkey.

Thanas wrote:

Simon_Jester wrote:I'm not sure, from the passage you cite, what the dimensions of the ships built by Demetrius were.

Similar or the same as Ptolemy, so they were seaworthy.

Are you sure? Consider the quote:

Plutarch wrote:...all men wondered, not only at the multitude, but also at the magnitude of the works. Up to this time no man had seen a ship of fifteen or sixteen banks of oars. At a later time, it is true, Ptolemy Philopator built one of forty banks of oars, which had a length of two hundred and eighty cubits, and a height, to the top of her stern, of forty-eight...

But this ship was merely for show... she was moved only with difficulty and danger. However, in the ships of Demetrius their beauty did not mar their fighting qualities, nor did the magnificence of their equipment rob them of their usefulness, but they had a speed and effectiveness which was more remarkable than their great size.

The underlined passage implies to me that Demetrius's ships were noticeably smaller than Ptolemy IV's, though not necessarily much smaller.

At the time of Demetrius, no one had seen ships as big as Demetrius's; only later did Ptolemy IV build a larger ship. And Ptolemy's ship was so much larger (or so much more poorly built) that it was unseaworthy and useless for any purpose but show. In contrast, Demetrius's ships were useful warships with "speed and effectiveness."

This, to me, implies that Ptolemy's ship was built purely for the sake of being the biggest, and that Ptolemy pushed beyond the limits of Hellenistic maritime engineering. The resulting ship was, according to Plutarch, not very functional as a warship and could only move from port to port "with difficulty and danger." Whereas Demetrius's ships were effective, which implies that they were within the envelope of what the era could design and build safely.

If Ptolemy IV's ship were only slightly larger than Demetrius's ships, it should not be drastically less functional. I would expect a very noticeable difference in size based on that.

Of course, another possibility is that Ptolemy Philopator couldn't find shipwrights as good as the ones that built ships for Demetrius, or that some fundamental feature of the design of his great ship was such that it couldn't be made to work as well as other great ships of a different design but similar size. I don't know.

Maybe, but keep in mind that the earliest Genesis source we apparently find is from the Dead sea scrolls, which were well after the Hellenistic era. I am not sure if the dimensions are mentioned in the older texts as well, but I am no theologican. Of course, your theory is very likely.

It's possible.

I've often heard it said that the original source for the story of Noah is from the Epic of Gilgamesh (or from a single ur-story that gave rise to both), since the Epic of Gilgamesh contains a Noah-like figure, Utnapishtim, who built a large boat to ride out a great flood.

In that case, it's possible that Noah's Ark simply grew more in the telling. Or it could have grown enormously in a single leap; it wouldn't be the only place in the Pentateuch where the Israelites came up with some impossible exaggeration of the numbers in their mythos.

Simon_Jester wrote:Well, that's not especially impressive, but it's not small even by modern standards. There are larger objects afloat and on land, but...

Length 152 m
Beam 25 m
Height 15 m
(height not draft; that's presumably from the keel to the highest point on the ship)

As an aside, for the 2007 movie Evan Almighty, an ark was built:

Ark design and construction

Construction of the ark began in January 2006 and the scenes involving the ark were shot in a Crozet, Virginia subdivision called Old Trail. The ark was designed to meet the actual measurements of the biblical ark, measuring 450 feet (140 m) long, 80 feet (24 m) wide, and 51 feet (16 m) high. The ark's layout was also based on pictures in several children's books that crew members had read in their childhoods. When the characters were filmed during the day building the ark or were on location elsewhere, crew members would further construct the ark at night. A concrete base was built to support the weight of the large ark; after filming was completed, the ark was taken down in a week, and the base in another week.

In disassembling the set, everything that was salvageable from the ark was donated to Habitat for Humanity. "Leave no trace" was the slogan used by the director as part of the DVD's bonus features, "The Almighty Green Set".

Never saw the movie, but it appears that the ark wasn't quite complete (other pictures appear to show just one side was finished for filming purposes):

Great. I propose we use it for Science. See how well bad it floats and see how many few animals you can fit in it (including enough food and water to feed them for an extended period offcourse).

It might float, as it has a lot of freeboard. I could run the numbers through my ship design formulas and predict draft, but I am fairly sure that it will float. For a while...

At this length, you can be sure that the slightest wave will be testing the limits of keel integrity. Especially as it needs a lot of ballast to sit well in the water, and this ballast will cause the whole ship to bend, causing leakage as the seams open. If they work quick after the ship is in the water and add more caulking, it will float. Until the first waves hit the boat. Those will cause the boat to flex, this will open other seams or just squeeze the caulking out.

Floating in an enclosed swimming pool? yes. Open water? I don't think so...

You know, it might be a genuinely interesting exercise in historical research to compare the Biblical description with the shipbuilding techniques of the period, and see how close to the former you could get before running into trouble.
Especially since these myths do sometimes turn out to have a basis in fact, but which have grown in the telling to the point of being nearly unrecognisable; the real Noah might have been an eccentric farmer who happened to have a minor knack for forecasting the weather, and who crammed his family and livestock aboard a homebuilt raft in order to ride out a major local flood.

Why... would they build this... all it could do is DISPROVE the notion that two of every creature could possibly fit with room for Noah, his family and supplies for all for forty days.

I can't wait for it to be done though, I will get started on constructing fake unicorn bones that I can randomly deposit outside the Ark...

Themightytom wrote:Why... would they build this... all it could do is DISPROVE the notion that two of every creature could possibly fit with room for Noah, his family and supplies for all for forty days.

I can't wait for it to be done though, I will get started on constructing fake unicorn bones that I can randomly deposit outside the Ark...

Someone needs ask this Fundi how many poor they could feed, or cloth, or help for 24 million, instead of spending the money on a self aggrandizing project like this.

I mean good god, if these people cared one bit about 'the word of god' they would spend it on chairity. That they would spend 24 million just on some ego trip really shows where their priorities are.

Crossroads Inc. wrote:
Someone needs ask this Fundi how many poor they could feed, or cloth, or help for 24 million, instead of spending the money on a self aggrandizing project like this.

I mean good god, if these people cared one bit about 'the word of god' they would spend it on chairity. That they would spend 24 million just on some ego trip really shows where their priorities are.

Um except they believe in God... and that prayer to Him can do a lot more than any mere mortal could. So, getting people to acknowledge his awesome power by recognizing his hand in creation IS helping the poor, both in this world and the next.

NOBODY should ask them that because it gives them another chance to verbalize their beliefs, commit to them once again by hearing them aloud and draw affirmation from whatever faint hope they harbor that in hearing the Word through their mouths, we will be saved.

Pretty much why the Catholic Church feels that the logical approach to STD's isn't wearing condoms, it is in exhorting the sanctity of life through the miracle of procreation.

On the other hand every time some church opens a mission, that local town decides "Oh good someones dealing with it, we don't have to" and then people in need are forced to grovel to one faith based group or another in order to survive. Build the Ark, not the Trojan horse I say...

LaCroix wrote:It might float, as it has a lot of freeboard. I could run the numbers through my ship design formulas and predict draft, but I am fairly sure that it will float. For a while...

It's made of wood; I'd think it's almost guaranteed to float. Doesn't mean it'll be seaworthy, but it should float.

Or is there some critical factor I'm ignorant of aside from "specific gravity less than one" that decides whether an object will float?

At this length, you can be sure that the slightest wave will be testing the limits of keel integrity. Especially as it needs a lot of ballast to sit well in the water, and this ballast will cause the whole ship to bend, causing leakage as the seams open. If they work quick after the ship is in the water and add more caulking, it will float. Until the first waves hit the boat. Those will cause the boat to flex, this will open other seams or just squeeze the caulking out.

Floating in an enclosed swimming pool? yes. Open water? I don't think so...

This is what I was getting at earlier- it would be interesting to see whether the thing actually survives under slightly rough-water conditions, let alone storm conditions like the "forty days and forty nights" were implied to be.

Crossroads Inc. wrote:Someone needs ask this Fundi how many poor they could feed, or cloth, or help for 24 million, instead of spending the money on a self aggrandizing project like this.

I mean good god, if these people cared one bit about 'the word of god' they would spend it on chairity. That they would spend 24 million just on some ego trip really shows where their priorities are.

Bear in mind that this thing is liable to be a major tourist attraction; they may actually turn a profit off of it in the long run. In theory, that money could then be donated to charity...

...and I'm not going to take bets on whether or not anyone involved will consider that.

It's too bad they opened after Evan Almighty. They could have just bought that to-scale ark replica.

Simon_Jester wrote:

LaCroix wrote:It might float, as it has a lot of freeboard. I could run the numbers through my ship design formulas and predict draft, but I am fairly sure that it will float. For a while...

It's made of wood; I'd think it's almost guaranteed to float. Doesn't mean it'll be seaworthy, but it should float.

Or is there some critical factor I'm ignorant of aside from "specific gravity less than one" that decides whether an object will float?

The fact that it is open on top, and if it rolls to the side and takes water, it will sink. It's rather slim, only 1:5, so it needs a lot height to stay over water.

A ship that size would easily have 12-14000 tonnes displacement (assuming about 1/3 of this is ballast), and given the size, it shouldn't capsize on it's own, according to the formulas, but is not suitable for open sea.

And these formulas don't even take into account that there simply wasn't a technique known back then to make such a long ship waterproof ( or to even keep it from falling apart in the sea).

With contemporary building methods, I'd expect to see this ship sink at anchor within a few weeks, or when the first storm occurs.

One should keep in mind the largest Egyptian ships were apparently catamarans. But the bible wants to have a ship that size several thousand years earlier. Ludicrous.

Even more ludicrous? The picture shown here looks indeed more like a hulk abomination than a real sumerian ship.