So.. visited a true-scale ark.

Although I heard in the USA they are building one (ark encounter according to google), in the Netherlands, last week one was finally finished and opened for public. How I ended up there? I was staying at my uncle and aunt, and my uncle, who's a vicar, took me and my cousins for a visit. Here's a wiki link of it: Johan's Ark - WikipediaI must admit that the size was impressive, but otherwise, it was the first time I visited a creationism museum. It even had a ''science center'' AKA a board with some common arguments and asserting the flood is possible, and evolution is not. Another sector displayed some tools that would have been used building a ark. Since it we stayed 2 hours, it was enough to make me feel a bit of cognitive dissonance, especially since I took care to not show it to my family. None of the arguments were really new to me, but I still haven't memorized all the countering information well enough to dismiss it instantly.I think this is the first actually finished ark in the world that has full scale. The wikipedia article explains how he got the funds. I wonder how high those loans and donations were though, especially since he has attracted foreign attention in his undertaking. And he's been working on this since 1992, so it's his life's work as well... Edited by Kairyu, : No reason given.

This ark was built on a barge, and that is why this boat floats. ABE... The half scale was on a barge. Edited by fearandloathing, : No reason given.Edited by fearandloathing, : No reason given.

Um steel hull. I can already imagine god commanding Noah to make steel plates for the hull.g: Noah you are going to need a huge amount of steel to make the arkN: Um lord what is steel?g: Well its an iron-carbon alloyn: what is iron, and carbon oh and what's an alloy?g: Well iron is an ore or an element you mine it like you do cooper or gold its just much harder then you take the ore and some limestone and coke and put it in the top of a blast furnace, blast air in to it till it becomes white hot then at the bottom you will get iron the component you need to make steelN: Whats a blast furnace, coke oh and what's an elementg: Well..... oh fuck it il yust use magic.

So, as I understand it, he's demonstrating the feasibility of Noah building the ark, by building one half as long and a third as wide; which doesn't float unless you put it on a steel barge.I'm convinced.

I was a bit confused over whether a full size one was built or not. Huibers did build a full size one in Dordrecht, the Netherlands.It is built on 25 steel barges.

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Mr. Huibers admits he had to make concessions. The ark is built on 25 steel barges drawn together to form a basin. A heavy steel frame keeps it rigid. Asked about this, he replied, It’s much easier to make a wooden ark. Yet modern safety requirements made changes necessary.

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SourceVery impressive in size, but not in accuracy. Building one using the tools and materials available to Noah would impress me. I simply don't believe it would be easier to build one completely out of wood.Edited by fearandloathing, : No reason given.Edited by fearandloathing, : spelling/clarity

According to the story, Noah did have access to iron:

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Gen 4:22 And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubalcain was Naamah.

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(This is two chapters before the flood.)

Though of course, that might be anachronistic. They certainly had access to iron when Genesis was written, but in the time period it is meant to portray? I'm less certain.

The story itself is clear that iron was available to Noah. The time discrepancy might pose a problem for dating the flood but not for construction of the ark.

I'm not disputing that the authors of Genesis believed that Noah had access to iron. What I'm saying is that this might be like me telling a story about Jesus using a mobile phone or Nero's love of the Unreal Engine. It would be true in the context of my story, but it would be a glaring anachronism if it wasn't done properly.For those that have been bothered to do the work (I never have), the Bible can be used to give us a date for the flood at around 2500BC. The discovery of iron smelting/smithing was 1300BC or so according to the link provided earlier. If we were to move the flood a thousand years forward (and say it's a dating issue rather than an anachronism) then a chronology ends up with the Holy Roman Empire still existing today and other such strangeness.However, when Genesis was meant to have been written (according to tradition, by Moses), was meant to be about 1300BC. Modern historians date a lot of the actual writing to a much later date. It's easy to see why people writing in a world where iron is basically commonplace might think it existed in the time they envisioned the flood events occurred in.

Well, if we're going to start turning to scientific evidence, then we'll just have to throw out the whole flood story: no Noah, no boat, no nothing.But I think if we are going to ask things in comparing the current ark to the biblical one, it is only fair to base our knowledge of the biblical ark on what is written about it in the Biblesince it never existed in reality anyway. And in doing this, we will also have to look at the biblical record when asking ourselves what technologies Noah had at his disposalsince, again, Noah existed nowhere else but in the story.When asking questions about a story, I think it is best to turn to the story for answers.

I'm just saying that Noah knowing about iron looks to be anachronistic. If a new Gospel turns up, and all the dating methods we could come up with suggest it was written in 40AD. But there's this passage:

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And yea, did Jesus look at his Rolex and he did declare, "It's exactly 9:37!'

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Obviously in the context of the story it is a true fact about Jesus that he had a wrist watch. But it's still anachronistic.

Sure, that's plausible.The problem is that we can only date the earliest known use of iron. The Bible itself is not solid evidence of earlier use but you can't use absence of evidence to contadict it either.

My first problem would be the ark built by Huibers is built on 25 modern steel barges.

Absolutely, hence my tentative 'I'm less certain'. We can say that given the absence of any evidence for the use of iron predating 1300BC in the near east, it is unlikely that it was used in 2500BC. We can't be certain, but given what we know about iron manufacturing - it leaves behind evidence - the absence of the evidence is indicative of absence of iron manufacturing in that period.That's pretty much how we date the origin of many things, from species to materials to tools and even ideas.

Absence of evidence is the same argument that we use against the flood itself but absence of a worldwide flood is one thing and absence of small localized ironworks is another. People usually take it for granted that Noah started out in the Middle East but there's no particular Biblical reason to make that assumption. Tubalcain and his successors might well have been far from the popular archaeological venues, the "cradles of civilization". The use of iron isn't the least plausible part of the story.