So.. visited a true-scale ark.

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.

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.

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:

quote:

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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.

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.