Do you think that Noah's Ark was shaped like a coffin ? I read that on another site, of course it was new to me <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/bash.gif" alt="" /> every Ark picture I had seen looked like a boat
The Biblical word for Ark is "tebah." It is used 28 times in the OT and is only used of Noah's Ark and for the container in which Moses was hidden among the bulrushes. The Egyptian word meant "box." More likely it was shaped like a rectangular barge which floated rather low in the water.
The Ark had three stories with only one door (I have never seen a 3-story coffin, but....I have seen multilevel graves). The phrase in Gen. 6:16, "Make a roof for it and finish the Ark to within 18 inches of the top," is problematic in that the words used are obscure. Most commentators believe it means an 18 inch space at the top that is open all around the vessel. This then would be for ventilation, and when water entered it would drain out somewhere below. The Ark was to be coated inside and out with pitch.
The phrase in the NIV (6:14) "make rooms" is also problematic in that the word is obscure. The Hebrew is "qnm." Since Hebrew did not have any vowels when it was written, scholars speculate that the word could be either "qinnim" or "qanim." The former would mean either "rooms" or "nest", and the later, "reeds." Most english translations translate as in the former. However, some recent commentaries, believe it should be translated "reeds" since the context is building materials. If in reality it is "reeds", then somehow reeds were part of the construction material. Large boats are still made from reeds and are very seaworthy. The Egyptians still use reeds for caulking their wooden ships. Note: Moses' basket in Ex 2:3, 5.
The size is given in cubits as being 300 cubits long by 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high. A cubit in the OT was generally app. 17.5 inches. However, an Egyptian royal cubit measured about 20.5 inches. Since, Moses was educated in Egypt the Ark could have measured from 437 feet to 512 feet in length.
The Ark had a ratio (L x W x H) of 30 x 5 x 3. According to ship-builders, this ratio represents an advanced knowledge of ship-building since it is the optimum design for stability in rough seas. The Ark, as designed by God, was virtually impossible to capsize.
With the shorter cubit the Ark would have an internal volume of 1,518,750 cubic feet, or the equivalent of 569 standard railroad boxcars. If the average sized animal was the size of a sheep it means the Ark could hold over 125,000 sheep (over 100,000 sq. ft of floor space).
Thanks for the graphics Dave, it is more square then I pictuced, old wooden coffins are simliar, I guess all the death that happened at that time is what popped in there heads to say that.
J Edwards Thanks for the information <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/BigThumbUp.gif" alt="" /> Does the Ark have any other meaning with it, beside saving animals and eight people, like does eight mean anything to us ?
It reveals that God choses who will be saved. Some have drawn parallels: the wood boat, the wood cross, salvation, etc. What is really neat about Noah is his 3 sons. Ham was a reprobate. Shem was the elect--Jews. Then we have Japeth--the Gentiles, that would later be en-grafted in--compare and contrast the close relationship between Shem and Japeth; i.e. election pre-figured....
Now to the term 8. You have to be VERY CAREFUL with numerology (some good, some bad). Have fun with this: <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/heavy.gif" alt="" />
Gematria, the substitution of numbers for letters to discover hidden meaning in words through numerological analogies, is primarily associated with cabalistic scriptural exegesis in Jewish mysticism dating from 12th-cent. Languedoc and flourishing throughout Europe into the 17th cent. Although gematria, along with its related cabalistic arts of notaricon (acrostics) and temura (substitution of letters according to code), is an occult method of explication, it had, as did other principles of scriptural exegesis, some bearing on literary arts apart from Scripture. In the 15th cent., the Italian humanist Pico della Mirandola made extensive use of Cabala in his Apologia and Heptaplus. His interest was shared by subsequent Christian commentators, including such distinguished humanists and occultists as Anton Reuchlin (1494), Paul Ricci (1510), John Colet (1517), Jean Thenaud (1519), John Fisher (1521), Francesco Giorgio (1525), Henry Cornelius Agrippa (1532), Peter Bongo (1585), Giordino Bruno (1590), Robert Fludd (1629), Francis Bacon (1631), Thomas Vaughan (1650), John Dee (1659), Henry Moore (1662), and Bishop Burnet (1692). To some extent study of Cabala was looked on as a means of resurrecting Pythagorean study, because of its emphasis on number lore in general. Peter Bongo’s Mysticae Numerorum Significationis (1585) placed a wealth of numerology at the disposal of Renaissance authors.
But gematria is much more ancient than Cabala. The name is first recorded ca. a.d.200; its beginnings may be traced several hundred years earlier, however, to Pythagorean as well as midrashic practices, where letters in Greek as well as Hebrew alphabets were used for numbers (alpha = 1; beth, beta = 2; gimel, gamma = 3, and so on, 1-9, 10-90, 100-900, with diacritical marks to indicate multiples of thousands). The influence of gematria as an exegetical tool is well established by NT times and appears in John 2:17–22, where Jesus says that he will raise in three days the Temple, which was forty-six years in building; the temple of which he speaks is to be understood as his body. St. Augustine explains the riddle, noting that forty-six is a gematric sign for ADAM (1 + 4 + 1 + 40 = 46), from whom Jesus takes his body, which will be resurrected on the third day (In Joan. Ev. 10.12). It also appears in Rev. 13:18, where the number of the beast is said to represent a man’s name with numerical value of 666. A further example may be seen in scriptural glosses on Gideon’s 300 fighting men, represented by T (tau), which gematrists in the Glossa Ordinaria explain as a symbol anticipating the cross. In the hands of Christian cabalists in the Renaissance, gematria reveals such mysteries as the analogy between Gen. 49:10, “Shiloh shall come” (YBA ShILH = 358), where the number prefigures “Messiah” (MShYCh = 358) and also the serpent Nachash (NChSh = 358) which Moses lifted in the desert (Num. 21.9) and which Jesus mentions as a prefiguration of his own Crucifixion in John 3:14. That the name of Jesus, which in its Greek spelling equals 888, should be congruent in its iteration of eights with other scriptural eights associated with Jesus in addition to the 358—circumcision, baptism, and Resurrection—confirmed the mysteries of gematria with mystery upon mystery. Fourteenth-century curricula at Oxford devoted several hours a week to the study of gematria. Evidences of its influence on vernacular literature may be seen in riddles such as
In 8 is alle my loue & 9 be y-sette byfore So 8 be y-closyd aboue Thane 3 is good therefore,
which works out in the English alphabet to the anagram for Jesus Christ: IHC. Some of the complex dating of the old judge’s life in the ME poem St. Erkenwald may entail gematric cruxes. Medieval authors sometimes built their names into their “anonymous” works by means of notaricon (cf. Thomas Usk’s signature THSKNVI=“Thin Usk” in Testament of Love [1385] and Ethel Seaton’s claims of acrostics in 15th-cent. poetry in her study of Sir Richard Ros). In the Renaissance one encounters number riddles like John Skelton’s “17.4.7.2.17.5.18/18.19.17.1.19.8.5.12” in The Garland of Laurel, which, through his special variant on gematria, spells the name Rogerus Stratham. Sometimes the riddles are based on syllable count. But gematria and cabalistic arts are so obscure that it is difficult to detect their presence, let alone explicate the riddles. Nonetheless, in view of the love of enigma in the coterie poetry of medieval and Renaissance secular and religious courts, there are probably more of such clever obscurities than modern readers suspect or would care to investigate.
Jeffrey, David L. A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature. Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans, 1992.
Ma'am, of course Noah was no seaman, and probably hadn't the foggiest clue on how to make a seaworthy ship. But what was unique about this ship, the ark, is that it had no means of propulsion or steering; neither sail, nor oar, nor propeller, nor rudder. But none of these were necessary. And so the hull was probably not shaped like a ship's hull, a more complex design outside of the collective talent of the people then.
One thing I found interesting, and still don't understand, is that the people were warned about the flood and invited to get into the Ark to survive it. They weren't required to worship, or even acknowledge God, nor to turn from wickedness. God's invitation for them to enter the Ark and live was completely unconditional. Could anyone reading this post provide some insight into this?
To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life!
One thing I found interesting, and still don't understand, is that the people were warned about the flood and invited to get into the Ark to survive it. They weren't required to worship, or even acknowledge God, nor to turn from wickedness. God's invitation for them to enter the Ark and live was completely unconditional. Could anyone reading this post provide some insight into this?
NO, it was NOT completely unconditional. They had to BELIEVE that there was judgment and blessing--which was the WORD of the Lord! They DID NOT believe the WORD of the Lord and thus perished. Had they believed the WORD of the Lord-they would be acknowledging belief in God..... Thus, FAITH was still the condition. Just because there is a universal call, all will not come...., because they do NOT believe..and may not believe for they are not elect, et. al. Noah had a particular calling--he came, etc.
