After creating Heaven and Earth in just six days, why have Noah spend a century building an ark?
I believe God created the Heavens and the earth in six days. Six-24 hour periods and then He rested on the seventh day. Then, about fifteen hundred and fifty years later, God commanded Noah to build a wooden boat. A boat larger than a football field. Noah had no power tools, minimum amounts of steel if any, probably no lumber yards, and certainly no home depot.
Whose idea was it to build a wooden boat, that would take 100 years to build? Why would God risk so much on such a risky plan?
I think the average unbeliever is going to cough at or even mock the idea that an ark was built by Noah. I do believe the text in Gen. 6. So as a believer I find it my obligation to explain why God did what He did to my children. To date I have not heard even one reasonable explanation as to why God risked so much on such a risky plan.
On the face of Gen. 6 I would not allow, let alone command my children to take such a risk! So, I believe there is more to the story then is seen on its face?
In my novel Novel “Killing Abel”, I take the biblical events and add a context to make Gen. 6 come alive, in a plausible, if not probable scenario. Just why God might have chosen Noah to take 100 years to build a wooden boat saving His creation.
I started in Gen. 5, to envision a scenario of just how God decided to go with Noah.
Noah's birth was something special, Gen. 5:29. It could be that God had been watching Noah for some time, perhaps had some influence in his birth and or life. Perhaps during this period God saw somethings that He liked, something that gave Him the idea for an ark?
In Gen. 6:6 God was sorry He made man. Then Gen. 6:7 God decided to destroy the earth. Gen. 6:8 God mentions Noah. I suggest God saw something in Noah before Gen. 6:7 and probably before Gen. 6:6.
Gen. 6:9 Noah walks with God. The previous time in the Bible that someone walks with God, it is Enoch and Enoch is taken to Heaven.
So, what does this mean “Noah walks with God” I don't know. It sure seems to me that Gen. 6:9 means more than Noah was a godly man, it seems to me that Noah and God may have talked and had some kind of understanding between the two of them, prior to God commanding Noah to build the ark.
Gen. 6:9 Noah . . . “was a just man” . . . I submit that Noah was not primarily chosen because he “was a just man” or that he was “perfect” in his generations. Those qualifications were important and had to be there, but neither of those attributes lessen the risk of a untestable wooden boat. For me to understand God's command, I have to find something in God's decision that lessens the risk to creation and or explains where God got the idea to build an ark.
Gen. 6:14 God commands Noah to build an ark to save himself and the animals in an untestable wooden boat. This plan would likely be the riskiest event in all human history.
Gen. 6:14 “make ye an ark of gopher wood”. It seems like Noah probably knew what an ark was and what gopher wood was. It seems doubtful that Noah was a banker or a scribe. I don't find it practical that Noah was chosen “only” because he was a just man, Noah likely had other attributes that made him a good fit. God likely knew that Noah was His guy before Gen. 6:7. If not it would exacerbated the risk of Noah's already extremely risky mission.
Where did the idea for an ark come from? God clearly commanded Noah to build an ark Gen 6:14-22, but how did He come up with the idea? When did He come up with the idea? The idea of an ark, did it uniquely fit Noah? Or was Noah uniquely fit for the ark? If not then the idea seems arbitrary to me. I don't believe God is arbitrary.
Why would God choose such a problematic way to achieve His Goal? Why would God take such a risk? Perhaps He always figure He could use a miracle to save Noah should the plan goes south. That could be. But even if God always had a back up plan to save Noah should the ark fail, that doesn't explain where the idea for a boat came from.
Question; Chronologically early in Gen. 6 was our omniscient, omnipotent Father's very first thought to find a just man to build a giant boat. Or was it that He had found a just man who's expertise and experiences prompted Him to the idea of an ark? It rings true to me that it is far more likely that God came up with the idea for an ark from something He saw in Noah. Gen. 6:8 CEV “But the Lord was pleased with Noah”
Does it matter who's idea it was? For me it makes a big difference! It is a much more believable story if we have Noah doing what he does best and His loving Father is supporting him in his efforts. That is a story of the good Father guiding a good son. The good Father who is supporting the efforts of His good son, and never telling His child, just exactly what help that He is giving him behind the scenes. This scenario completely explains why God would be willing to take such a giant risk. Because God is going to do everything He can so His good son does not fail in “his” desire to save his family and His Fathers creation.
Maybe God saw Noah do something in his life that inspired the above scenario?
One example: Noah and his family are surrounded by evil in a city, and he plots an escape. God watches as Noah builds a boat, loads his family and escapes down the Tigris. They voyage down river and find a place that is uninhabited and start over. Gen. 6:8 “and the Lord found favor in Noah”.
Again complete conjecture but I find it hard to believe that God arbitrarily picks the riskiest way imaginable to save His creation. But I can very easily see God being inspired by Noah's actions to save his family from the evil on earth and run with it.
As God says to His Son in Heaven, “Of all the men that We have placed our hope in, it is Noah that does what he is obligated to do. He is the type of man that will bring comfort to those who work the land. Just look at what he has done to protect his sons from the wickedness that plagues the earth. Let us take his idea to the next level!”
Noah's and more importantly Noah's family's point of view is different than God's in one big way; about 566 years before Noah and God got together. Enoch is taken directly to heaven. Noah would have heard the story of the prophet Enoch many times from many people, and mostly his Grandfather Methuselah who may have witness Enoch's entry into the heavens alive. Everyone would know Enoch's prophecy. Probably everyone and for sure Noah's sons, their wives, and mother would all have been very aware of Enoch's comfortable ascension directly to heaven.
Enoch's escape could not have been an easier one or a safer one for him. Noah and his kids were undoubtedly aware of what God was capable of doing. And the fact that God was asking something very different of them. Something infinitely more risky and far less comfortable was being asked of them, that would have been clear to them all.
How did God convince Noah and his Son's to build the ark. Now, before you object to the idea that God would have to “convince” someone. Lets think about it for a minute, God commands you, of course you don't say no, I agree, but we are talking about a 100 year endeavor. This is a project that God would have to convince Noah to “want” to do, or just maybe, Noah encouraged God to let him do it.
But then Noah would also have to convince his sons to “want” to build the ark. A 100 year project will not work unless all involved “want” to do it. These men had free will, and God knew more than even the men themselves that men don't do things they don't want to do. It's likely Noah wanted to do this, he wanted the challenges but his son's? I am a father, and most all the time, you have to work to convince your children to do as you want them to do!
Noah, not his son's, but Noah must have thought that he could pull this off! Probably because of something in his past that gave him the confidence that he could build a giant boat. I am sure that he didn't think it would be easy, there were going to be a lot of difficulties.
Like . . .
How am I (Noah) going to find the resources to build the ark?
It cost 102 million dollars to build Ken Ham's ark encounter. Comparing the two achievements is not easy but the two are on some similar scale. The tools and infrastructure today are hundreds of times more productive than Noah had. So the cost would have been far more in Noah's days.
Was Noah rich?
Noah being rich doesn't fit Gen. 5-6 in my mind. If Noah was rich, he would have many faithful servants, that is what rich meant in those days. God really made it pretty clear in Gen. 6:12,13 that there really wasn't many good people on earth perhaps only Noah. If Noah had many servants, were they evil servants? How did Noah put up with evil servants? To me, I don't see Noah being rich.
Where am I (Noah) going to find the men to build the ark?
No man is an island, Noah's family had to have had some help in building the ark. Which creates a few dilemmas.
Noah and his son's were simply not enough manpower to build the ark. Some of the beam placements would have taken 5 or 10 men to place the large beams. Ken Ham suggest that about 2 dozen men would have helped in the actual building the ark. Which I think is reasonable but how were they paid?
Gen. 6:9 Noah was a just man. Didn't the one or the many that helped Noah deserve a place on the ark? Noah, a just man, would have contemplated the justice of a man building an escape vessel and then denying them passage on the vessel they had help build. Does a just man deny faithful servants things they are due? What good is gold if a man's family is to drown in a flood?
There were women on the ark, four to be exact. None are with child. Would they not have saved at least one small child out of their compassion? Or perhaps a small child of a dedicated servant. There would have been the need and the room for more people on the ark but God said only Noah's family of 8 on the ark. Would God have Noah say no to an innocent child?
Design and Engineering.
Gen. 6 We are given the rough outline for the size of the ark, I think most assume and I agree that Noah, got much more detailed information from God. Details for engineering which would ensure, the animals would fit and the vessel if built as designed would withstand the fountains of the deep breaking open. What else did God tell Noah?
Noah is recorded as having walked and talked with God on more than one occasion. God undoubtedly gave Noah information and guidance on just how to go about building the ark, more information, then we are told about in the bible. Noah could have, perhaps would have asked God questions about who could help and who could not help to build the ark.
The ark gets build despite the many obstacles Noah encounters. But the problems don't stop coming.
As the day of the flood nears, even people who thought Noah was crazy, when they see the animals line up and start to enter the ark, they had to know something was up, how did Noah and his boys manage all the animals and keep others off the ark? All the while protect the ark and their wives.
With pitch lining the outside, and inside (Gen. 6), just one torch from an angry worker who is denied a seat on the ark, would eliminate the entire 100 year project.
When did the boys marry?
How is it that Noah's boys at close to 100 years old had no children?
If there was a drought before the flood, how did Noah and his family and the animals survive the severe drought?
There are answers to all these questions because it did happen.
After all I have said, I believe that the ark was likely the best way to save man and beast, but to understand why, you need more context.
Everything in life is about context. And put in the right context the ark is the only way out for Noah and God. I believe there is a way to build the ark that makes a lot of sense and makes for a great story. A story about a good son and loving Father, and in my Novel Killing Abel, it tells how the ark may have gotten built.
In “Killing Abel”, if you take what we know from the Bible and put it into a context that makes sense to the reader, then it is at least possible that it could have happened. Because it did happen, at least I believe it did and now far more so, because I have constructed a context that is practical and even compelling me to believe.
I am suggesting that a simple reading of Gen. 6 to the average non believer, they are going to laugh at the notion of a man building an ark to save “God's” creation. I think that with no further context it is a hard sell, when it doesn't have to be.
God did His part, He gave us the history of what happened, now it is the believers job to explain why God did what He did. His story is not the full story, it is most likely the minimum amount needed for a faithful man to believe. Proverbs 25:2
God is not arbitrary and He is not risk adverse, He is a wise and loving Father who wisely choose Noah and together they achieved the goal of repopulating the earth. Now it up to believers to convincingly explain to unbelievers just how that is possible.
My Novel Killing Abel provides plausible answers to all the questions in a context that uses all of the Biblical way points to navigate from point to point. Did it happen the way Killing Abel purposes? Probably not but it could have and at the very least it makes the case that It did happen as the Bible says it did.
I believe God created the Heavens and the earth in six days. Six-24 hour periods and then He rested on the seventh day. Then, about fifteen hundred and fifty years later, God commanded Noah to build a wooden boat. A boat larger than a football field. Noah had no power tools, minimum amounts of steel if any, probably no lumber yards, and certainly no home depot.
Whose idea was it to build a wooden boat, that would take 100 years to build? Why would God risk so much on such a risky plan?
I think the average unbeliever is going to cough at or even mock the idea that an ark was built by Noah. I do believe the text in Gen. 6. So as a believer I find it my obligation to explain why God did what He did to my children. To date I have not heard even one reasonable explanation as to why God risked so much on such a risky plan.
On the face of Gen. 6 I would not allow, let alone command my children to take such a risk! So, I believe there is more to the story then is seen on its face?
In my novel Novel “Killing Abel”, I take the biblical events and add a context to make Gen. 6 come alive, in a plausible, if not probable scenario. Just why God might have chosen Noah to take 100 years to build a wooden boat saving His creation.
I started in Gen. 5, to envision a scenario of just how God decided to go with Noah.
Noah's birth was something special, Gen. 5:29. It could be that God had been watching Noah for some time, perhaps had some influence in his birth and or life. Perhaps during this period God saw somethings that He liked, something that gave Him the idea for an ark?
In Gen. 6:6 God was sorry He made man. Then Gen. 6:7 God decided to destroy the earth. Gen. 6:8 God mentions Noah. I suggest God saw something in Noah before Gen. 6:7 and probably before Gen. 6:6.
Gen. 6:9 Noah walks with God. The previous time in the Bible that someone walks with God, it is Enoch and Enoch is taken to Heaven.
So, what does this mean “Noah walks with God” I don't know. It sure seems to me that Gen. 6:9 means more than Noah was a godly man, it seems to me that Noah and God may have talked and had some kind of understanding between the two of them, prior to God commanding Noah to build the ark.
Gen. 6:9 Noah . . . “was a just man” . . . I submit that Noah was not primarily chosen because he “was a just man” or that he was “perfect” in his generations. Those qualifications were important and had to be there, but neither of those attributes lessen the risk of a untestable wooden boat. For me to understand God's command, I have to find something in God's decision that lessens the risk to creation and or explains where God got the idea to build an ark.
Gen. 6:14 God commands Noah to build an ark to save himself and the animals in an untestable wooden boat. This plan would likely be the riskiest event in all human history.
Gen. 6:14 “make ye an ark of gopher wood”. It seems like Noah probably knew what an ark was and what gopher wood was. It seems doubtful that Noah was a banker or a scribe. I don't find it practical that Noah was chosen “only” because he was a just man, Noah likely had other attributes that made him a good fit. God likely knew that Noah was His guy before Gen. 6:7. If not it would exacerbated the risk of Noah's already extremely risky mission.
Where did the idea for an ark come from? God clearly commanded Noah to build an ark Gen 6:14-22, but how did He come up with the idea? When did He come up with the idea? The idea of an ark, did it uniquely fit Noah? Or was Noah uniquely fit for the ark? If not then the idea seems arbitrary to me. I don't believe God is arbitrary.
Why would God choose such a problematic way to achieve His Goal? Why would God take such a risk? Perhaps He always figure He could use a miracle to save Noah should the plan goes south. That could be. But even if God always had a back up plan to save Noah should the ark fail, that doesn't explain where the idea for a boat came from.
Question; Chronologically early in Gen. 6 was our omniscient, omnipotent Father's very first thought to find a just man to build a giant boat. Or was it that He had found a just man who's expertise and experiences prompted Him to the idea of an ark? It rings true to me that it is far more likely that God came up with the idea for an ark from something He saw in Noah. Gen. 6:8 CEV “But the Lord was pleased with Noah”
Does it matter who's idea it was? For me it makes a big difference! It is a much more believable story if we have Noah doing what he does best and His loving Father is supporting him in his efforts. That is a story of the good Father guiding a good son. The good Father who is supporting the efforts of His good son, and never telling His child, just exactly what help that He is giving him behind the scenes. This scenario completely explains why God would be willing to take such a giant risk. Because God is going to do everything He can so His good son does not fail in “his” desire to save his family and His Fathers creation.
Maybe God saw Noah do something in his life that inspired the above scenario?
One example: Noah and his family are surrounded by evil in a city, and he plots an escape. God watches as Noah builds a boat, loads his family and escapes down the Tigris. They voyage down river and find a place that is uninhabited and start over. Gen. 6:8 “and the Lord found favor in Noah”.
Again complete conjecture but I find it hard to believe that God arbitrarily picks the riskiest way imaginable to save His creation. But I can very easily see God being inspired by Noah's actions to save his family from the evil on earth and run with it.
As God says to His Son in Heaven, “Of all the men that We have placed our hope in, it is Noah that does what he is obligated to do. He is the type of man that will bring comfort to those who work the land. Just look at what he has done to protect his sons from the wickedness that plagues the earth. Let us take his idea to the next level!”
Noah's and more importantly Noah's family's point of view is different than God's in one big way; about 566 years before Noah and God got together. Enoch is taken directly to heaven. Noah would have heard the story of the prophet Enoch many times from many people, and mostly his Grandfather Methuselah who may have witness Enoch's entry into the heavens alive. Everyone would know Enoch's prophecy. Probably everyone and for sure Noah's sons, their wives, and mother would all have been very aware of Enoch's comfortable ascension directly to heaven.
Enoch's escape could not have been an easier one or a safer one for him. Noah and his kids were undoubtedly aware of what God was capable of doing. And the fact that God was asking something very different of them. Something infinitely more risky and far less comfortable was being asked of them, that would have been clear to them all.
How did God convince Noah and his Son's to build the ark. Now, before you object to the idea that God would have to “convince” someone. Lets think about it for a minute, God commands you, of course you don't say no, I agree, but we are talking about a 100 year endeavor. This is a project that God would have to convince Noah to “want” to do, or just maybe, Noah encouraged God to let him do it.
But then Noah would also have to convince his sons to “want” to build the ark. A 100 year project will not work unless all involved “want” to do it. These men had free will, and God knew more than even the men themselves that men don't do things they don't want to do. It's likely Noah wanted to do this, he wanted the challenges but his son's? I am a father, and most all the time, you have to work to convince your children to do as you want them to do!
Noah, not his son's, but Noah must have thought that he could pull this off! Probably because of something in his past that gave him the confidence that he could build a giant boat. I am sure that he didn't think it would be easy, there were going to be a lot of difficulties.
Like . . .
How am I (Noah) going to find the resources to build the ark?
It cost 102 million dollars to build Ken Ham's ark encounter. Comparing the two achievements is not easy but the two are on some similar scale. The tools and infrastructure today are hundreds of times more productive than Noah had. So the cost would have been far more in Noah's days.
Was Noah rich?
Noah being rich doesn't fit Gen. 5-6 in my mind. If Noah was rich, he would have many faithful servants, that is what rich meant in those days. God really made it pretty clear in Gen. 6:12,13 that there really wasn't many good people on earth perhaps only Noah. If Noah had many servants, were they evil servants? How did Noah put up with evil servants? To me, I don't see Noah being rich.
Where am I (Noah) going to find the men to build the ark?
No man is an island, Noah's family had to have had some help in building the ark. Which creates a few dilemmas.
Noah and his son's were simply not enough manpower to build the ark. Some of the beam placements would have taken 5 or 10 men to place the large beams. Ken Ham suggest that about 2 dozen men would have helped in the actual building the ark. Which I think is reasonable but how were they paid?
Gen. 6:9 Noah was a just man. Didn't the one or the many that helped Noah deserve a place on the ark? Noah, a just man, would have contemplated the justice of a man building an escape vessel and then denying them passage on the vessel they had help build. Does a just man deny faithful servants things they are due? What good is gold if a man's family is to drown in a flood?
There were women on the ark, four to be exact. None are with child. Would they not have saved at least one small child out of their compassion? Or perhaps a small child of a dedicated servant. There would have been the need and the room for more people on the ark but God said only Noah's family of 8 on the ark. Would God have Noah say no to an innocent child?
Design and Engineering.
Gen. 6 We are given the rough outline for the size of the ark, I think most assume and I agree that Noah, got much more detailed information from God. Details for engineering which would ensure, the animals would fit and the vessel if built as designed would withstand the fountains of the deep breaking open. What else did God tell Noah?
Noah is recorded as having walked and talked with God on more than one occasion. God undoubtedly gave Noah information and guidance on just how to go about building the ark, more information, then we are told about in the bible. Noah could have, perhaps would have asked God questions about who could help and who could not help to build the ark.
The ark gets build despite the many obstacles Noah encounters. But the problems don't stop coming.
As the day of the flood nears, even people who thought Noah was crazy, when they see the animals line up and start to enter the ark, they had to know something was up, how did Noah and his boys manage all the animals and keep others off the ark? All the while protect the ark and their wives.
With pitch lining the outside, and inside (Gen. 6), just one torch from an angry worker who is denied a seat on the ark, would eliminate the entire 100 year project.
When did the boys marry?
How is it that Noah's boys at close to 100 years old had no children?
If there was a drought before the flood, how did Noah and his family and the animals survive the severe drought?
There are answers to all these questions because it did happen.
After all I have said, I believe that the ark was likely the best way to save man and beast, but to understand why, you need more context.
Everything in life is about context. And put in the right context the ark is the only way out for Noah and God. I believe there is a way to build the ark that makes a lot of sense and makes for a great story. A story about a good son and loving Father, and in my Novel Killing Abel, it tells how the ark may have gotten built.
In “Killing Abel”, if you take what we know from the Bible and put it into a context that makes sense to the reader, then it is at least possible that it could have happened. Because it did happen, at least I believe it did and now far more so, because I have constructed a context that is practical and even compelling me to believe.
I am suggesting that a simple reading of Gen. 6 to the average non believer, they are going to laugh at the notion of a man building an ark to save “God's” creation. I think that with no further context it is a hard sell, when it doesn't have to be.
God did His part, He gave us the history of what happened, now it is the believers job to explain why God did what He did. His story is not the full story, it is most likely the minimum amount needed for a faithful man to believe. Proverbs 25:2
God is not arbitrary and He is not risk adverse, He is a wise and loving Father who wisely choose Noah and together they achieved the goal of repopulating the earth. Now it up to believers to convincingly explain to unbelievers just how that is possible.
My Novel Killing Abel provides plausible answers to all the questions in a context that uses all of the Biblical way points to navigate from point to point. Did it happen the way Killing Abel purposes? Probably not but it could have and at the very least it makes the case that It did happen as the Bible says it did.
