Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1893-03-27
Noah and the Ark.

moan ana the ARK.
To the Editor of The Evening Star:
1 little thought when / made nv jocose refer
| ence to Noah and the ark by way of illustra-
ton that 1 going to arouse so much
biblical and scientific criticism. OF course the
forty days" should have been as to the dura-
ton of the rain rather than the time he was out
in the ark, although the seventeenth verse Of
Genesis, seventh chapter, says Sand the flood
was forty days upon the earth, >" which would
naturally convey the idea that that was the
length of the voyage. for if he found the trip
as disagreeable as ours was he certainly would
want to get ashore as soon as possible especially
when we remember the freight he had on board.
But / call the attention of j. H. b. to the
fact that 1.-The very definite Mosaic account"
upon which he bases his statement of one wear
and ten days. also contains some other equally
definite statements.
Among other things IL says that ''all the
high hills that were under the whole heaven
were covered; that fifteen cubits upward did
the waters prevail and the mountains we're
covered" And again, Gen. Wits. it says that
on the first day Of the tenth month "were the
tops Of tine mountains seem"
According to the tables given in the edition
of the Bible published by Holman. Philadel-
phia, 1885, the sacred cubit is nineteen and five
tenth inches and the common cubit is eighteen
inches. The Egyptians. Romans and Hebrews
had still different cubit Taking the sacred
~
the "very definite" statement in Gen. vli:20,
the water rose twenty-three and eighty one
hundredths feet.
Now. as we know tina. Mount Everest Of the
Himaiays range is over 20, 900 feet high, q very
little figuring will show that the water, instead
of covering the top Of that mountain, would
have reached only one-twelve hundred and
fourteenth part of the distance toward its top,
and il We measure the accuracy of j. u. HIS
statement that Noah was out year and ten
days bv the same ratio it will be seen that Noah
was out only seven hours, twenty-four min
utes and forty-eight seconds.
II we accept the still more definite statement
of Lieut. Totten, cited by Brother Tulloch,
that Noah was out exactly one wear, and apply
the same rule, we shall see that he was out even
a less time than that above stated. In either
case think l may more than ever claim that
our trip beat Noah's.
AS between the two think should take the
statement of j. II. B., for if the newspaper
statements are correct, according to Totten,
this world Is to come to end in few months,
just l heard Miller predict and saw him
prove it by figures in 1913, Just as scores of
others before him had set and proven other
dates as the time when it was to occur, and
hence l must be excused for not accepting him
as authority on these subjects.
So, too, 1t must be apparent to all, / think.
that it will hardly do to insist literally upon the
biblical statements about Noah and the ark any
more than on the equally definite statement
by the same writer that Thus the heavens and
the earth were finished and all the host of them
in six days, or on the statement that the earth
was fiat, formerly insisted upon by the church.
and for doubling which men were punished in
former times.
On these questions it seems to me that the
"hiSher criticism of the present day is much
more reasonable and far more in accord with
science and fact. W. G. DODGE.
March 25, 1898.