Noah's Ark

in the Sistine Chapel, by Michelangelo. It is called *The Great Flood*]]
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'''Noah's Ark''', according to the book of Genesis (chapters 6–9) in the Bible, was a ship that God told Noah to build. God was planning to destroy the Earth by bringing about a great flood. He told Noah to build an ark to save himself, his family, and every kind of animal. 

According to the Book of Genesis, the ark rested on the highest point in the area, which was Mount Ararat (in what is now Turkey).

There have been many claims of people who say they have seen the ark.  However, no physical evidence has been found.

There are different stories about the ark in the Quran, the Christian Bible and the Jewish Torah. There is also a Babylonian version of the story of the great flood. And many traditional cultures around the world on every inhabited continent have folklore and stories that seem to reference a major flood, perhaps suggesting some ancient cataclysm in the past. Gnostic scriptures have a story about Noah's ark too.

## Description 
### Wood 
According to the Bible, the ark was made of gopherwood. Gopherwood may be the wood of a cypress tree, which was used for making ships in the Middle East. Cypress was good for making ships because it had strong wood from a large trunk and limbs. However, no one knows for sure what kind of tree gopherwood was.

### Size 
The ark was 300 cubits long, and 50 cubits wide; the height was 30 cubits. 

For a long time people did not know exactly how much a cubit was. In the later years of the 19th century, archaeologists found a tunnel in Jerusalem. This tunnel had been built in the days of King Hezekiah (around 700 B.C.). At the entrance was an inscription that said the tunnel was 1200 cubits long. The archaeologist measured the tunnel and saw it was 1800 feet long (54,000 centimeters). So now, people know that the Hebrew cubit, at least in the time of King Hezekiah, was 20.4&nbsp;inches (51.8 centimeters).

According to the Bible, the shape and size of the ark were very good for floating (the ark was designed to float, not to go quickly through the water).

### Waterproofing 
After Noah had finished putting the ark together with the gopherwood boards, he had to make it *watertight* (so that water would not go inside the ark). According to the Bible, God told Noah to use pitch, a  material to paint it inside and outside.
## Analysis 
### Renaissance era 
During the Renaissance, a new kind of scholarship arose. These people never questioned the literal truth of the Ark story. They began to think about it from a practical point of view. 

In the 15th century, Alfonso Tostada wrote about the logic of the Ark, including things such as arrangements for getting rid of dung and circulating fresh air.  The 16th-century geometrician Johannes Buteo worked out the ship's internal dimensions.  He also allowed room for Noah's grinding mills and smokeless ovens.  Later people also used his model.

### 17th century 
By the 17th century, the Americas had been discovered and were being explored.  This led to new questions about the Ark story. All the unique species in the Americas must have been spread from a single point, after the flood, according to the Biblical story. The obvious Biblical answer was that man had spread over the continents after the destruction of the Tower of Babel. The different groups took animals with them. 

Some of the results seemed peculiar, though: *why had the natives of North America taken rattlesnakes, but not horses*, wondered Sir Thomas Browne in 1646? "How America abounded with Beasts of prey and noxious Animals, yet contained not in that necessary Creature, a Horse, is very strange."

### Modern books 
In more recent years, several books have been written suggesting that Noah's Flood may have been responsible for much of the world's geology. These books include *The Genesis Flood* by Henry Morris (published in 1961) and *The Flood: In the Light of the Bible, Geology, and Archaeology* by Alred Rehwinkle. 

Another view is that Noah's Flood impacted the entire human race, which at the time was living in one local area, but wasn't global in extent.

## Naturalistic explanations 
Possible naturalistic explanations for the flood include an asteroid impact causing massive tidal waves, or perhaps snow melt as the Ice Age came to an end. 

## Full-size replica
In 2011, a full-size replica of Noah's ark was built in Dordrecht in the Netherlands. Other replicas exist in Hong Kong and Kentucky.

## References