Tag Archives: Noah

New study: Noah’s ark could float with two of each of 35,000 species

From the Australian Telegraph.

Excerpt:

The students from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leicester who came to this conclusion used the dimensions for the boat that were given in the Bible.

In the book of Genesis, Noah is commanded to build an ark which is 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high to house himself, his family and two of every species of animal.

For the study, the students settled on a cubit being 48.2cm long and found the ark could support the weight of 2.5 million sheep. The university said that previous research suggested there were approximately 35,000 species of animals in Noah’s time.

The students said it was not clear if all the animals would actually be able to fit on board. But if they did, the boat would still float.

Student Thomas Morris, 22, said: “You don’t think of the Bible necessarily as a scientifically accurate source of information, so I guess we were quite surprised when we discovered it would work. We’re not proving that it’s true, but the concept would definitely work.”

The full paper, The animals float two by two, hurrah!, was published in a peer-reviewed student journal.

Research lead Oliver Youle, 22, explained the science behind the study.

“Every object when immersed in a liquid has an upwards force acting against it — a buoyancy force; it also has a weight acting downwards — a downwards force, and in order for it to float, these two forces need to be equal.”

His colleague Benjamin Jordan added: “Using the dimensions of the ark and the density of the water, we were able to calculate its buoyancy force, which, according to Archimedes’ principle, is equal to the weight of the volume of fluid the object displaces. This meant we were then able to estimate the total mass the ark could support before the gravitational weight would overcome the buoyancy force, causing the ark to sink, which we calculated as 50.54x106kg.”

Good news for us who accept the flood story as historical, and I do. And it’s nice to see scientists taking a look at these things in the Bible to see if they are true. Most people these days seem to sort of assume that everything in the Bible is just figurative metaphors. Well, sometimes the genre is not historical… and sometimes it is. It depends on the book. One thing is for sure – if the Bible is not true, then it’s of no value. The point of it is not to read it for comfort or community. The purpose of it is to tell us who God is and what he’s done.

Please don’t get into a young-Earth vs Old-Earth dispute in the comments.

Matt Walsh urges everyone to avoid the “Noah” movie

This movie review on Matt Walsh’s blog should save you some money.

He writes:

On Friday, my wife and I had a very rare date night.

Naturally, we decided to spend it being pummeled by the blaring condescension of the most insipid, absurd, unimaginative, clumsily contrived piece of anti-Christian filmmaking to come along since, well, probably just last week.

[…]Noah is a major Hollywood blockbuster, made by an atheist director best known for his previous flick where a mentally disturbed lesbian ballerina goes insane and bleeds to death on stage. Already, a critical person might be slightly concerned about his handling of the Bible, considering what he just did to the ballet.

These concerns grew from suspicion to reality before it was even released, when the man himself came out publicly and professed Noah to be both an environmentalist propaganda piece, and the “least Biblical” Bible film ever made.

He wasn’t lying.

But he forgot to mention that it’s also a terrible film.

Matt continues the review by through the movie and explaining the worldview they are trying to push in it. You have to read the whole post if you want the details, but the summary is that this movie has nothing at all to do with the Biblical story of Noah. It’s something that could have been made by animal rights activists and global warming alarmists.

Here is the conclusion:

I’ve heard the movie compared to Titanic and Gladiator. Personally, I’d say it’s more of a cross between Mutiny on the Bounty and The Shining. Only far less coherent than any of them.

I’ve also heard some “Christian leaders” endorse this steaming pile of heretical horse manure. I’m tempted to accuse them of being cowardly, dumb, or dishonest, but I’ll just give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they slept through the most troubling parts — like the part at the beginning, and the end, and all of the parts in between.

It’s true that it might be a bit difficult to discern the “message” in a film so filled with explosions (the Bad Guys have bazookas, naturally), monsters, and infanticide, but any supposed Christian “leader” ought to try a little harder. Pay a little closer attention. If you do, you’ll see a tale that entirely perverts the nature of God, while flipping sin and immorality on its head.

Aside from a brief glimpse of something that appeared to be either rape or cannibalism, wickedness is portrayed as mostly a matter of eating meat and mining the earth for resources. Noah — a righteous man in the Bible — is stripped of his righteousness in favor of obsessiveness. God is stripped of any characteristics at all, apart from vindictiveness.

It’s not that ‘Noah’ strays from the text — of course it does, the actual text is only a few pages long — it’s that the movie completely and utterly distorts the message and meaning of the original story.

If you are thinking about watching this movie, I urge you to reconsider. That money would be better spent on something else. Really, anything else would be better. It’s a fine movie for people who like to see Bible stories butchered by atheists who are pushing an Earth-First environut agenda, but it’s not a good movie for believing Jews and Christians. When an atheist director claims to have made “the least Biblical film ever made“, you should believe him.

This is an issue of stewardship – why would you give your money to someone who hates your worldview, when there is no possible purpose for it other than entertainment? Be a good steward of your money and don’t hand it to people who are tearing up your religion. There are plenty of better things to do with it than hand it to people who are opposed to the God of the Bible. You don’t have to watch a movie just because it’s new and a lot of money was spent making it.

Should you go see Darren Aronofsky’s movie “Noah”?

Here’s a review of the draft screenplay from Christian screenwriter Brian Godawa.

Excerpt:

As a screenwriter of films like To End All Wars and Alleged which deal with faith, and as the author of a novel called Noah Primeval about what led up to the Great Flood, I am especially conscious of issues relating to the intersection of Hollywood and the Bible and I’ve been keeping tabs on a film that lives at that intersection, a film called Noah, written by Darren Aronofsky and Ari Handel. I’ve also watched with great anticipation as a post-Passion of The Christ Hollywood tries to come to grips with how to reach the massive faith-friendly audience and I’m concerned about the phenomenon that I see, which is films being developed for that audience by people who don’t understand it and are thus destined to fail. Then when they do fail, as expected, smug Hollywood executives declare “See, that audience doesn’t really exist.” I don’t want that to keep happening. I want films to be properly developed so that they can succeed. It is in that spirit that I offer my analysis of Aronofsky and Handel’s Noah script. I believe that it’s never too late to right a ship that is heading in the wrong direction.

Having got a chance to read an undated version of the script for Noah I want to warn you. If you were expecting a Biblically faithful retelling of the story of the greatest mariner in history and a tale of redemption and obedience to God you’ll be sorely disappointed. Noah paints the primeval world of Genesis 6 as scorched arid desert, dry cracked earth, and a gray gloomy sky that gives no rain – and all this, caused by man’s “disrespect” for the environment. In short, an anachronistic doomsday scenario of ancient global warming.

And here’s an article by Jewish conservative Ben Shapiro on CNS News.

Excerpt:

Meanwhile, Hollywood prepared to drop a new blockbuster based on the biblical story of Noah. The film, directed by Darren Aronofsky, centers on the story of the biblical character who built an ark after God warned him that humanity would be destroyed thanks to its sexual immorality and violent transgressions. The Hollywood version of the story, however, has God punishing humanity not for actual sin, but for overpopulation and global warming — an odd set of sins, given God’s express commandments in Genesis 1:28 to “be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.”

[…]In a world in which consumerism is the greatest of all sins, America is the greatest of all sinners, which, of course, is the point of the anti-consumerist critique from the left: to target America. Global warming represents the latest apocalyptic consequence threatened by the leftist gods for the great iniquity of buying things, developing products, and competing in the global marketplace. And America must be called to heel by the great preachers in Washington, D.C., and Hollywood.

It’s very rare for me to recommend that people go see a movie made by Hollywood leftists, and I give this movie the same treatment. Do not spend your money on this movie. Do not give your money to the people who made this movie.