Tag: Chapter 6

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Problems With The Case for Christ: Chapter 6

PWTCFC: Chapter 5

PWTCFC: Chapter 7

In this chapter, Strobel is seeking for rebuttal evidence for the Jesus Seminar and interviews Dr. Gregory Boyd. In other words, Strobel is seeking for evidence that agrees with his views and the views of those who agree with him by interviewing one of the most outspoken critics of the Jesus Seminar. Let’s hope he watches out for confirmation bias.

Amusingly, Strobel notes that “[Strobel:] The Jesus Seminar paints itself as being on an unbiased quest for truth, as compared with religiously committed people…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 125) as though to paint the seminar in a negative light. As someone who values an honest attempt to find the truth in an unbiased manner, I don’t believe Strobel’s work shows an unbiased quest compared to those who are not religiously committed.

Writings From the Radical Fringe

Dr. Boyd scoffs at the idea of the 7 pillars of scholarly wisdom, as though anyone who would consider following them is just wrong. He states “[Boyd:] …a lot of scholars, from a wide spectrum of backgrounds, would have serious reservations about one or even most of these pillars.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 124). This presumes that his viewpoint is right while everyone else is wrong.

While I personally disagree with one of the pillars (number 5) because I’ve not seen evidence for it yet (I might just need to do more research), they seem very well thought out to me. Strobel never asks what these 7 pillars are. Because they’re not in the book, let’s examine these things that Boyd scoffs. Below is a copy of them as they were on Wikipedia on 2020-06-26.

  1. Distinguishing between the historical Jesus and the stories that the gospels tell about him. Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694–1768) started the historical Jesus project and David Friedrich Strauss established it as part of biblical criticism with his book Life of Jesus Critically Examined (1835).
  2. Distinguishing between the Synoptics and John. Since the 1800s, Bible scholars have distinguished between the Jesus of the Synoptic gospels ( Mark, Matthew, and Luke) and the Jesus in John, generally favoring the synoptics as more historical and seeing John as more spiritual.
  3. Identifying Mark as the first gospel. By 1900, critical scholars had largely concluded that Mark came before Matthew and Luke and served as a source for each.
  4. Identifying the hypothetical Q document. By 1900, scholars had hypothesized this lost collection of Jesus’ sayings, thought to be the source of material found in Matthew and Luke but not in Mark.
  5. Questioning eschatological (apocalyptic) Jesus. In 1906, Albert Schweitzer portrayed Jesus as a failed apocalyptic prophet, and this analysis virtually put an end to historical inquiry into Jesus. In the 1970s and 1980s, however, critical historians returned to the topic of historical Jesus. Some of these scholars identified the apocalyptic imagery in the gospels as originating with John the Baptist, and not authentic to Jesus.
  6. Distinguishing between oral and print cultures. Since Jesus lived and preached in an oral culture, scholars expect that short, memorable stories or phrases are more likely to be historical.
  7. Reversing the burden of proof. In his day, Strauss had to offer evidence to question the historicity of any part of the gospels because his audience assumed that the gospels were historical. Today, the assumption is nearly the opposite, with the gospels understood to be so thoroughly embellished that one needs evidence to suppose that anything in them is historical.

Overall, these are very reasonable things to hold to if you are going to try make any claim about a historical Jesus.

Discovering the “Real” Jesus

Dr. Boyd critiques the Jesus Seminar as finding exactly “[Boyd:] what they set out to find…. …there’s a lot of diversity.”(Strobel, CFC, P. 124-125). Amusingly, we could make the exact same claims about this book and the gospels. Let’s look at what the gospels show us.

Mark saw a miracle worker, a man who was divine who healed the sick, raised the dead, and then died (if we ignore later Christian interpolations). Matthew saw a guy who fulfilled Jewish prophecy after Jewish prophecy, no matter how much he had to twist the old testament to show it. Luke saw a man who performed miracle after miracle, filling up pages of all the miracles Jesus did. And John saw the literal manifestation of god on earth, here to save everyone.

Given that we know the gospel writers had different views of Jesus, we could pose a similar question to Dr. Boyd’s statement. Did the gospel writers also find exactly what they set out to find? If so, doesn’t that cast doubt on their reliability? I’ve already gone over that, though, so check the problems with chapters 2 and 3.

Giving Evidence a Fair Hearing

Dr. Boyd does not agree with the Jesus Seminar, stating “[Dr. Boyd:] Their major assumption… …is that the gospels are not even generally reliable” (Strobel, CFC, P. 125). Unfortunately, Strobel does not press Dr. Boyd to furnish evidence that the gospels are reliable in the events that they recount. Research does show the gospels to be highly modified throughout history to suit church doctrine1 and, even still, contradictory on that doctrine2 just to name a few problems. Without Dr. Boyd furnishing evidence for the gospel’s historical reliability, we have no reason to believe the gospels are reliable.

Dr. Boyd further complains about the naturalistic assumptions Jesus Seminar saying “[Boyd:] …the gospels include things that seem historically unlikely, like miracles… … These things, they say, don’t just happen.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 125). We find out shortly after that Dr. Boyd is not a fan of Naturalism when he states “[Dr. Boyd:] …what I can’t grant is the tremendous presumption that we know enough about the universe to say that God – if there is a God-can never break into our world in a supernatural way…”(Strobel, CFC, P. 126). In other words, Dr. Boyd wants to take the assumption that god is real and believes that we will find evidence of that.

Unfortunately for Dr. Boyd, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. So far, he has provided no evidence for his claims that the new testament is reliable. Naturalists have provided plenty of evidence for their unreliability which is precisely why the 7th pillar of scholarly wisdom from above is so important. There are many reasons to doubt the claims made in the gospels, and they need supporting evidence if they are to be believed.

When asked how Dr. Boyd would proceed, he states “I would grant that you shouldn’t appeal to the supernatural until you have to.”(Strobel, CFC, P. 126). Coming from Dr. Boyd, the man who appears to think we should start with a supernatural explanation for Jesus and then then look at history, this is a startling statement. Starting with a supernatural explanation for Jesus and immediately applying that to any history is starting with an appeal to the supernatural before it is needed.

Why, then, does he believe the new testament to be reliable? Arguing that Jesus is supernatural is a tremendous assumption. Why shouldn’t we believe that a naturalistic Jesus is the best explanation until we receive definite evidence for a supernatural one? Strobel does not question Dr. Boyd on this, nor does Dr. Boyd provide any evidence for a supernatural Jesus.

Critiquing the Criteria

Dr. Boyd starts by critiquing the assumption that “[Dr. Boyd:] …the latter church put these sayings into the mouth of Jesus, unless they have good evidence to believe otherwise” (Strobel, CFC, P. 127). Unfortunately for Dr. Boyd, the “latter church” has both a motivation for, and a history of, doing just that. This is precisely why we should argue for double dissimilarity instead of believing that the gospel tales “[Dr. Boyd:] …should be considered credible, even if it can’t be confirmed by other sources.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 127).

As an example of why we can’t take the gospel’s reliability as fact, the tale of Jesus and the women taken in adultery is not found in the earliest texts of John3. This was probably added in later to enhance the narrative of forgiveness throughout John. This is but a single example, but many others do exist. Therefore, two questions that should be asked are:

  • How do we separate what Jesus said from later interpolations?
  • If Dr. Boyd disagrees with a need for “good evidence” to determine what Jesus said, then what do we use to determine what Jesus said?

Despite Strobel never raising these with Dr. Boyd, but it’s very likely that Dr. Boyd would skip answering. If he accepts the answer to the first to be “find sources as close to the time of Jesus as possible”, then he is arguing for good evidence because the church has modified the gospels over time. If he says he bases his views of Jesus as shown in the gospels, then he must furnish proof that the gospels are historically accurate, that is to say, he has good evidence for the gospels as they are today. Either way, we require good evidence to accept the gospels at all.

Another odd turn of phrase used by Dr. Boyd is “[Dr. Boyd:] Historians usually operate with the burden of proof on the historian to prove falsity or unreliability since people are generally not compulsive liars. Without that assumption, we would know very little about ancient history.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 127). This seems to imply that Dr. Boyd believes we should proceed forward by assuming what Jesus said is true because people “[Dr. Boyd:] …are generally not compulsive liars.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 127). In other words, he wants to treat the gospels like historical records. Again, the gospels are not historical records. Rather then repeat my arguments against this yet again, refer back to the problems with chapters 2, and 3.

Strobel finishes this section stating how the Jesus seminars used “[Strobel:] …loaded criteria, like weighted dice, inevitably bring the results that were desired from the beginning.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 128). This accusation of loaded criteria is hilarious in this context. It’s apparent that rather than accepting the most likely conclusion, that the gospels are full of myth and legend, Strobel has created his own loaded criteria by accepting Jesus is as the gospels say he is, and then looking at history with that assumption in mind.

Jesus the Wonder Worker

Dr. Boyd wows Strobel with examples of how Jesus is greater than any other miracle worker. “[Dr. Boyd:] …the sheer centrality of the supernatural in the life of Jesus has
no parallel whatsoever in Jewish history…. …the radical nature of his miracles distinguishes him…. ….Jesus’ biggest distinctive is how he did miracles on his own authority…”(Strobel, CFC, P. 128-129).

This statement is utterly meaningless and actually contradicts the narrative Strobel has been trying to deliver since chapter 2. The strong supernatural presence, radical nature of his miracles, and having his own authority to perform miracles sounds very familiar. Is this what Dr. Blomberg claims doesn’t exist when he said “[Dr. Blomberg: ]You don’t find the outlandish flourishes and blatant mythologizing that you see in a lot of other ancient writings…” (CFC P. 43)?

Rather than go over the other problems in this yet again, check out the problems with chapters 2, and 3. Dr. Boyd and Strobel are, once again, presupposing that the gospels are historically accurate.

Jesus and the Amazing Apollonius

Strobel states “[Strobel:] I wasn’t going to let Boyd’s debating skills intimidate me.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 129). It’s clear that he is not intimidated, rather, Strobel is playing along by this point. He feeds Dr. Boyd a leading question about Apollonius, someone who has some parallels to Jesus. Dr. Boyd claims that “[Dr. Boyd:] …if you do the historical work calmly and objectively, you find that the alleged parallels just don’t stand up.”(Strobel, CFC, P. 129).

As proof of this, Dr. Boyd states about Apollonius “[Dr. Boyd:] Philostratus, was writing a century and a half after Apollonius lived… …The closer the proximity to the event, the less chance there is for legendary development… …With Apollonius we’re dealing with one source…. …On top of that, Philostratus was commissioned by an empress to write a biography in order to dedicate a temple to Apollonius” (Strobel, CFC, P. 129-130).

Dr. Boyd’s first point can be countered with the gospels themselves. The gospels have blatant mythologizing in them, which makes it apparent that even being in close temporal proximity to the event does not guarantee we won’t get legendary development.

Dr. Boyd’s second point is strange when he claims that we shouldn’t argue against a source merely because it’s the only source. In a sense, the bible gospels are all based off the same source of mark. Doesn’t that mean we should discount them as well? What makes the bible so special that we should accept single source information in a gospel, such as Herod’s infanticide, as fact?

Finally, he seems unable to think of any other motivations that could cause someone to mythologize someone. While financial motivations are reasonable, there are many others. To name just two, the writer(s) could want to spread a religion and write some propaganda for it, or the writers could be recording things based off of second hand tales believing them to be fact.

In comparing Appolonius to the gospels, Dr. Boyd says “[Dr. Boyd:] we have four gospels, corroborated with Paul, that can be cross-checked to some degree with non-biblical authors, like Josephus and others.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 130). Sadly, most of the non-biblical authors had their works modified by Christian scholars later on to push a pro-Christian view into works that never had them. As mentioned problems with the Case for Christ chapters 3 and 4, the references to extra-biblical works to Christ should be discounted.

Dr. Boyd further states “[Dr. Boyd:] …the gospels pass the standard tests used to assess historical reliability…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 130). I would like to know what tests Dr. Boyd is using here because my research, and apparently the research of the Jesus Seminar, shows the gospels to be lacking in historical reliability and riddled with myths and legends inserted at later dates.

In another comparison to Appolonius and the gospels, Dr. Boyd states “[Dr. Boyd] …the writers of the gospel had nothing to gain-and much to lose-by writing Jesus’ story, and they didn’t have ulterior motives such as financial gain.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 130). The former statement, as I’ve covered before, does not lend any credence to the gospels as a reliable source. Just because they had much to lose doesn’t mean they had nothing to gain, and people can be honestly mistaken about something they believe. Dr. Boyd’s latter statement is false given the blatant mythologizing the gospel writers did in creating a document for their new religion.

In a final comparison to the gospels, Dr. Boyd states “[Dr. Boyd:] The gospels have a very confident eyewitness perspective, as if they had a camera there.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 130). To me, given the structure and narrative of the gospels, this sounds like something that should raise a bigger red flag over the historical reliability of the gospels. Writing in an authoritative voice about miracles and magic would only serve the gospel writer’s agenda of driving recruits to their new religion. If you are creating a mythology, of course you can project yourself as an authority.

Despite no one making the claim that Jesus was adapted from Appolonius, Dr. Boyd feels it necessary to ensure us that “[Dr Boyd:] …any borrowing would have been done by him, not by Christians.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 130). This seems pretty obvious when one considers that tales of Christianity predate Appolonius by a few centuries. Whether or not they were borrowed would still need some supporting evidence though.

Jesus and the “Mystery Religions”

Dr. Boyd tries to argue that any parallels between Christianity and other religions should be “[Dr. Boyd:] …from the direction of Christianity to the Mystery Religions…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 131). This makes the terrible assumption that Christianity, which came to be in the mid to late first century, is the influence for religions that came before it. He then goes on to cite a few specifics such as differences between baptism and the Mithra cult’s parallel to communion. This is problematic because not only is the ritual so different, it completely misses the actual originator of baptism: Judaism and the Essene cult.

Dr. Boyd also claims that parallels such as gods dying and rising agricultural societies are not truly parallels because “[Dr. Boyd:] Christianity has nothing to do with life cycles or the harvest. It has to do with a very Jewish belief… …about the resurrection of the dead and about life eternal and reconciliation with god.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 131). The point that Dr. Boyd misses is that gods, such as those dealing with agriculture, have the common theme of gods dying and coming back to life. Comparing Christianity to the gods who came before it has nothing to do with what those gods were used to represent. The way Dr. Boyd compares this is like getting into a debate about whether toasters and ovens heat things up and saying “a toaster is nothing like an oven because ovens don’t have anything to do with making toast”. It completely misses the point.

Unfortunately, Strobel does not press Dr. Boyd on themes rather than specifics. Many of the Mystery Religions have themes that are running through them that Judaism, and by proxy Christianity, may or may not have borrowed. While complaining that Christianity has nothing to do with life cycles or the harvest is very good, it is hard to deny that the central theme of the gods in those religions, death and rebirth, is seen prominently in Christianity. The story of Jesus’s death and resurrection, which is a primary example of these sorts of stories that are seen as mythical, should be seen as another of these stories.

Some themes from the epic of Gilgamesh and Zoroastrianism, which both predate Christianity, could be used as examples. For example

There are more, but they can be found with a quick search. I would be willing to bet that there is little in Christianity that can’t be traced back to earlier religions.

Secret Gospels and Talking Crosses

Strobel asks Dr. Boyd about the “Cross gospel”, which Dr. Boyd shoots down “[Dr. Boyd:] …because it includes such outlandishly legendary material.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 133). This “outlandishly legendary material” does not sound much more outlandish than other claims made in what Dr. Boyd refers to as “…the much more sober gospels.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 133). Specific instances that Dr. Boyd references as “Outlandishly legendary” are

  • Jesus comes out of his tomb and he’s huge (Strobel, CFC, P. 133)
  • The cross comes out of the tomb and actually talks (Strobel, CFC, P. 133)

These two scenes sound no more outlandish to me than

  • Virgin impregnation by god
  • Miracles being worked
  • Voices from the sky proclaiming Jesus to be the son of god
  • Jesus dying and coming back to life
  • Jesus being in the desert for 40 days without food or water
  • Jesus being able to see the entire world by being brought high up by the devil

It seems quite clear that the “sober” gospels have plenty in them that are “outlandishly legendary”. If the cross gospel was codified in the gospel many years ago, I believe Dr. Boyd would be just as convinced by it as he is the other gospels.

History Versus Faith

Dr. Boyd argues that “[Dr. Boyd:] …Jesus is not a symbol of anything unless he is rooted in history” (Strobel, CFC, P. 135). To try back up his claims that the Jesus people believe in is historical, he cites the Nicene creed, saying “[Dr. Boyd:] The Nicene Creed doesn’t say, ‘We wish these things were true’.” (Strobel, CFC, P. 135).

Unfortunately for Dr. Boyd, the Nicene Creed is even less of an argument for Jesus of the bible existing historically than the gospel of Thomas that he so quickly dismissed. The Nicene creed wasn’t written until 3258, was later amended in 381, and it starts with the statement “We believe” rather than “We know”. The Nicene creed does not show that Jesus as shown in the bible existed anymore than the book The Case for Christ does.

Dr. Boyd cites Paul as saying “[Dr. Boyd:] …if Jesus wasn’t raised from the dead, our faith is futile, it’s useless, it’s empty” (Strobel, CFC, P. 135). Dr. Boyd does not furnish any additional proof that this claim is so. Instead, he simply states “[Dr. Boyd:] I want reality, and the Christian faith has always been rooted in reality” (Strobel, CFC, P. 135). These statements show some hypocrisy. He appears to want reality only if it conforms to the gospels, and he’s done a great job of forcing the gospels to conform to his views of history.

Combining History and Faith

Dr. Boyd claims “[Dr. Boyd:] I believe in Jesus on the basis of the historical evidence…” (Strobel, CFC, P. 136). If Dr. Boyd has any actual historical evidence to base this assertion on, it would be prudent of him to furnish such evidence now. As it is, the only evidence we will ever see from Dr. Boyd is the gospels. There are good reasons to doubt the myths in the gospels. Dr. Boyd is making the circular argument of “I believe in Jesus because the gospels tell me these things. I can trust these things because the gospels are reliable. The gospels told me they are reliable, therefore things these are true!” This is not good reasoning.

Dr. Boyd states that “[Dr. Boyd:] There’s no competition” (Strobel, CFC, P. 136) for attributing the “evidence” of what Jesus did to any other person. There are many other explanations, especially if one starts with the idea that any mythic claims in the gospels need proof to be believed. Given that that gospels lack proof for the mythic claims it contains, it seems far more likely that the reason there is “no competition” is because the tales told are greatly exaggerated or the person it tells the tale about did not exist.

The overall narrative that Dr. Boyd in this section comes down to “Believe in what you love because you love to believe in it”. That is a perfect combination to give confirmation bias in everything you see when it is tied to history and the gospels. Love of a belief without evidence for that belief is a fools errand, and Dr. Boyd has shown that he has large amounts of love towards his belief in the gospels.

Presumably, Strobel assumes the reader has been wowed over by how “accurate” the gospels have been shown to be. Because of this, any attempts to reconcile the gospels with any historical accuracy seem to have been dropped. I would like to think that presume any thinking reader would recognize the problems pointed out since chapters 2 and 3 have not yet been resolved, but that may not be the case.

A Chorus of Criticism

Strobel ends the chapter with a couple “feel good” phrases and continues throwing doubt on the Jesus Seminar by citing more people who disagree with the outcome. Because so much of this chapter is aimed at attacking the Jesus seminar, let’s look at what the Jesus Seminar truly was and add some criticism of my own about the Case for Christ.

The Jesus seminar was made up of about 50 bible scholars and 100 laymen that was founded in 1985.9 It rigorously attempted to find evidence for an accurate picture of a historical Jesus and used the seven pillars to keep them from starting with a biased picture of the past. Rather than being the view of a “radical fringe” group, it’s a well establish group that used scholarly methods to research the past.

Throughout the entire chapter, Dr. Boyd lays ad hominem attacks and criticism on the group, calling them “left-wing” and “liberal”. Many of the views expressed by the group, however, are not very liberal in the grand scheme of things. What about others who argue very persuasively and with much supporting evidence that a historical Jesus never existed? Why were their claims never covered? Wouldn’t that be further out into the “radical fringe” that Strobel was trying to depict the Jesus Seminar as being? It seems likely to me that Strobel highlighted a single group that dared to make their views public, and attempted to use this book as a means to try slander their methodology…. and that Dr. Boyd was all to willing to join in.

Citations

  1. https://web.archive.org/web/20200626185200/https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Bible_interpolation
  2. https://web.archive.org/web/20200626185355/https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Biblical_contradictions#Faith_vs._works
  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_and_the_woman_taken_in_adultery#Textual_history
  4. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Theological_Aspects_of_Avesta
  5. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Gilgamesh,_Epic_of
  6. http://www.avesta.org/mp/saddar.html#chapter9
  7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism#Eschatology:_Renovation_and_judgment
  8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed
  9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Seminar

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Genesis Annotated: Chapter 6

Genesis Annotated: Chapter 5

Genesis Annotated: Chapter 7

Chapter 6 overview

God decides that men are evil and decides that he’s going to wipe them off the planet. Except for that Noah fellow who is apparently pretty cool.

Additional thoughts

This ark thing is an impossibility. See the notes below for my math on why. If you need more evidence, then check out this Youtube playlist (Backup copy served from my site) from someone who covers it WAY more comprehensively than I do here.

God has not passed down any laws on what wicked behaviour is… so how are people being considered wicked at this point? Isn’t this the equivalent of a parent placing a toddler in a candy store, and then killing the kid when the kid grabs some candy without paying? If the kid was never told what was right and wrong, then is the kid really at fault? Wouldn’t that be the parents who are at fault?

Let’s also look at God’s “plan” for dealing with this undefined “wickedness”. It’s a terrible plan.

First, if he’s going to destroy the world, why not just destroy everything and start from scratch? It only took him a week last time, maybe he can spend a month or two getting it right this time? Spending just a week on anything is usually good for a shoddy prototype, not a finished product.

Second, if he REALLY wants to save Noah, why bother with this whole animals onto an ark rigmarole when he could literally recreate animals from scratch again. It’d be far less work for everyone in the end.

Third, if he REALLY wants to save Noah, why not just yoink Noah like he did Enoch and destroy everything else? No planet saving necessary at that point.

Fourth, why not just destroy everything while keeping Noah save with godly intervention? Is separating water from the earth too hard to do now?

I could go on in coming up with additional plans that could have been used, but it does paint a pretty unflattering image of god’s creativity. A perfect being who built literally everything doesn’t have enough imagination to come up with a better plan than a boat and a flood when he gets miffed a few years after he made everything? Utter bollocks.

The Scientific/logic/sequence mistakes in this chapter

  1. Giants don’t exist and never have in the way the bible says they have (Genesis 6:4)
  2. God never defined what wickedness is (Genesis 6:5)
  3. God, commonly held to be omniscient, didn’t know he’d regret this (Genesis 6:6)
  4. A good god prepares to commit a heinous atrocity: Genocide (Genesis 6:7)
  5. Why Noah found grace is never explained (Genesis 6:8)
  6. Noah clearly isn’t perfect (Genesis 6:9, Genesis 9:21)
  7. Timescale for flood isn’t that pressing: Noah has 3 sons (Genesis 6:10)
  8. The description of the earth sounds the same before and after flood (Genesis 6:11)
  9. Why can’t God just make an ark?(Genesis 6:13)
  10. No one knows what gopher wood is (Genesis 6:14)
  11. God neglects to mention that this ark needs metal bracings (Genesis 6:15)
  12. This ark needs FAR more ventilation (Genesis 6:16)
  13. God clearly has no clue just how much life there is on the planet (Genesis 6:19)
  14. Noah will need a LOT more storage space (Genesis 6:21)

Chapter 6: The First Genocide is Planned
AKA: I Hate Violence so I’ll use Violence to end the Violence!

  1. And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
  2. That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
  3. And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
  4. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
  5. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
  6. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
  7. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
  8. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
  9. These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.
  10. And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
  11. The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
  12. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
  13. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
  14. Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.
  15. And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.
  16. A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.
  17. And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.
  18. But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons’ wives with thee.
  19. And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.
  20. Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.
  21. And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.
  22. Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.
  1. But have they learned to divide yet?


  2. Polygamy again… sure is popular! Who are “The sons of god” vs. “the daughters of men”. Isn’t Jesus god’s only “son”?
  3. This appears to be locking in solar years rather than lunar months now. Genesis 11:10 would like a word about this age limit too. Short lives unless plot demands long.
  4. Doubtful. While macro-fauna was pretty common before humans were around (think dinosaurs), no giant humans have been found in the fossil record. In fact, the rise of humans correlates with a sharp decrease in macro-fauna due to hunting.
  5. So… the perfect creation is no longer perfect? On what grounds? No rules of “wickedness” or laws have been passed down yet.
  6. Shouldn’t an omniscient god have seen this coming? Shouldn’t a perfect being not regret making his perfect creation?
  7. Welcome to genocide: Act 1, in which god prepares to commit his first genocidal atrocity. But, of course, it’s all good because god is good and people are evil, right?
  8. Told ya he was important back in chapter 5. Why did he find grace though?
  9. Is he still perfect in Genesis 9:21 when he’s passed out naked and drunk in front of his kids?
  10. Begat, begat, begat.

  11. So… exactly like the earth will be a few dozen years after the godly genocide?
  12. Including that Noah guy from earlier? All is a pretty blanket statement.

  13. Except for Noah. Noah is still flesh, and he’ll be around after. Time to get some guy-in-the-sky genocide plans laid out in a way that won’t kill everyone.
  14. AKA: Do make this thing watertight. You don’t want it to leak. Gopher wood is possibly cypress? No one is sure.
  15. This also would require metal bracings, which are never mentioned. For an all powerful god, he sure wastes a lot of time having Noah build this.
  16. That can’t be enough ventilation, can it? This probably needs some sort of modern ventilation system to not kill everything inside due to CO2 when everything is onboard and breathing.
  17. Godly Genocide. Requiring the capital G because it’s Good and Great. Right? Don’t forget that all life includes some of Disney’s favorite creatures: Birds, mice, puppies, and kittens.
  18. Look, it’s alright. You will have kids, and they will have children. Seems like god should have known they would go back to sinning if he’s all knowing.
  19. That’s a lot of things. Seriously, the ark shouldn’t be able to fit everything. Also, note “sort” here, not kind. Sounds like 2 of EVERY animal to me.
  20. What is this “kind” of which they speak? I suspect it’s the author being lazy and saying “Just grab all the birds you can find, any cattle you find, etc”
  21. Some provisions are made for food, but where would this be stored? We’re already out of space due to animals.
  22. This guy just accomplished a literally impossible task. #NoahIsGod

Ark calculations. AKA: Why this whole thing couldn’t work.

Because I’m lazy, I stole some calculations for the Ark from arkcounter.com. This thing IS huge, but big enough to carry 2 of every animal? No. Let’s do some math.

Arkcounter says a cubit, according to Hebrew, is 44.45 cm (17.5 inches). This gives the ark a total volume of (44.45 * 300) * (44.45 * 50) * (44.45 * 30) = 39520989506.25cm, or about 400,000,000 cubic meters (rounding up to be generous here). This IS a large amount of volume, yes, but remember that we don’t want to pack animals on top of each other, we want them to be right next to each other.

To figure out how much room our animals have to stand, let’s find the area of the floor. Each floor will have (44.45 * 300) * (44.45 * 50) = 29637037.5 square centimeters, or about 300,000 square meters per floor (rounding up) available for the animals. 900,000 total meters to account for all 3 floors.

Let’s start examining animal sizes that exist today.

The largest land animal today is the African bush elephant. Wikipedia gives an average height of 3.20 meters. Additional searching isn’t finding any length or width measurements, so we’ll estimate the length and width using pixel measurements from images.

An image of an elephant I grabbed showed the height to be 182 pixels, and a width of 77 pixels. To find the height of a single pixel, divide 3.20m by 182 pixels, which is about 0.0175m/pixel. That gives us 77 * .0175m = 1.35m in width. I did a similar calculation for length which shows a length of about 4.0m.

This gives us a total area required by an elephant equal to 4m * 1.35m = 5.4 square meters, or 10.8 square meters for 2 elephants in very cramped conditions.

One of the smallest animals (an insect really, a beetle) has a length of .01m. Due to it’s size, I’m going to assume it takes up .01 * .01 = .0001 square meters. This means that it takes .0002 square meters to house 2 of these in cramped conditions.

To use a highly unscientific method to find the average area, let’s add the smallest and the largest areas together and find the mean. (10.4 + .0002) / 2 = 5.4001 square meters. To date, scientists have classified 1.2 million species, but estimate that the total in existence is closer to 8.7 million. We’ll use the lower limit of 1.2 million species here in the calculation. The astute will have already noticed that on average, we’d need an average area of less than .3m minimum to make this all fit onto the boat, and even that’s a bit high.

Let’s divide this up into 4 parts: animals from 0.0002 up to 2.7 square meters, 2.7 to 5.4 square meters, 5.4 to 8.1 square meters, and 8.1 to 10.8 square meters. This gives us 4 blocks of 300,000 animals each. Assuming that Noah somehow managed to get all these animals in one place, note that the amount of space to house the last group of 300,000 animals would be larger than the entire surface area of the boat (900,000 square meters) even if they were the smallest they could be at 8.1 square meters. In fact, it’s only the animals, such as insects and really small mammals, that could have fit on the ark some room to spare. Barely. And that’s not even accounting for food to feed all these animals yet.

But, if you’re still not convinced, let’s give the ark even more benefit of the doubt. Let’s pretend that only half of the 1.2 million animals existed at the time and that our biggest category only contains 10 animals. We’ll skew the remainder of the animals to be most concentrated in the smallest category (0.0002 – 2.7 square meters) and use only the smallest square area for each category when calculating size.

Let’s say 400,000 of the animals are in the smallest category (400000 * .0002 = 80m2), 100000 are in the next category (100,000 * 2.7 = 270000 m2), 99,990 in the next largest category (99,990 * 5.4 = 539,946m2), and 10 in the final category (10 * 8.1 = 81m2). This gives us a total size used of 810,107m2 for animals in REALLY cramped conditions.

You’ll note that this amount of biomass could technically all fit on the ark, but now how do you feed them? How do you prevent them from suffocating? How do you prevent the predators from eating the prey? How do you prevent the animals from overheating? how do you handle waste disposal? How do you handle animal health and hygiene? What do you do to prevent viruses from spreading? How do you store all the food for them? You’ll need more than 90,000m2 of food for that long of a voyage.

As the math shows, this ark tale is literally impossible and nothing more than a myth. Getting all these animals of the world onto an ark this size is not possible. Even with a greatly reduced amount of animals where it may be technically possible to fit them onto an ark of that size, you still run into logistical issues that render the ark an impossibility.

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