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● Gen 8:3b-4 . . At the end of one hundred and fifty days the waters
diminished, so that in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the
month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.
The Hebrew word for "Ararat" appears three more times in the Bible: one at
2Kgs 19:36-37, one at Isa 37:36-38, and one at Jer 51:27. Ararat in the
Bible always refers to the country of Armenia --never to a specific geological
feature by the same name.
The Hebrew word for "mountains" doesn't always indicate a prominent land
mass like Kilimanjaro; especially when it's plural. It can also mean a range
of hills or highlands; for example:
In California, where I lived as a kid, the local elevation 35 miles east of San
Diego, in the town of Alpine, was about 2,000 feet above sea level. There
were plenty of meadows with pasture and good soil. In fact much of it was
very good ranch land and quite a few people in that area raised horses and
cows. We ourselves kept about five hundred chickens, and a few goats and
calves. We lived in the mountains of San Diego; but we didn't live up on top
of one of its peaks like Viejas, Lyon's, or Cuyamaca.
It makes better sense to beach the ark on the soil of one of Armenia's
elevated plains rather than up on one of Turkey's ancient volcanoes seeing
as how Noah took up agriculture after the Flood.
So; what happened to the ark? Well; according to the dimensions given at
Gen 6:15, the ark was shaped like what the beautiful minds call a right
rectangular prism; which is nothing in the world but the shape of a common
shoe box. So most of the lumber and logs used in its construction would've
been nice and straight; which is perfect for putting together houses, fences,
barns, corrals, stables, gates, hog troughs, mangers, and outhouses.
I think it's safe to assume that Noah and his kin gradually dismantled the
ark over time and used the wood for many other purposes, including fires.
Nobody cooked or heated their homes or their bath and laundry water using
refined fossil fuels and/or electricity and steam in those days, so everybody
needed to keep on hand a pretty fair-sized wood pile for their daily needs.
There was probably plenty of driftwood left behind by the Flood, but most of
that would be water-soaked at first. But according to Gen 6:14 the ark's
lumber was treated. So underneath the pitch it was still in pretty good shape
and well preserved for many years to come.
Noah's sons reproduced so we can be fairly certain that Noah's posterity--
which eventually numbered quite a few people --would want lumber from
the ark for useful purposes too so that by the time of the migration depicted
in the 11th chapter of Genesis, there likely wasn't enough left of the ark for
a rabbit hutch.
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