I’m sorry, yeah - it really is.
Look at the workload: say (for discussion) only 500 kinds of animals, 2 each, so 1000 different animals, needing different foods, pissing & shitting on their own individual schedules. Let’s postulate a per-pair poop burden average of 10# daily. Times 500, that’s 5000 pounds. Every day.
Say it takes 5 min. to scoop each pair, and 15 to carry the waste topside & toss it overboard, 5 to return to the next, let’s add 5 for scratching, self-care, whatever…that gives us :30 x 500, or 250 hours for a single go.
Well, how many workers do we have? We have 8. If we had 10, and they all managed to work CONSTANTLY *and* collectively squeeze in another hour’s work, we could do it. However, no one would be able to sit down during the voyage - or sleep, or eat, or do anything but scoop & dispose of animal waste.
Not even time enough, or personnel, to even FEED the beasts. With only eight, each must work THIRTY HOURS PER DAY without a break, the whole time. No food, no sleep, no rest. Violent motions of the ark beneath their feet. The heavy rain keeping the people below-deck, so no escape from the endless stench. No clean clothes. Water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to drink, might be the worst of them all.
As I see it, even if it was tried, there is ZERO chance any of the crew survived, ZERO chance all the animals survived (breeding pairs, remember?). Based on reality, that is.
Remember, I didn’t say floods or flooding: we’re tsunami-aware these days, right? Also easy to guess that a big rock falling out of space could raise one HELL of a wave if it hit water (75% or the planet’s surface. LOTS of history & evidence of major/catastrophic flooding around the world. No specific evidence of which rock gawd supposedly threw; not really any solid tie between “the flood of Noah” & any particular flooding event of any proportions.
Of course, it needn’t have been an ocean strike, right? A land strike would generate hella rainfall, for sure (again, there’s evidence), and THAT’s how Paul Bunyan saved the blue ox…no, wait, that’s how the fairytale says the flood came: rain.
The big problem with a rain-induced inundation of global proportions is that the planet’s surface is only occasionally concave…and water seeks its own (lowest) level…the chance of a boat of that supposed size & inevitable weight/displacement was able to remain afloat for THIRTY DAYS (c’mon, it didn’t start to float on day one) - then come aground ON TOP OF A MOUNTAIN - is once again ZERO. It’s a tale worthy of Baron Munchausen.
Absent CONTINUAL MAGICAL INTERVENTION by *some* god in *some* machine *somewhere*, it never happened. It couldn’t have happened as relayed. The world simply isn’t like that at all, and magical intervention OF THE REQUIRED SCALE has been 100% not in evidence in recorded memory (the “inerrant” snake-oil account notwithstanding).
Back to “inerrancy” again, but just for a moment: it strongly suggests that “Bible-believers” really only believe in THE BOOK. They believe all the fantastic & anti-human crap in it BECAUSE THE BOOK TOLD THEM TO BELIEVE IT.
After all, they no longer have the weight of Rome (church or empire) crushing them, they must be brought to heel by other means.
Oh, and our occasional reminder that “the bible” was assembled for Emperor Constantine, at his behest, and to his specifications - and for no other reason. Everything since has been jockeying for position.
Next time, we’ll talk about Josephus Flavius
www.ancient-origins.net
www.cnn.com
en.wikipedia.org
www.nature.com
www.smithsonianmag.com
www.cnn.com
