The Real Noah

The “REAL” Noah

Anybody here watch the recent movie “Noah” with Russel Crowe? I went last week. It was pretty good as a movies go, but as I watched it, I thought it would bring up a lot of questions for people who didn’t really know what the bible says about Noah. He’s not a legendary character made up for children’s coloring books. He was a real person and there really was a worldwide flood. Jesus Christ Himself accepted the story of the flood and talked about it in Matthew 24:37-39 and Luke 17:26. I’ve got a book I picked up where a guy named John Woodmorappe (who has degrees in biology and geology) did a feasibility study on Noah’s ark and answered a lot of questions people are asking and other’s that they’re not. Such as…floor space, manpower, food preservation, feeding, living conditions. Let me just deal with a few of the questions brought out by the movie…

Question #1…

1. Would there be enough room on the Ark to carry all the animals? Yes. The movie made it look like every animal on earth went into the ark. But the Ark couldn’t hold millions of animals, so a lot of people don’t believe it could happen. But the bible doesn’t say EVERY animal on earth went on the Ark. God told Noah to take 7 of every KIND “clean” animal and 2 of every KIND of other creature, male and female. (7:3) A “Kind”, is closer to a species. So, for example…not every type of dog would go on the Ark, but two dogs are all that are needed and then from them all the other different variations would develop. So instead of millions, only about 72,000 animals (the avg. size of a small rat went on ark. Dinosaurs?). Since the Arks capacity was equal to 522 railroad cars, they would only take up about 60% of the available deck space. The rest of the space could be used as living quarters and storage of food.

Woodmorappe figured a years supply of food would make up about 2500 tons. They’d need approx. 4 million liters of water (9.4% of total Arks volume). So, yes the Ark was plenty big to do the job.

Reminds me of the Sunday school teacher who asked kids 'Do you think Noah did a lot of fishing when he was on the Ark? Little Johnnie raised his hand and said,''No,' Teacher: Why not? He said, 'How could he? He only had two worms!'

Question #2…

2. Could you build an ark without the help of Rock People?

Yes! According to the movie, fallen angels came down to the earth and were cursed to become “giant stone gumbies”. It’s true that the bible mentions the “Nephilum” (Gen.6:4) and theologians speculate that they were fallen angels and giants…but it’s not true that God turned them into stone & that they helped Noah build the Ark. When they showed up in the movie, they looked like a cross between the “Ents” from The Lord of the Rings & Transformers…and I think it made the movie feel more like a mythical “fairy tale” than a true story.

The bible says that when Noah entered the ark he was 600 years old and it took 120 years to build, (so along with his family of 7), he had plenty of time to build an ark 137 meters long and over 3 stories high. In fact, the ancient Grks and Chinese constructed some ships that were that big and bigger! The word “ark” lit. means a “box meant to float”, so the Ark was more like a big barge than anything else. If you doubt they could build it, remember the Ark was built by amateurs, and the Titanic was built by professionals!

Question #3 …

3. What kind of a man was Noah really?

The movie depicts Noah as…a deeply conflicted man who wants justice, but who will spend a lot of the movie contemplating murder suicide, and threatening to kill his grandchildren. But that’s not the Noah of the bible. According to the bible, God used Noah in an incredible way, when mankind was on the verge of extinction. The ques. I want to ask you this morning is…“Why did God choose Noah when he wanted to start over with the human race?” Archeo. tell us that at the time of the flood approx. 1 mill. were living…so Noah was literally ‘one in a million’. Imag. If you were God, what kind of a person would YOU choose to start over with the human race? Ever thought about that? Lets make it a little more personal…if God made a decision to destroy the world again… would he start over with YOU? (hmmm) So why Noah? We’re going to study the person of Noah this morning, because I think we can find in him the 4 Characteristics of the type of person uses…even today! The story of Noah is found in Gen. (1st bk of the bible), chapters 6,7,8,9 Read Gen.6:5-14