First, this does raise a good point - that in the 1400's, Zheng He's ship only made it to 125 meters (410 feet), and that the largest wooden ships were generally only 50-90 meters. Noah's Ark was apparently 137 meters (450 feet) long in (estimated) 2300 BC. (ref)
So within 3700 years, there were not only no technological advancements in the ability to build longer boats, but that noone could create something remotely similar for so long detracts from the validity of a purely science based Noah's Ark.

Large wooden boats are difficult to keep together, a lot of the large wooden boats assembled were designed to just be floating museums, since the ocean will cause flexing of wood members that lead to significant leaking.

This explains the reluctance when the story says, God called down to Noah to have him make the ark.

Scientifically, this ark could not have existed. But believers would be the first to say that many miraculous things had to have happened in order for this event to have occured. The animals organizing to board would have been impossible, keeping them from eating each other also unlikely without divine intervention. The sheer weight of the millions of species would have probably snapped the boat, and the fact that all of the world was then spawned through the incest of Noah and his direct family all point to this not being a scientific story.
Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He
http://www.stanford.edu/~meehan/donnelly/bibchron.html

Asker's Rating:

Permalink | Report