If there were no other errors or absurdities in the Bible, our faith
in it would diminish at every step in the investigation of the ark
and flood story as related in the sixth chapter of Genesis. The
avowed purpose of the flood, the means employed, and their failure to
accomplish the end desired, are all at war with our reason and our moral
sense.
1. The first question that naturally arises in considering this
story is, Why should so many millions of innocent beings--men, women,
children, animals; birds, &c.--perish as a penalty for the sins of a few
thousand people?
2. The reason given for this wholesale destruction was the wickedness
and moral depravity of the human race. But is it true that the whole
human race was in that state at that period? According to Manetho and
Herodotus, Egypt was in a state of high civilization and moral culture
at the time; and, according to Dr. Hulde, China was also far advanced
in the arts of civilization and in morality. Col. Dow and other writers
represent India as being in a similar condition. There could, therefore,
be no justice in drowning all these nations in order to punish a few
thousand rambling Jews: it was too much like "burning the barn to
destroy the rats."
3. An enlightened moralist of the present day would decide that it was a
species of injustice to destroy all the land animals, and let the fishes
and aquatic animals live. It looks like partiality.
4. But God, having discovered that he made a signal failure in the work
of creation, acknowledged that it "grieved him at his heart," and that
he "repented" having undertaken it. However, he issued a proclamation,
stating that "the end of all flesh is come: every thing that is in the
earth shall die."
5. "I, even I, do bring a flood of water upon the earth to destroy all
flesh" (Gen. xi. 6). The language seems to imply that somebody else had
undertaken, or was about to undertake, the business.
6. But "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord," and was placed at the
head of this grand scheme; being, as was assumed, although a drunkard,
the most righteous man that could be found.
7. The Lord instructed him to build an ark five hundred and fifty feet
long, twenty feet wide, and fifty-five feet high,--about the size of an
eastern warehouse. Think of putting into this two of every species of
animal, and seven of every species of clean beast, and fowls of the
air!--there being one hundred and fifty thousand or, as some make it,
five hundred thousand species of animal, one hundred and twelve thousand
kinds of bird, and fifty thousand species of insect.
8. And God ordered to be taken into this ark food sufficient to supply
these millions of mouths. This alone would have required forty such
vessels.
9. As it was declared that God destroyed every living thing from the
face of the earth, it would have been necessary to have food enough
stored away to last several years, until the earth could have time to be
replenished with a new crop of grass and vegetables to serve as food for
the granivorous and herbivorous species, and animals for the carnivorous
tribes. The weight of such a cargo would have been sufficient to sink
the whole British navy!
10. Consider for a moment what amount of food would be required for
each species of animal. The four elephants (two of each species) would
consume a ton of hay in two days, making more than one hundred and
fifty tons in twelve months. The fourteen rhinoceroses would consume
one thousand and fifty tons. And then the horses, cattle, sheep, goats,
asses, zebras, antelopes, and other mammalia, would require at least two
thousand tons more; making in the aggregate three thousand two hundred
tons. This alone would have filled every inch of the vessel.
11. The seven hundred and eighty-four thousand birds (one hundred
and twelve thousand species) would require grain, which would make it
necessary to store several thousand bushels.
12. The three thousand flesh-eating animals, including lions (one lion
could eat fifteen pounds a day), cats, dogs, jackals, hyenas, skunks,
weasels, crocodiles, snakes, eagles, hawks, buzzards, &c., would require
about forty wagon-loads to be slaughtered and fed to them each day; for
all would require fresh meat but the buzzards.
13. And otters, minks, gulls, kingfishers, spoonbills, storks, &c.,
would require fish for food, which must either be preserved in tanks for
the purpose, or one hundred and fifty persons would have to be employed
all the time in catching them; and there were only four men to do this
and perform all the other labor,--sufficient for five thousand hands.
14. There were nine hundred species of fly-catchers,--those that feed
on flies, beetles, and other insects. We are not informed whether flies
were included in the registered list or not; but they would, of course,
be impudent enough to take up their quarters in the vessel without
invitation.
15. About two hundred and fifty birds known as bee-catch-ers would
have to be supplied with this kind of insect: this would be, to say the
least, rather stinging business.
16. Many cans of cockroaches must have been saved to feed the
birds-of-paradise.
17. There are several kinds of ant-eaters also, which would have
required much time to be spent in searching for ants in the cracks of
the vessel, or in collecting then! off the water.
18. The four hundred and forty-two monkeys would require fresh fruit;
and it is not probable anybody had the forethought to can it for them.
19. Sixty-five species of animal feed on insects; and it would have been
necessary for several persons to spend most of their time in crawling
after millipeds, fleas, wood-lice, &c.
20. There would have been work for fifty boy's in providing leaves and
flowers (if there were any possibility that they could be obtained while
merged in twenty-seven feet of water) for the animals that feed on these
things.
21. Besides food, fresh water must have been stored up for most of these
animals, as they could not have endured the salty water of the briny
deep.
22. Noah and his family must have studied ornithology and natural
history many years to know what kind of food to save for the various
kinds of birds and animals.
23. Naturalists estimate that there are fourteen different climates,
each with animals adapted only to the temperature and natural growth
of that locality. How, then, could they all endure the change of being
removed to the vicinity of Mount Ararat? Animals from the frigid zones
must have felt like fish out of water in the warm climate of Armenia.
24. And think of the immense labor required to obtain this innumerable
collection of animals! In the first place, either Noah or his God must
make a trip to the polar regions to obtain the white bear, the reindeer,
the polar dog, &c.
25. And then the Rocky Mountains must be scaled to find and catch the
grizzly bear. Some time and labor must have been required to obtain the
rattlesnakes, copperheads, vipers, cobras, snapping-turtles, &c., of the
torrid zone.
26. And a great deal of strategy must have been employed to catch
the fox, the deer, the antelope, the gazelle, the chimpanzee, of the
temperate zone; also the eagle, hawk, buzzard, &c.
27. To do all this hunting and catching, and conveying to the ark, of
the million and a half birds and animals, would have required a larger
number of persons than Napoleon or Xerxes ever commanded; for, as the
whole thing is related as a natural occurrence, we can not assume that
they made the journey of their own accord.
28. The Bible commentator Scott supposes that angels were employed to
aid in this business of storing away the animals in the ark; but it is
certainly derogatory to that elevated order of beings to suppose they
would stoop to such groveling work as bug-hunting, skunk-catching,
snake-snaring, &c.
29. And how could this immense multitude of respiring and perspiring
animals live and breathe in a vessel with but one little twenty-two-inch
window, and that in the third story, and shut up most of the time to
keep the rain out, especially if some giraffe had been disposed to
monopolize it when it was open by thrusting his head out? How could they
be kept thus for a whole year without breeding pestilence and death?
30. All animals require light; and total darkness must have reigned
in the two lower stories, and only a partial light supplied the third
story,--just what could come through a twenty-two-inch window.
31. The chorus of voices in the ark--consisting of bellowing, baying,
howling, screaming, hissing, neighing, snorting, roaring, chattering,
buzzing, &c.--suggests that deafness would have been a blessing to the
human beings present.
32. We are told that "fifteen cubits upward did the water prevail, and
the mountains were covered." Fifteen cubits (twenty-seven feet) would
not cover nine-tenths of the buildings now on the earth. Ararat is
seventeen thousand feet, and Everest twenty-nine thousand feet high.
33. Several scientists have shown by actual experiment that the
atmosphere could not contain the fourteen-hundredth part of the water
that is represented to have fallen in the time of the flood.
34. Who or what conducted the ark to Ararat when the waters subsided? In
the Brahminical flood story a fish is said to have performed this feat,
and dragged it to Mt. Hinavat; but Noah and Moses are silent on this
point.
35. The peak of Ararat is perpetually covered with snow and ice; hence
it must have been rather difficult and dangerous for the biped and
quadruped cargo to descend from it.
36. And what was there to prevent the nine hundred carnivorous animals
from devouring the sheep, hogs, poultry, rabbits, minks, hedgehogs, &o.,
as they tumbled pell-mell down the mountain together.
37. The same catastrophe must have ensued from the act of turning them
loose upon the earth together, with nothing to subsist upon but the
flesh and blood of each other.
38. Many Oriental nations have traditions of a flood, and some of them
of several floods. Xisuthrus of Chaldea built a ship, in which he saved
himself and family during a mighty flood which overflowed the world;
also Fohi of China, Menu of the Brahmins, Satravarata of India, and
Deucalion of Greece. Hence it appears there were several families saved
besides that of Noah's. Egypt and India have stories of two floods
occurring. All these stories are evidently older than that recorded in
the Christian Bible.
39. Geologists and archaeologists have collected a whole volume of
evidence, which shows that such a deluge could never have taken place as
is embodied in the traditions of several nations. The fresh water of
the lakes, and the salt water of the seas and oceans, would have been so
mixed as never again to be separated as they are now. Egyptian monuments
and sculpture can be traced to a much earlier period than that assigned
for Noah's flood.
40. Lepsius has traced the existence of several races or tribes of
negroes up to a period within forty-eight years of Noah's flood; this
would seem to indicate that some of Noah's family were negroes, and must
have "multiplied and replenished" very rapidly to start several races in
forty-eight years.
41. The dynasties of Egyptian kings can be traced back several thousand
years beyond Noah's time.
42. It is true Jesus Christ and the apostles indorsed the truth of
the flood story (Matt. xxiv. 37); but that is evidence against their
intelligence, instead of being a proof of the truth of the story.
43. And the assumed divine author of the flood admitted it was an utter
failure,--that it entirely failed to accomplish the end intended; for it
was declared but a few centuries after, that "the imagination of man's
heart is evil, and only evil, continually," which is an evidence that
the wicked folks were not all drowned by the world's inundation.
44. With respect to the many difficulties and impossibilities I have
enumerated as lying in the way of carrying out this experiment of the
flood, it is sometimes argued in defense, that, as the whole thing was
in the hands of God, such obstacles would not be a straw in his way. But
such persons at different periods,--one ninety-five hundred years ago
have failed to notice that it is nowhere stated or implied that it was
to be accomplished by miracles. A miracle could have destroyed all the
wicked inhabitants of the earth in a moment, without any flood or other
means.
45. With regard to its being only a partial deluge, as argued by some
Bible defenders, we will say that it is only necessary to examine the
language of the Bible to settle this matter. It is declared over and
over again, that the whole earth was covered with water, and _every
living thing destroyed_. If it had been only a partial deluge, all that
would have been necessary for Noah to do to save himself and family
would have been to migrate to some dry country; and the doomed sinners
might have saved themselves in this way.
46. I will note here that the rainbow was for more than a thousand years
looked upon both as evidence that there had been a universal deluge, and
also that there never would be another. It is only at a recent period
that the study of philosophy has disclosed the fact that the rainbow is
caused by the reflection and refraction of the rays of light upon the
falling rain, and the error thus exploded.
47. One thing in connection with this flood story is not clearly
explained in the Bible: Methuselah's time was not out till ten months
after the flood began, according to Bible chronology. Where was he
during this ten months?