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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" is from 'Ararat (ar-aw-rat') which 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 is always the country of Armenia: never a
specific mountain by the same name.
The Hebrew word for "mountains" in Gen 8:4 is haareey which is the plural
of har (har). It doesn't always mean a prominent land mass like Everest or
McKinley; especially when it's plural. Har can also mean a range of hills or
highlands; like the region of Israel where Miriam's cousin Elizabeth lived.
"At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of
Judea, where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth." (Luke
1:39-40)
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 ranchland 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 mountains like Viejas, Lyon's, or Cuyamaca.
The ark contained the only surviving souls of man and animal on the entire
planet. Does it really make good sense to strand them up on a mountain
peak where they might risk death and injury descending it?
When my wife and I visited the San Diego zoo together back in the early
1980's, we noticed that the Giraffes' area had no fence around it. The tour
guide told us the Giraffes' enclosure doesn't need a fence because their area
is up on a plateau 3 feet high. The Giraffes don't try to escape because
they're afraid of heights. There's just no way Giraffes could've climbed down
off of Turkey's Mount Ararat. It's way too steep and rugged. Those poor
timid creatures would've been stranded up there and died; and so would
hippos, elephants, and flightless birds like penguins.
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 should have been preserved for many years to come.
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