Glenn Responded>>>
>The devastated area would have been much, much larger than merely the
basin. I did a little atmospheric physics in an attempt to estimate how
far out the rainfall would occur. My conclusion is that it would be very
likly to rain as far as 400-800 kilometers away from the Mediterranean.
....
>> .... a 400 km band around the Mediterranean where there would be a high
likelihood of devastating rain during the fill-up of the basin. If the area
was twice as large, it would require an 800 km hike for Noah and co.
That is a good point Glenn. Although he could have made the hike in 1 year,
with fewer animals--prehaps less overall time than building an ark. (Could
you imagine telling the story of Noah's Hike? The question comes to mind:
"Does God consider dramatic impact in making his decisions?" [but no
answers come to mind]).
Also, the ark provided shelter from the severe weather from the atmospheric
disruption which you mentioned. Moving that much air in that short of a
time would alter the weather world-wide, and could set up an oscilating
pressure wave circulating around the Earth that could take quite a while to
settle down. And if Noah hiked out, he would have still had the problem of
living off the land for a year until things settled down.
I might add that water transport is one of the most energy efficient forms
of transportation--consider the old fashioned barges being pulled by a
single mule, and a single lock keeper could manuver the barge by hand at the
lock. Consequently, from a work expenditure viewpoint, it was more
efficient to spend centuries to build the ark to store & float the people &
animals, rather than have a massive land trek (which would have definitely
required more than 8 people to manage, plus transport of food, etc).
So an ark would be much less work--both in construction, managing the
animals, transporting food, and in calories expended in the move.
Grace & peace,
Dennis Sweitzer
sweitd01@imsint.com