Why Scott Walker Is Wrong About Noah's Ark
by Tim Murphy
Thu Jul. 19, 2012
Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker, fresh off a landslide recall victory, took to Twitter on Wednesday evening to ponder the conservative equivalent of "What if we're all colorblind, and the people we thought were colorblind are the ones with normal vision?" In what appeared to be a response to President Obama's recent riff on the importance of public institutions, Walker wondered: "Imagine if Noah had needed help from the government to build the Ark. It might have never been built."
That's quite the thought experiment. In Walker's scenario, the government is so inept it would have scuttled the construction of the Ark, bringing about the end of mankind. (As it was, the Ark managed to only save eight people out of the entire global population so it wasn't exactly a huge victory for the private sector.)
But the real story behind Noah's Ark isn't dependency, it's red tape. GAO reports from the pre-Flood era are understandably hard to come by, so the best records we have come from Genesis. In that telling, risk-takers like Noah were saddled (by Job's creator, no less) with cumbersome restrictions on everything from the kind of wood they could use to the size and breadth of the vessel—and who would be allowed on:
Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.
And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.
And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind; two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive. And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.
Given the tight regulations, it's no wonder Noah only built one.
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Mr. Murphy:
ReplyDeleteI don't think you have your head screw on straight because you wrote this:
(As it was, the Ark managed to only save eight people out of the entire global population so it wasn't exactly a huge victory for the private sector.)
Whose fault was it that only eight people went into the Ark?
Was it Noah's fault because he used the wrong words and wasn't convincing enough about the amount of water that would cause
a flood so that people refused to believe
God's message and continued doing what they always did?
Or was it because Noah built the Ark to small so there wasn't a McDonald's or a KFC available, was that the reason they only looked?
Did Noah or anybody else have a passenger list which was used to make sure only paying passengers got on board?
Maybe they didn't like the idea of going on vacation with a whole lot of animals without a real comfort station and the barnyard perfume wasn't their type?
No! My Bible says that those weren't the reasons only eight people were saved.
"The world will be at ease---banquets and parties and weddings---just as it was in Noah's time before the sudden coming of the flood; people wouldn't believe what was going to happen until the flood actually arrived and took them all away. So shall my coming be." (Matt. 24:37-39)
Notice that the same conditions are going to prevail when He sends his Son the second time to rescue some of us.
hmmm....I thought this bit was offered up rather tongue in cheek, not as a discourse on theology....
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