Verification that Noah's ark gopher wood is Southern live oak (Quercus
virginiana) by independent laboratories is expected soon. Should the
University of North Texas student's 1999 classification be disproven,
these notebooks will be pitched.

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ta...q=Noah%27s+ark

wrote:
Constantine Rafinesque proposed Gopherus as the genus for tortoises,
not oaks. Rafinesque used the genus Quercus for the oak species he
proposed, such as Quercus pagoda, Quercus ilexoides and Quercus nitida.
According to the USDA and Flora of North America (FNA), Quercus pagoda
Raf. is still the binomial for cherrybark oak. The USDA and FNA credits
Phillip Miller for Quercus virginiana. Linnaeus gets credit for the
genus Quercus, but it was the ancient name for oak. Linneaus did not
originate the term.

Thanks.

The main problem is that you present no concrete evidence. The claim
that "Our core samples of Noah's ark are Quercus virginiana." is
unconvincing without a refereed publication. If you actually have wood
samples from Noah's ark, you don't need to worry about the name
gopherwood. You should be submitting your evidence to scientific
journals, not newsgroups and Wikipedia.

If the remains of Noah's ark had been discovered, it would have been
published in the world's leading scientific journals and all the major
newspapers. When I asked for a citation, you provided only a link to an
obscure newpaper archive that went back to 2001. You indicated the
article was from 1999 but provided no month, day or article title. You
seem to be quoting John's unpublished notebooks.

The Wikipedia article you cited on gopherwood indicated that many
different woods have been suggested as the Biblical gopherwood but
there is no good evidence for any of them. Maybe the Biblical texts
were misinterpreted and when Noah asked, "Where do I get all the wood?"
God said "I'll go for wood."

Even many Christians do not take the story of Noah's ark literally.
There are no archeological or historical records of a great flood, and
the logistical problems of building a 450 foot long wooden ship seem
insurmountable. All-wooden ships beyond 300 feet long are considered
impossible from an engineering standpoint.

David R. Hershey

References

Gopherus, a genus-name authored by C.S. Rafinesque
http://faculty.evansville.edu/ck6/bstud/gopherus.html

Quercus pagoda Raf.
http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=QUPA5
http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.as...n_id=233501071

Quercus virginiana P. Mill.
http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=QUVI
http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.as...n_id=233501097

Quercus L.
http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=QUERC

The myth of the great flood
http://www.inu.net/skeptic/flood.html

Noah's Ark
http://skepdic.com/noahsark.html

Garry Denke wrote:
wrote:

Note also that the Bible was not written in English, and the most popular
English translation was performed several hundred years ago by scholars
unfamiliar with botany, including field botany of the eastern Mediterranean
area. Too bad Iris Cohen isn't around any more -- she could probably
identify the most likely species. At any rate, it certainly wouldn't
be a North American one.

Biblical translators have made real bloopers in translation, as well as
some disingenuous "improvements" on the text to support their agendas.
Translators also crib from their predecessors, propagating errors instead
of correcting them.

Note also that "gopher" refers to tortoises only in a limited area
of the US. Elsewhere it usually refers to several species of ground
squirrels.

Our core samples of Noah's ark are Quercus virginiana. That's the
problem. John's notebooks say Constantine Rafinesque named genus
Gopherus. I read that's true. His notes say he had to. Why? Because
Carolus Linnaeus had already named genus Quercus. The species name
virginiana was gone too. John says Carolus named the species. Several
sites say Philip Miller did. Which is it? Obviously neither of them,
Carolus nor Philip, knew about the samples.

Is a Southern live oak native to Virginia, he asks here, is it virgin
Virginian? John writes, yes, of course, but at the range's extreme
northeast edge. Francois Daudin had named species polyphemus already.
The name Quercus (Carolus') was gone, the name virginiana (Carolus' or
Philip's) was gone, and the name polyphemus (Francois') was gone, so
Constantine named the genus Gopherus, according to John, for a common
range. Noted here is the western US was a frontier not known
(classified) yet. Was genus Gopherus and its species polyphemus
classified first, before the remaining Gopherus three? John says it was
Constantine's only choice at the time, but I disagree.

The question is did Constantine know the ark was Southern live oak?
John says yes, he knew. I say no, he didn't know. If he did know about
the ark's core samples, then the Gopherwood Range Theory holds water.
On the other hand if Constantine didn't know, then the common range
naming of Southern live oak and Gopher tortoise at the time is nothing
more than a coincidence. Best I can tell, neither Carolus, Philip,
Francois, nor Constantine, knew.

The second half of the paragraph has no relation to the first. Note
also that the notion of using stones for anchors no doubt occurred
independently in many parts of the world, and is not evidence for
the historicity of Atlantis, ancient Egyptians in Central America,
nor Mormon mythology.

If they can be dated by using reliable methods such as enhanced quartz
hydration or other new developing technologies then such man-altered
stones could be studied through a timeline.

I'm also pretty dubious about identifying all these "common" stone
anchors as such. Maybe they are just stones, or shaped stones used
for other purposes.