Noahs Ark - two by two - would this be a metaphor for DNA and life on earth? As in double helix?

Question

I understand that the ancients that wrote these texts had no biological knowledge. But they did have inspired thought - for example, in Deuteronomy, they are told that the pus and blood of the wounded or sick was not to be touched. This knowledge was later lost to humanity killing millions until Florence Nightingale realised their might be a connection in the spread of disease and body fluids.
Another example of innate wisdom is a tribe in the Amazon who were discovered in the 60s - they had the double helix tattooed on their bodies. They got this image from their dreams when using a powerful narcotic - their dreams "told" them this was the key to life, yet they had no way of knowing about molecular biology.

My thought on this is that the bible is not a literal record of events, but could it be that ancient people somehow had innate understanding of life and its origins.

A simile is a figure of speech in which the subject is compared to another subject. Frequently, similes are marked by use of the words like or as or so. "The snow was like a blanket". However, "The snow blanketed the earth" is also a simile and not a metaphor because the verb blanketed is a shortened form of the phrase covered like a blanket. A few other examples are "The deer ran like the wind", "The raindrops sounded as popcorn kernels popping", and "the lullaby was like the hush of the winter."

The phrase "The snow was a blanket over the earth" is the metaphor in this case. Metaphors differ from similes in that the two objects are not compared, but treated as identical

i am surprised at how many people take this story as a literal event.

Answer 1

Sure, why not!! Everyone knows that The Bible was written by space aliens far more evolved than ourselves, so yes! I had never thought of that before!!

Answer 2

Have you read the story or just the watched the cartoon. The two by two is only part of the story. What about the seven?

Genesis 6:19

Of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark.

Genesis 7:8, 9, 15

Of clean beast and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowl ... there went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God commanded Noah.

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Genesis 7:2

Of every clean beast thou shalt take thee by sevens, the male and his female.

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Then read the story of Gilgamesh if you want to discuss double helix.

Also, food for thought:

When the animals left the ark, what would they have eaten? There would have been no plants after the ground had been submerged for nearly a year. What would the carnivores have eaten? Whatever prey they ate would have gone extinct. And how did the New World primates or the Australian marsupials find their way back after the flood subsided?

Does the Bible says the flood was global?

"The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it!"

The phrase is a common argument used for those who call for the "literal reading" of the Bible. I have no complaints with the concept of reading the Bible literally. However, many who claim to be literalists apparently do not believe everything the Bible says. T

he concept of a global Genesis flood can be easily eliminated from a plain reading of Psalms 104,1 which is known as the "creation psalm."

Psalms 104 describes the creation of the earth in the same order as that seen in Genesis 1 (with a few more details added). It begins with an expanding universe model (reminiscent of the Big Bang) (verse 2, parallel to Genesis 1:1). It next describes the formation of a stable water cycle (verses 3-5, parallel to Genesis 1:6-8).

The earth is then described as a planet completely covered with water (verse 6, parallel to Genesis 1:9). God then causes the dry land to appear (verses 7-8, parallel to Genesis 1:9-10). The verse that eliminates a global flood follows: "You set a boundary they [the waters] cannot cross; never again will they cover the earth." (Psalms 104:9)

Obviously, if the waters never again covered the earth, then the flood must have been local.

Answer 3

The Bible is just a man-made play script, with several actors God, Devil, Jesus, Satan, Adam, Eve etc, and of course some intriguing imaginary places like Heaven, Hell, Purgatory and Limbo.

I certainly don’t believe in the Bible and I doubt any reasonably intelligent person would either. However, if you view the Bible as a man-made play script, with several actors God, Devil, Jesus, Satan, Adam, Eve, Noah, and so on, then you can certainly start to see a clever interwoven plot, that the audience is unaware of. It’s really just a drama thriller with clever twists.

You see, if you seriously think about it in an unbiased manner, then clearly the actor God in the Bible could really be the Devil, and the audience (religious believers) are being sucked into being the bad guys, who then use religion to get everyone fighting each other.

On the other hand, the more intelligent audience (Atheists) spot the plot and try their best to teach believers that this is just nonsense, stop getting sucked in. Some people have over time decided that the play is real. That's very sad.

Answer 4

I think maybe it was said because of the seating arrangements on the boat for animals. But 'two by two' you have over emphasised, because there were more than a pair of each species. ..six ritually clean animals and one unclean...the unclean for sacrifice when the waters depleted.
The shape of DNA in its full form (?),well the shape is termed 'the double helix', but you may as well say that the double-decker bus was inspired by Noah.
Also, the device used in English language to directly compare two separate things is simile, not metaphor.

Answer 5

That's a well thought out question. Actually the only reason for the animals on the ark being two by two is that there was one male, one female, so that when the boat landed and the water dried up they could go out and reproduce and repopulate the earth.

Brenda, you have NEVER made an unbiased comment on this site, since I have been answering questions. I don't even think you know what unbiased means.

Answer 6

Wow i've never thought of Noah's ark in that symbolical way..mostly in the most obvious man/woman procreation (2 by 2). But indeed it could be symbolical for the double helix..wasn't it around that time that mankind went back into the so called 'darker' age..descended in consciousness...our dna was 'blocked off' so to speak?

Answer 7

The DNA composed of GC base pairs could be greater stable to chop up. it incredibly is by way of fact there are 3 hydrogen bonds and greater stacking interactions between G and C. A and T in basic terms have 2 hydrogen bonds, making them much less good that GC base pairs.

Answer 8

The two-by-two analogy to the double hellix is a theological stretch.

I prefer to consider that a local flood really happened and a legend developed which was used to express a theological truth: that being, God loves the world, protects those who are faithful to Him and that God also protects His creation. As a lesson from this story is that we are also to protect God's creation and be good stewards of the environment.

Answer 9

Uh, no. You're really reaching there. You're looking for deep hidden scientific meaning in a text that classifies bats as birds, states insects have four legs, rabbits chew cud like cattle, and goats and sheep can produce spotted offspring by being exposed to painted rods while mating. .

Answer 10

No. Actually, the animals on Noah's ark did not all come "2 by 2." The 'clean' animal came 6 of each.

Answer 11

The reason the animals were taken onto the Ark in pairs was so they could procreate once the floods were over. Since the floods were meant to kill every living thing on land then there would be nothing to carry on the species.