The Bible mentions a gopher wood which went into the building of Noah’s Ark. Historians still don't know what the Biblical word means. It doesn't exist in modern Hebrew. Skeptics tell us it is one more example of fabricated stories. Nothing has ever been discovered that refers to a gopher tree. It is not likely that such a tree will ever be discovered. Gopher was not a tree or a type of wood but the product of a process, much like ply wood was the product of a process and was not cut from a ply tree. The word is a Hebrew pronunciation of the Sumerian gpr, which was a type of adhesive used to build strong lumber. The word kopher meant a covering or pitch. The ancient “kufa” water craft was made of finely woven willow branches and palm leaves with a coat of bitumen on the inside. The Arabics called it kufr and the Hebrews kofer (gopher). There are words still in use that were derived from gopher, which include, wafer, gauffer, goffer and gopher. They all denote a laminated or woven style, including the gopher which was named for its honey comb style burrows.Kopher was a process used to build the ocean going vessels known as Ma-gur.The Egyptian used a similar process called “gupru.” Scholars have agreed that the Hebrew meaning of Kopher is pitch. Others have decided that it is Greek for Cypress wood, but the word is not Greek in origin.
According to experts,building a boat the size of Noah’s ark would require overlapping wood glued together. That is exactly what gpr did. It was “super glue” made with pitch that took a great deal of knowledge. The process was lost by the time of the Israelite kingdoms.It would not have been familiar to a Jewish Scribe inventing a story that required an explanation of how such a large boat managed to stay together.
There is not much use trying to explain the difficulties of living on an ark for a year,such as waste disposal,feeding or the animals and having light inside the ark.The number of animals taken on board would depend on whether or not the flood was global of local. The Bible seems to indicate it was global,if the Hebrew word "erets" is understood to have meant the entire globe.It had several meanings which could be a field,a country,a nation or ground.It was most often used to indicate a region that was known to the Scribe.Ancient scribes often wrote of a ruler being king over the entire earth or Lord of the whole world.Genesis 41:56,Also used the word “erets” in the same context.
"And the famine was all over the face of the earth."
Critics of the Bible are always ready to point a that a boat the size of Noah's Ark couldn't possible have stayed together in rough water.It would have been close to 500 feet in length,75 feet wide,and 45 feet high.If it sounds impossible to some, the Greeks built wooden ships almost as large.In the book Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study4, creationist researcher John Woodmorappe suggests that, at most, 16,000 animals were all that were needed to preserve the created kinds that God brought into the Ark.The Gilgamesh Epic claims:
According to the plan its walls were 10 gar, (i.e. 120 cubits) high,
And the width of its deck (?) was equally 10 gar.
Research studies have shown that the Ark could handle waves as high as 98 feet. The study combined analysis,model wave testing,and ship standards,Three qualities were measured—stability, hull strength, and comfort.
