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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arca Noë | 1/2 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arca_Noë | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T09:33:47.505668+00:00 | kb-cron |
Arca Noë ("Noah's Ark") is a book published in 1675 by the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher. It is a study of the biblical story of Noah's Ark, published by the cartographer and bookseller Johannes van Waesbergen in Amsterdam. Kircher's aim in Arca Noë was to reconcile recent discoveries in nature and geography with the text of the Bible. This demonstration of the underlying unity and truth between revelation and science was a fundamental task of Catholic scholarship at the time. Together with its sister volume Turris Babel ("The Tower of Babel"), Arca Noë presented a complete intellectual project to demonstrate how contemporary science supported the account of the Book of Genesis.
== Structure ==
The work is divided into three volumes: the first, De rebus quae ante Diluvium, dealt with the story of Noah before the Genesis flood narrative, the building of the Ark, the choice of animals to go on board and how they were accommodated. The second, De iis, quae ipso Diluvio e jusque duratione, concerned the flood itself and how the Ark was managed while the flood lasted, as well as providing a mystical and allegorical explanation of its meaning, as a vessel carrying the human soul. The third volume, De iis, quae post Diluvium a Noëmo gesta sunt, discussed the deeds of Noah after the flood, compared the lands of the world as they had been before it and after, and explained how both people and animals dispersed over the globe.
== Ideas discussed ==
By the middle of the seventeenth century, the abundance and diversity of life discovered in the New World was calling into question the previously unchallenged belief that all life on earth originated from a single point of dispersal - Mount Ararat, after the Flood. One of the uncertainties which Kircher addressed in Arca Noë was how animals had managed to colonise lands so distant across the seas. Another, to which he devoted particular attention, was how so many creatures could have fitted into the Ark at all. Kircher had first discussed the question of the size of the Ark in 1640 during a mathematical convention to celebrate the centenary of the Jesuit order. Here he delivered a technical paper on Noah's Ark, discussing the exact length of a Biblical cubit. In Arca Noë, taking the dimensions given in the Bible, Kircher explained how it was possible that all the animals in the contemporary world could originate from a vessel of such limited size. The Book of Genesis does not identify the animals taken into the Ark, describing them only as both "clean" and "unclean". Kircher therefore speculated about which animals were aboard, how they were accommodated, and used this as a basis for working out how it could have been designed and constructed. He also described details such as the exact year of the Flood (2396 BC), the time between the fall of the first raindrop and Noah setting foot on dry land (365 days), where the Ark landed, and how the creatures spread over the earth after the Flood abated. Kircher explained that while Noah had built the Ark, the design came directly from God himself, ensuring that its form was thus a concrete manifestation of divine intelligence. Its dimensions served to rule out another matter which the work discussed: the Book of Genesis records that there were giants on planet Earth in ancient history, and some held that Noah himself was one of them. Kircher demonstrated that the size of the Ark made this impossible - there would not have been room for a family of giants on board alongside all the animals. This affirmation of Noah's humanity allowed Kircher to show that the Ark represented not only the human body, vehicle of the living soul, but also symbolised the Christian Church itself, just as Noah prefigured Jesus as a mediator between God and sinful mankind.
== Classification of animals in the ark ==