Concerning the Flood of Noah,
Accounting for Certain Facts Lately Learned

In memory of Steven J. Gould

One sweeps-week eve came this decision:
“To spice up public television,
seat Gould and Falwell rump-by-rump,
until such time as ratings jump,
to debate the Flood in Genesis;
we know they shan’t refuse us this,
for neither man of God, nor scholar,
foregoes the odd almighty dollar!”
Since what occurred defies description,
there follows here the show’s transcription:

GOULD
I’ll not mince words, but put this starkly:
some time has passed since Bishop Berkeley.
Though God exists, who hates our sinning,
He now has had this planet spinning
a thousand million years times four,
and not the scanty few of lore.
If the man of God can tell you best
how to go to Heaven’s rest,
the man of science must best know
the facts of how the Heavens go –
Your rock of ages, he’ll not mock;
allow him but to age this rock!

FALWELL
Yes, God hates sin, for in his heaven,
he thought to give us nine-eleven,
and forest fires and hurricanes,
and sharks and women’s menstrual pains.
And what most angers God Most High?
The very things that you deny!
The things you’ve said, and would say next,
about the truth of holy text!
An atheist would be no worse –
you love the chapter, hate the verse!
He loves the sinner, who hates the sin
of Ignorance – so let’s begin.

GOULD
In short, the story’s sorely needing,
if taken as a literal reading.
Were but the Book more scientific,
I should embrace your meta-physic.
But if we never reach for more
than first we grasp, what’s meta for?
You say a man, his sons, their wives,
account for all those now alive,
that these scant few were charged to bring
each beast and bird and creeping thing…

FALWELL
…Et cetera. I’ll help you think
more clearly on it, ere you sink

yet deeper into doubt, and dare
to slander God (and on the air!)
For you are blind, your ears are closed,
but we have viewers unexposed
to wicked theory, evidence,
and Satan’s games (“experiments")
you dare call proof. And though you sin,
I shall build on what is in
the Word of God – for them, not you.
My Science fleshes out what’s true:
The Bible, as King James records –
for real Science is the Lord’s.

False “scientists,” (for instance, you,)
obscure the facts we know are true,
find men of God, and slander them,
preferring choice ad hominem
attacks, to argument from reason,
and thereby lend yourselves to treason,
murder, rape, and child-molesting –
for were there present no arresting
officer, you would not scruple
to steal from neighbor, wife, or pupil.
Your “ethics” may be good and well –
But who trusts men who fear not Hell?

They interrupt, they overstate,
and by loquacious phrase, create
a din of doubt, to Truth’s small voice,
to overpower man’s free choice
of good and evil, life and death,
by wasting wicked thought and breath
on things outside the Bible’s mention,
while trumpeting their good intention!
What makes more sense, this endless prattle,
or the Bible’s simple battle,
between Our Lord, and Evil Forces
bent on abortions and divorces?
And this is why the “scientist’s” speech
concerns itself with grasp and reach:

the “scientist” will trust conjecture,
(it sometimes makes for quite a lecture,)
before the Word of God Himself!
To keep your Bible on the shelf,
not in your hands, before your eyes,
he wastes your time and “verifies”
the speed at which an object falls,
when dropped from distant tower walls,
and every other trifling thing
which he imagines he can bring
into a story told by God –
like planting weeds in Eden’s sod!

So when he speaks, do not be fooled;
The phrase is not As good as Gould.
Distraction is his stock in trade,
and lengthy discourse, plainly made
to cause a faithful soul to stray –
a man of God to lose his way
and question Scripture, never shown
to be in doubt – to make his own
un-Godly, ego driven case,
without one verse to shore its base.
To purge God’s word, this academic
will shun no trick of false polemic.

Now to the case: I shan’t explain
Adam’s fate, nor that of Cain,
for Adam died, and Cain as well
(we think at least, though he did dwell
in Nod, who knows how many years;
he left the story, shed no tears –
all further talk of Cain’s a fable.
Could he survive? He was not able.)
And Seth, the third of Adam’s blood,
Knew Noah’s father, but no Flood;
Seth’s son Enosh saw Noah born,
five more begats then followed on.

The Bible says they perished not
ere Noah entered in the plot,
And each, in a century or two,
produced an heir. Now Noah, true,
delayed begetting five hundred years;
and so, was spared as many tears.
For just Methuselah would be
alive when earth slipped under sea.
Two generations died before
the time of Noah, and many more
as Noah passed the long long wait,
before he deigned to procreate.

Now when black pitch and gopher wood
became his Ark, the neighborhood
was much more varied; ice and beach
were set in Noah’s easy reach.
And when the beasts outran their captor,
perhaps he rode velociraptor,
pterodactyl, or tyrannosaurus –
The Bible’s mute, but Noah’s chore is
daunting: save a breeding pair
of all on earth and in the air.
So polar bears, komodos, ants,
as well as mice and elephants,

and flies and each “archaic” form
would need room in the floating dorm,
and every species, great and small
would need a cage or perch or stall –
a million species, give or take,
our hero found – no piece of cake!
Now add to that the varied feed
he would, throughout the deluge, need.
We know not how his galley rated,
no doubt, though, much was dehydrated.

Now what with feed and various fauna,
the decks were from the first a sauna,
if not for the clever ventilation
not in the text, but every station
the Ark contained, on-deck, below,
had access to a fresh’ning flow
of oxygen; rain helped with this,
for water, through electrolysis
made air to breathe, and hydrogen
for heat and light. And this, again,
while not in Scripture, must have been
for Scripture to be true as seen.

Square footage was a hundred thousand,
among three decks. Let’s say a mouse and
mate could comfortably exist
in one square foot. I have no list,
but say your million species could
stack snugly in our gopher wood.
Now clearly, they were well-behaved,
for of those species Noah saved
were all the predators and prey,
and things the fossil records say
once walked or crept upon the land.
But God is wise, so must have planned

a way to feed them for a year
(the time it took the Flood to clear,
and time for all to disembark,)
And so indulge me, for a lark:
With all these beasts in all these places,
perhaps each spent some time in stasis.
And how to fuel it? No confusion,
the power must have come from fusion,
to keep the cargo neatly froze,
until such time as Noah chose
to send the dove, to understand
the ratio of sea to land.

Though of the cloth, I’m not unread:
It’s simpler than the three hundred
and seventy five generations
of fly we’d need for the occasion –
Consider termites, who think it good
to dine each day on gopher wood,
and what of beavers on all fours,
and keeping small young dinosaurs?
Yes, fusion stasis best explains
how Noah brought them through the rains –
Occam’s Razor, Rock of Ages, Hawking’s papers
by turns explain our hero’s capers.

GOULD
The simplest explanation is the best…

FALWELL
Long-winded academic! Take a rest!

Hold your tongue, be like a mime,
lest Russett say we’re out of time
before I tell of Babel’s tower –
we have left but a half an hour –
and after all, it’s of a piece;
so from rebuttal kindly cease.
My point of view is Genesis,
you must indulge my views in this,
not censor them as controversial…

DIRECTOR
For God’s sake, have we no commercials???