Noah's ark was circular

“That they processed aboard the enormous floating wildlife collection two-by-two is well known. Less familiar, however, is the possibility that the animals Noah shepherded on to his ark then went round and round inside.”

Last month, this news came out all over the net. The historian who made such conclusion is Leonard Simmons. He discovered this information through an ancient Babylonian inscription on a clay tablet telling the story of the ark. The aged tablet is calculated to be 3,700 years old and was found somewhere in the Middle East.

Perhaps one of the greatest inventions of humankind is the written language. (be it hieroglyphics, cuneiform, Asian characters, braille, etc). It is not only used for communication, but it gives society a sense of the past. Why? Because the whole fabric of history itself is based on written records - government papers, diaries, letters, inscriptions, biographies, and many others. Positive law itself traces its history from the written language. One of the best known collections of written laws, is that of Hammurabi, king of Babylon (the Code of Hammurabi which was inscribed on a stone pillar). And, of course, there’s also the famous Ten Commandments presented by Moises to the people of Israel.

Democracy itself traces its roots in the written constitution. As eloquently stated in Marbury vs Madison, “That the people have an original right to establish, for their future government, such principles as, in their opinion, shall most conduce to their own happiness is the basis on which the whole American fabric had been erected.” (Such exercise of writing the Constitution was therein described as a “very great exertion, thus it ought not to be frequently repeated, and therefore, the principles so established are deemed fundamental).

Now, the written language can be found in more complicated and diverse forms. As we have discussed in our class earlier, computers operate through the use of the binary code (based on 1’s and 0’s). The websites appear as we see it in our computers because of HTML – Hyper Text Markup Language. With the advancement of technology comes also the advancement of written communication, i.e., text messages, email, etc. Now, we already have the privilege of reading our laws (and jurisprudence) through various websites.

Who knows? Probably in the next century, through their system of information technology, people would be amazed to find out the so-called “computer screen” was rectangular.

(Thirteenth entry)

Sources:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/01/noahs-ark-was-circular
Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137; 2 L. Ed. 60 (1803) –also inspired by our JudRev class under Justice V.V. Mendoza :)
Compton’s Interactive Encyclopedia Deluxe
image from : http://www.ancient-bulgaria.com/images/7000_years_stone_tablet_bul.gif (*not the stone tablet discovered by Leonard Simmons)