Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Why would a young-earth creationist organization work so hard to argue that the “pitch” Noah used to seal the ark wasn’t tar after all? In this video I look at a short ICR article by geologist Timothy Clarey that uses a 2,000-year-old Roman shipwreck to reinterpret a single Hebrew word in Genesis 6:14.
Clarey argues that the ark’s waterproofing was tree resin and beeswax rather than bitumen — and he’s candid about why: flood geology needs the world’s oil and bitumen to be products of the Flood, so there couldn’t have been any petroleum around before it. I walk through the Hebrew word kofer and its Akkadian cognate kupru, the bitumen-sealed boats of the Gilgamesh epic, and the rare word tevah that links Noah’s ark to the basket that saved baby Moses. Along the way I show how the “plain reading” ICR usually champions is exactly what gets set aside here, and why the real pressure isn’t coming from the text at all.
Chapters
0:00 Introduction — Clarey’s ICR article on pitch
0:23 What “pitch” means and why it matters
1:51 The Hebrew word argument: kofer as “money”
2:44 Is bitumen a modern reading smuggled in?
4:33 Kofer, Akkadian kupru, and the Gilgamesh flood
6:54 The “money” reading and Hebrew homonyms
9:16 Two arks: Noah and baby Moses
12:18 The irony of the “plain reading”
13:51 Why flood geology needs oil from the Flood
14:42 Roman dates accepted, Mesopotamian dates waved away
15:45 The faithful move: trust the text
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joel Duff (aka Dr. Duff or The Natural Historian) resources:
About: joelduff.org
Blog: thenaturalhistorian.com
Twitter: twitter.com/NaturalHistoria
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thenaturalhi...
Photography "Portraits of Creation:" beechnutphotography.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why would a young-earth creationist organization work so hard to argue that the “pitch” Noah used to seal the ark wasn’t tar after all? In this video I look at a short ICR article by geologist Timothy Clarey that uses a 2,000-year-old Roman shipwreck to reinterpret a single Hebrew word in Genesis 6:14.
Clarey argues that the ark’s waterproofing was tree resin and beeswax rather than bitumen — and he’s candid about why: flood geology needs the world’s oil and bitumen to be products of the Flood, so there couldn’t have been any petroleum around before it. I walk through the Hebrew word kofer and its Akkadian cognate kupru, the bitumen-sealed boats of the Gilgamesh epic, and the rare word tevah that links Noah’s ark to the basket that saved baby Moses. Along the way I show how the “plain reading” ICR usually champions is exactly what gets set aside here, and why the real pressure isn’t coming from the text at all.
Chapters
0:00 Introduction — Clarey’s ICR article on pitch
0:23 What “pitch” means and why it matters
1:51 The Hebrew word argument: kofer as “money”
2:44 Is bitumen a modern reading smuggled in?
4:33 Kofer, Akkadian kupru, and the Gilgamesh flood
6:54 The “money” reading and Hebrew homonyms
9:16 Two arks: Noah and baby Moses
12:18 The irony of the “plain reading”
13:51 Why flood geology needs oil from the Flood
14:42 Roman dates accepted, Mesopotamian dates waved away
15:45 The faithful move: trust the text
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joel Duff (aka Dr. Duff or The Natural Historian) resources:
About: joelduff.org
Blog: thenaturalhistorian.com
Twitter: twitter.com/NaturalHistoria
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thenaturalhi...
Photography "Portraits of Creation:" beechnutphotography.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
