''Gopher wood'' or ''gopherwood'' is a term used once in the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...

for the material used to construct

Noah's ark Noah's Ark ( he, תיבת נח; Biblical Hebrew: ''Tevat Noaḥ'')The word "ark" in modern English comes from Old English ''aerca'', meaning a chest or box. (See Cresswell 2010, p.22) The Hebrew word for the vessel, ''teva'', occurs twice in ...

. Genesis 6:14 states that Noah was instructed to build the Ark of (), commonly transliterated as wood, a word not otherwise used in the Bible or the

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

language in general. Although some English Bibles attempt a translation, older English translations such as the

King James Version The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an Bible translations into English, English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and publis ...

(17th century) leave it untranslated. The word is unrelated to the North American animal known as the

gopher Pocket gophers, commonly referred to simply as gophers, are burrowing rodents of the family Geomyidae. The roughly 41 speciesSearch results for "Geomyidae" on thASM Mammal Diversity Database are all endemic to North and Central America. They are ...

Identity

The Greek

Septuagint The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond ...

(3rd–1st centuries BC) translated the phrase mentioning gopher wood as (), 'out of squared timber'. Similarly, the Latin

Vulgate The Vulgate (; also called (Bible in common tongue), ) is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels u ...

(5th century AD) rendered it as (, in the spelling of the

Clementine Vulgate The Sixto-Clementine Vulgate or Clementine Vulgate () is the edition promulgated in 1592 by Pope Clement VIII of the Vulgate—a 4th-century Latin translation of the Bible that was written largely by Jerome. It was the second edition of the ...

), 'of timber planks'. ''

The Jewish Encyclopedia ''The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the Present Day'' is an English-language encyclopedia containing over 15,000 articles on th ...

'' states that it was most likely a translation of the Babylonian , 'cedar beams', or the Assyrian , 'reeds'. The

Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...

Targum Onkelos Interlinear text of Hebrew Numbers 6.3–10 with British_Library.html"_;"title="Aramaic_Targum_Onkelos_from_the_British_Library">Aramaic_Targum_Onkelos_from_the_British_Library. Targum_Onkelos_(or_Onqelos;_Hebrew_language.html" "title="B ...

, considered by many Jews to be an authoritative translation of the Hebrew scripture, renders this word as , 'cedar'. The

Syriac Syriac may refer to: *Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic *Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region * Syriac alphabet ** Syriac (Unicode block) ** Syriac Supplement * Neo-Aramaic languages a ...

Peshitta The Peshitta ( syc, ܦܫܺܝܛܬܳܐ ''or'' ') is the standard version of the Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition, including the Maronite Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church, ...

translates this word as , '

box A box (plural: boxes) is a container used for the storage or transportation of its contents. Most boxes have flat, parallel, rectangular sides. Boxes can be very small (like a matchbox) or very large (like a shipping box for furniture), and can ...

'. Many modern English translations favor '' cypress'' (otherwise referred to in Biblical Hebrew as ). This was espoused (among others) by

Adam Clarke Adam Clarke (176226 August 1832) was a British Methodist theologian who served three times as President of the Wesleyan Methodist Conference (1806–07, 1814–15 and 1822–23). A biblical scholar, he published an influential Bible commentar ...

, a

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...

theologian Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

famous for his commentary on the Bible: Clarke cited a resemblance between

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

word for cypress, , and the Hebrew word . Likewise, the (20th century) has it as ('out of cypress wood'). Others, noting the visual similarity between the

Hebrew letters The Hebrew alphabet ( he, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewis ...

''g'' (''gimel'' ) and ''k'' (''kaf'' ), suggest that the word may actually be , the Hebrew word meaning ' pitch'; thus wood would be 'pitched wood'. Recent suggestions have included a lamination process (to strengthen the Ark), or a now-lost type of tree, but there is no consensus.

References

External links

Gopherwood and Construction of the ArkThe Free Dictionary - "Gopherwood"
(giving a definition of ''Cladrastis kentukea'') {{DEFAULTSORT:Gopher Wood Noah's Ark Wood Plants in the Bible Plant common names