The ark is no strange tale
Next he says this: “Then a flood, and a strange ark with everything inside it (Genesis 6:14–7:16), and a dove and a crow as messengers (Genesis 8:6–12), counterfeiting and tampering with the story of Deucalion. For I do not suppose they expected that these things would come to light; they simply told myths to little children.”
Here too, see the man’s unphilosophical hatred of the most ancient Scripture of the Jews. For he could find nothing to say against the story of the flood, and he did not notice what he could have said against the ark and its measurements: that if one takes, as the many do, the statement of “three hundred cubits” for the length “of the ark,” “and fifty” for the breadth, “and thirty” for the height (Genesis 6:15), it was not possible to claim that it held the animals of the earth, the clean by fourteen of each kind and the unclean by four (Genesis 7:2–3). Instead he simply said “strange, with everything inside.”
For what is strange about it, when the record says it was a hundred years in the making, and narrowed from the three hundred cubits of its length and the fifty of its breadth until the thirty cubits of its height ended in a single cubit of length and breadth (Genesis 6:16)? Why was the structure not rather a marvel, like a very great city, since its measurements are given as squares, so that its length at the base is ninety thousand and its breadth two thousand five hundred? Why should one not admire the design that made it firmly braced and able to withstand a storm that brought on a flood? For it was smeared not with pitch or any other such material, but solidly with asphalt (Genesis 6:14). And is it not a marvel that, by the providence of God, embers of life of every kind were brought inside, so that the earth might again have the seeds of all living creatures (Genesis 7:3), God making use of a most righteous man (Genesis 6:9), who was to be the father of those who came after the flood?
Greek
Ἑξῆς δὲ τοιαῦτά φησιν· εἶτα κατακλυσμόν τινα καὶ κιβωτὸν ἀλλόκοτον, ἅπαντα ἔνδον ἔχουσαν, καὶ περιστεράν τινα καὶ κορώνην ἀγγέλους, παραχαράττοντες καὶ ῥᾳδιουργοῦντες τὸν Δευκαλίωνα· οὐ γὰρ οἶμαι προσεδόκησαν ὅτι ταῦτ᾿ εἰς φῶς πρόεισιν, ἀλλ᾿ ἀτεχνῶς παισὶ νηπίοις ἐμυθολόγησαν. καὶ ἐν τούτοις δὴ ὅρα τὴν ἀφιλόσοφον ἀπέχθειαν τοῦ ἀνδρὸς πρὸς τὴν ἀρχαιοτάτην Ἰουδαίων γραφήν. οὐ γὰρ ἔχων τὴν περὶ κατακλυσμοῦ ἱστορίαν κακολογεῖν οὐδ᾿ ἐπιστήσας οἷς ἐδύνατο λέγειν κατὰ τῆς κιβωτοῦ καὶ τῶν μέτρων αὐτῆς, καὶ ὡς οὐχ οἷόν τ᾿ ἦν κατὰ τὸν τῶν πολλῶν νοῦν ἐκλαμβάνοντα τὰ περὶ τῶν „τριακοσίων“ τοῦ μήκους „τῆς κιβωτοῦ“ „πήχεων“ „καὶ πεντήκοντα“ τοῦ πλάτους „καὶ τριάκοντα“ τοῦ ὕψους φάσκειν αὐτὴν κεχωρηκέναι τὰ ἐπὶ γῆς ζῷα, καθαρὰ μὲν ἀνὰ τέσσαρα καὶ δέκα ἀκάθαρτα δὲ ἀνὰ τέσσαρα· ἁπλῶς εἶπεν ἀλλόκοτον, πάντ᾿ ἔχουσαν ἔνδον. τί γὰρ τὸ ἀλλόκοτον αὐτῆς, ἑκατὸν ἔτεσιν ἱστορουμένης γεγενῆσθαι καὶ συναγομένης ἀπὸ τῶν „τριακοσίων“ τοῦ μήκους „πήχεων“ καὶ τῶν „πεντήκοντα“ τοῦ πλάτους, ἕως οἱ τοῦ ὕψους πήχεις „τριάκοντα“ καταλήξουσιν εἰς ἕνα πῆχυν μήκους καὶ πλάτους; πῶς δ᾿ οὐχὶ μᾶλλον θαυμαστὸν ἦν τὸ κατασκεύασμα καὶ μεγίστῃ πόλει ἐοικὸς τῷ δυνάμει λέγεσθαι τὰ μέτρα, ὡς ἐννέα μὲν εἶναι μυριάδων τὸ μῆκος κατὰ τὴν βάσιν κατὰ δὲ τὸ πλάτος δισχιλίων πεντακοσίων; πῶς δ᾿ οὐκ ἦν θαυμάσαι τὴν ἐπίνοιαν τοῦ ἐρηρεισμένην γενέσθαι καὶ δυναμένην ὑπομεῖναι χειμῶνα κατακλυσμοῦ ποιητικόν; καὶ γὰρ οὐ πίσσῃ οὐδ᾿ ἄλλῃ τινὶ τοιαύτῃ ὕλῃ, ἀσφάλτῳ δὲ στεῤῥῶς ἐκέχριστο. πῶς δ᾿ οὐ θαυμαστὸν τὸ ζώπυρα παντὸς γένους εἰσάγεσθαι ἔνδον προνοίᾳ θεοῦ. ἵν᾿ ἔχῃ πάντων σπέρματα ζῴων πάλιν ἡ γῆ, τοῦ θεοῦ δικαιοτάτῳ ἀνδρὶ χρησαμένου, πατρὶ ἐσομένῳ τῶν μετὰ τὸν κατακλυσμόν;