As far as the wood goes, the traditional ("Biblical") material for Noah's boat (why is this one ship called an ark and no other? It's teivah in Hebrew) is "gopher wood", the term used in the King James Version of the Bible (1611). However, as this Blueletter Bible link shows, this is simply a transliteration of the Hebrew word, suggesting that the KJV translators did not know what tree it referred to. Blueletter's Strong's reference suggests "cypress?" but it's clear there's no more certainty about it today than there was in 1611. The New English Bible says "cypress". The Latin vulgate says "levigatis", whatever that means. The 1941 Smith-Goodspeed The Bible: An American Translation says "oleander wood". Somewhere I've seen "acacia" suggested, I'm fairly sure, but I don't recall where. My Japanese Bible says "itosugi", which is cypress. My Spanish, Hindi and Esperanto Bibles all go with orthographic variants of gopher (gofer, gofera, goper respectively). Of course, I have no idea what words the Buckle Busters sing. Nor any idea why anyone would think "gopher" triple-XXX-ratable.

Liland