Posted on 07/07/2006 10:05:17 PM PDT by freedom44
High in the mountains of northwestern Iran, a Christian archaeology expedition has discovered a rock formation that its members say resembles the fabled Noah's ark.
The team discovered the prominent boat-shaped rocks at just over 13,000 feet (4,000 meters) on Mount Suleiman in Iran's Elburz mountain range.
"It looks uncannily like wood," said Robert Cornuke, president of the Bible Archaeology Search and Exploration Institute (BASE), the Palmer Lake, Colorado-based group that launched the expedition.
Photos taken by BASE members show a prow-shaped rock outcrop, which the team says resembles petrified wood, emerging from a ridge.
"We have had [cut] thin sections of the rock made, and we can see [wood] cell structures," Cornuke said.
Cornuke acknowledges that it may be hard to prove that this object was Noah's ark. But he says he is fairly convinced that the rock formation was an important place of pilgrimage in the past.
The BASE team has uncovered evidence of an ancient shrine near the outcrop, suggesting that this was an important place to people in the past, Cornuke says.
"We can't claim to have conclusively found the ark, but it does look like the object that the ancients talked about," Cornuke said.
Noah and the Flood
The story of Noah's ark is told in three major world religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
The Book of Genesis describes a great flood created by God "to destroy all life under the heavens."
But before the flood, God told Noah, one of his human followers, to build an ark and fill it with two of every species on the Earth.
But this location doesn't fit the description given in Genesis of the ark's passengers journeying from the east to arrive at Mesopotamia.
Cornuke and his team think that Mount Ararat might be a red herring.
"The Bible gives us a compass direction here, and it is not in the direction of Turkey. Instead it points directly towards Iran," Cornuke said.
Pilgrim Shrine?
Using the Book of Genesis and other literary sources, the BASE team journeyed to Iran in July 2005 to climb Mount Suleiman.
They chose Mount Suleiman after reading the notes of 19th-century British explorer A. H. McMahan.
In 1894, after climbing Mount Suleiman, McMahan wrote in his journal, "According to some, Noah's ark alighted here after the deluge."
McMahan also spoke of wood fragments from a shrine at the top of the mountain where unknown people had made pilgrimages to the site.
"We found a shrine and wood fragments at 15,000 feet [4,570 meters] elevation, as described by McMahan," Cornuke said.
Subsequent carbon dating of samples from the shrine showed the wood fragments from the site to be around 500 years old.
Lower on the mountain, expedition members came across the ark-like rock formation, which they estimate to be about 400 feet (122 meters) long.
Rocks From the Sea?
Not everyone is convinced by the BASE team's claims.
Kevin Pickering, a geologist at University College London who specializes in sedimentary rocks, doesn't think that the ark-like rocks are petrified wood.
"The photos appear to show iron-stained sedimentary rocks, probably thin beds of silicified sandstones and shales, which were most likely laid down in a marine environment a long time ago," he said.
Pickering thinks that the BASE team may have mistaken the thin layers in the sediment for wood grain and the more prominent layers as beams of wood.
"The wider layers in the rock are what we call bedding planes," he said.
"They show fracture patterns that we associate with … the Earth processes that caused the rocks to be uplifted to their present height."
The boat-shaped structure can also be explained geologically, says retired British geologist Ian West, who has studied Middle Eastern sediments.
"Iran is famous for its small folds, many of which are the oil traps. Their oval, ark-like shape is classical," he said.
Meanwhile, ancient timber specialist Martin Bridge, of England's Oxford Dendrochronology Laboratory, is doubtful that a wooden structure would have lasted long enough to petrify under ordinary conditions.
"Wood will only survive for thousands of years if it is buried in very wet conditions or remains in an extremely arid environment," he said.
Bible scholars think that Noah built his ark somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago, making preservation highly unlikely except in extreme environmental conditions.
And even if the wood had petrified, there seems to be little evidence of Noah's carpentry, according to Robert Spicer, a geologist at England's Open University who specializes in the study of petrification.
"What needs to be documented in this case are preserved, human-made joints, such as scarf, mortice and tenon, or even just pegged boards. I see none of this in the pictures. It's all very unconvincing," Spicer said.
Bridge, the Oxford timber specialist, points out that it would also be impossible for a boat to run aground at 13,000 feet.
"If you put all the water in the world together, melting both the ice caps and all the glaciers, you still wouldn't reach anywhere near the top of the mountain," he said.
It takes faith to belive a fable, even though you know it is unprovable and impossible.
We all have a hearty laugh when we read about scientology and its silly stories of Xenu and engrams. But, look at the ark story outside your religion, and think. Its just as silly.
No one here has yet explained what the animals ate, how they got there, how they got home and how a wooden boat could be built large enough without cracking under its own weight.
Ah, so God wants us not to think? Just be little automatons, willfully ignorant of science and reason?
Sounds more like you just want to be an unthinking slave.
I went to the link you posted. There I read the section titled How Accurate Is Radiocarbon Dating? because that is a field I actually know something about.
The article is loaded with the standard creationist nonsense.
Why should I believe any of the rest of Dr. Brown's writing if the one article I can actually judge the accuracy of is so full of errors?
Is he hoping people won't know the difference?
Sorry, another example of creation "science" failing to include real science.
You can't win an argument by explaining away every thing as a miracle. Its a cop out.
You do realize the winning bet in Pascals Wager was Roman Catholicism? All other choices lose
That is where you get sloppy, you have a story and you try to build science to support the story, rather than use the scientific method of discovery.
Sloppy science.
How did the sloth swim back to the amazon?
Oh, yeah, a Miracle!
Was I talking to you?
Yoo were talking to anybody who heard you.
You laughably say that perhaps the animals sensed a disaster and returned when it was over, well what did they eat? Where are the fossil records? How did they swim across the Atlantic and Pacific to get home with no food?
How do we know which continents & oceans were around then? The Bible speaks of the land arising from the water, not lands. How do you know that the oceans' water didn't come from this flood?
No one who keeps their head in the sand...
"You are dead wrong regarding most Christians believing the Genesis story is allegorical."
Actually, I don't think that's the case. The Roman Catholic Church, absolutely the largest denomination of Christianity has said that it does not think the 7-day Genesis account is literally accurate, and accepts evolution as the mechanism of speciation.
Perhaps you don't consider Roman Catholics to be Christians, but that's a big stretch. In addition, most mainstream Protestant churches also teach the allegorical nature of the creation story, and other stories like the noachian flood.
Beliefs vary among Christians regarding the literal acceptance of Old Testament stories, particularly of Genesis.
"How do we know which continents & oceans were around then? The Bible speaks of the land arising from the water, not lands. How do you know that the oceans' water didn't come from this flood?
"
When is it that you think the flood occurred? If you answer that question, then I can answer yours.
Ah. Of course it's not "proof" that they didn't find the Ark. I do, however, have an opinion on what it is. See post #47
How do we know?
Science!
We know about continental drift and where the landmasses were millions of years ago. Of course, lots of ark believers think the earth is 5000 years old.
You ark folk are bending over backwards with unprovable theories, a bunch of "perhaps" and "maybe" and other mental gymnastics because you are beginning realize that the ark story was a fable, but you still want to believe, like a child trying to rationalize Santa Claus.
I never claimed to be "creationist"...I'm fankly surprised at the anti religious retoric so willingly dished out by a few...
How about you save you hatred for the jihadists eh?
You know...the people who cut yer head off for non belief...
All of this would be visible in the remains.
It is hilarious that educated people can act so ignorantly.
However I would believe that it was Noah's Ark if there were better identification such as: a Liberian registration number, a Carnival Cruise brochure, a flag of any kind (including semaphore), the letters HMS NOAH inscribed anywhere, a recovered cannon, amphora bottles......
I believe that God wants me to be wise enough to know that some words of man are fallible and need interpretation. Especially stories repeated by hearsay for thousands of years.
If those words are inconsistent with logic and cause me to doubt my faith in God then those words should be doubted instead, perhaps ignored, perhaps understood in the historical light of those who wrote them.
Even the ten commandments forbid me from stealing my neighbors ass, but say nothing about stealing his Lincoln Navigator. Oh well, I can't afford the gas anyway.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.