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.
That's just great! Thanks!
"Using this same logic however, sea shells should not be found above 13,000 feet, but they still are."
Continental drift and upthrust.
"Look at it this way...if the faithful are wrong...and there is no life beyond this existance....big deal....we're still dead... "
I don't understand how if these stories turn out to be wrong it would destroy one's belief in God? If your belief in God rests on a book then you haven't found God.
Is there a Mrs. Ark?
Maybe she had the tablets engraved and said; "Now Noah, pay particular attention to the covet one.
At that, Noah went to his workshop and got his tools. He left a note for Mrs. Ark.
GONE FISHING!!
Mrs. Ark always wondered what happened. "The boys" told her one thing. The local gossips..another.
No, you are afraid to confront reality and think that if you have to answer those questions, your faith will suffer. You all can't use the Noah story as a historical fact on one hand, and as a miracle on the other. You claim it happened, show me some proof, and answer the logistical questions I asked.
Use the brain God gave you, not using it would be a sin.
Boats made of steel don't sink. Why would a boat made of petrified wood? ;^)
I have a book called "Noah's Ark: I Touched It" by Fernando Navarra that has some amazing photos of large beams of dark wood taken from the believed site of the ark on Ararat. There is no wood that grows that high up and he had it carbon tested which showed it is about 5000 years old. The CIA also has some still classified photos that they called the Ararat analomy and many who have seen those photos said it is a large ship. I don't know why those photos are still classified but there was a guy on coasttocoast who is trying to get them released to the public.
It is pretty clear this is not Noah's Ark, and Noah's Ark probably did not survive.
But, if you choose to label the Bible as fable, I will have to part ways with you.
The flood happened. If it didn't, I would have to reject my faith, for the Bible would be a lie.
It did happen, regardless of what you think.
"How many cubic miles of water would it take to raise the sea level even one mile?"
Why are you asking a question you don't know the answer to, yet using it to dismiss an idea?
There is more water IN the earth than ON it. What's more all that water getting out would wreak havoc well beyond a mere static deluge.
Well, I *have* run the numbers. I *have* thought about the mechanics and devastation associated by the transport of this volume of water. I don't think many of the biblical-flood proponents have thought about it seriously.
No-win? Are you suggesting that no minds have ever been changed in these debates? ,-}
While I agree that many cultures have apocalyptic myths in their history, the poster's inference was that they are universal and the support a one time global flood. And it's nonsense. He generally references an admittedly outdated book with non-specific cites. So why believe the Noah's Ark story over the others when it makes so little sense? For instance, where was the break in Egyptian history around 2400 BC? There wasn't one, let alone a break for 100's of years because there were only 8 people left on Earth and they were stuck on Ararat (or in Iran).
PS: I survived a flood that killed 254 people in Rapid City, SD, in June, 1972.
That Ark gets discovered roughly every decade or so.
Sometimes twice a quarter, go figure.
It has nothing to do with believing the bible is false. The ark story is a story, a fable, handed down across time, not a historical event.
You are refusing to think rationally. Faith is one thing, pure ignorance is another.
Navarra's stuff was part of a hoax.
http://www.discord.org/~lippard/skeptic/02.4.lippard-ark-hoax.html
UPDATE ON THE ARK HOAX
By Jim Lippard
There have been a number of noteworthy comments on George Jammal's Noah's Ark hoax since I wrote my article on the subject for the last issue of Skeptic. Of these, two have come from individuals criticized in my article. First, John Morris of the ICR published an article in which he admitted that he had been hoaxed. Second, David Balsiger issued a press release in January, 1994, which he claimed to have uncovered evidence that the hoax was part of a massive humanist conspiracy to discredit Christianity in general and Sun International Pictures in particular. Both of these commentaries are highly misleading. Morris's article, far from being the repentant apology and retraction which was warranted, makes the following claims:
1. His initial response to the hoax charges pointed out "certain inaccuracies" in the Time magazine article, in particular that "LaRue [sic] could not have made up the story himself, as he claimed." Time did err in reporting that Larue initiated the hoax, but this does not appear to be something Larue has ever claimed. This is the only error in the Time article Morris pointed out, so he is mistaken to speak of "inaccuracies."
2. "Many have subsequently charged me in print and on the nationally syndicated TV show 'Inside Edition' with impropriety, claiming that since I had placed Sun in touch with Jammal, I must take full responsibility." I have read numerous articles on the Ark hoax and viewed the 'Inside Edition' show, but nowhere have I seen anyone claim that Morris "must take full responsibility." Instead, I have seen claims that he must bear some responsibility, and that is certainly true. Nowhere in Morris's pseudo-retraction does he accept any responsibility.
3. Jammal's story "differed remarkably from those of all other eyewitnesses, and I suspected he was mistaken." Morris doesn't say what he thinks Jammal was mistaken about, and he omits to mention his statement to Sun International Pictures that "It is my impression that [Jammal] was on Mt. Ararat. He seems to know Lake Kop and described in reasonable detail the area nearby." Morris made no public criticisms of Jammal's story until after the hoax allegations surfaced, and even then his first reaction was to defend Jammal.
4. "It is only when Dr. LaRue [sic], a man who certainly knows better, got involved, that the story escalated to the sensational, for without the doctored wood, Jammal's story would probably not have been used." This is mistaken. Jammal had already prepared his wood independently of advice from Larue. Morris also conveniently forgets that it was Sun International Pictures that escalated the story to the sensational.
Morris concludes that "If nothing else, this event shows the depth to which some people will stoop to try to discredit those who believe in the Bible." In fact, it is Morris and Sun International Pictures who have discredited themselves by demonstrating excessive carelessness about the facts. It is amazing to me that Morris bends over backwards to avoid accepting the slightest responsibility for the success of the hoax, or even acknowledging that any criticisms of Sun International Pictures might be deserved.
Former Sun International Pictures researcher David Balsiger's press release also neglects to take any responsibility for the airing of the hoax, and makes numerous claims including:
1. Jammal's hoax "was part of a fully orchestrated effort in the news media by atheists and secular humanists with their advocacy organizations to discredit the entire Noah's Ark TV Special, the CBS-Television Network for running biblical-themed shows, and my reputation as a TV researcher and field producer-director of family and biblical-themed shows." As my article in Skeptic showed, the only person involved in the original hoax was George Jammal. Gerald Larue got involved when Sun International Pictures became interested in Jammal, and no one else got involved until after the pseudo-documentary was aired.
2. "Balsiger has determined that the entire media discrediting campaign was orchestrated by Dr. Larue and his well-known humanist associate, Dr. Paul Kurtz, the president, chairman, or editor of several humanist organizations and publications." Paul Kurtz's only involvement was to aid in the distribution of a press release revealing the hoax and to publish several excellent and accurate articles about the hoax.
3. "No one has come forward with claims or evidence that any of these remaining eyewitness accounts are perpetrated hoaxes on CBS." Balsiger has made this claim numerous times, and it has been false every time he has made it--and he knows this. The May 1993 Ararat Report (as well as earlier issues of that publication) gave substantial evidence that Ed Behling, Ed Davis, and Fernand Navarra are not eyewitnesses of Noah's Ark. Balsiger was also personally warned (and given the evidence) long before Sun's program aired by Bill Crouse, the editor of Ararat Report, that these alleged witnesses were unreliable. There was no orchestrated media conspiracy by skeptics and humanists, and Balsiger fails to mention the negative coverage of his Ark show which appeared in Christian publications such as Ararat Report (May 1993), Facts & Faith (Spring 1993), Does God Exist? (September/October 1993), Christian News (several 1993 issues), and the Bible-Science News (31:5, 1993).
The failure of Balsiger and Morris to admit their errors, to accept any responsibility for the success of Jammal's hoax, or to even attempt to address the substantial criticisms which have been raised against Sun's Ark program demonstrates that they are unreliable sources of information on the subject of Noah's Ark. Creationists in particular and Christians in general would be wise to avoid reliance on either of them, and to publicly distance themselves from inaccurate claims of these men.
Genesis:
Wood From Noah's Ark?
Navarra claims to have brought back pieces of wood from the Ark, but when these were laboratory tested by radiocarbon analysis, they only dated back to about 700 AD. (Bailey 1977, 137). For more Ark hoaxes see Sun Pictures and the Noah's Ark Hoax.
http://www.bibleandscience.com/bible/books/genesis/wood.htm
Good point. It reminds me of a passage from Cornelius Van Til:
"Take now the four points I have mentioned -- creation, providence, prophecy, and miracle. Together they represent the whole of Christian theism. Together they include what is involved in the idea of God and what He has done round about and for us. Many times over and in many ways the evidence for all these has been presented. But you have an always available and effective answer at hand. It is impossible! It is impossible! You act like a postmaster who has received a great many letters addressed in foreign languages. He says he will deliver them as soon as they are addressed in the King's English by the people who sent them. Till then they must wait in the dead letter department. Basic to all the objections the average philosopher and scientist raises against the evidence for the existence of God is the assertion or the assumption that to accept such evidence would be to break the rules of logic."
I said dated, not outdated. There is a difference.
There is plenty of evidence of a global flood, but that is not why I believe in the Genesis Flood. That event is revealed in God's Word.
Many of the most trivial details of the Bible are confirmed by archeological discoveries, not that the Bible needs it.
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