Noah's Ark on Mt. Ararat

[JTR]

I was watching a religious channel last night, and I saw a two-hour special about Noah's Ark and how it is currently sitting high on Mt. Ararat. Supposedly it was discovered about 100 years ago; there have been numerous scientific and scholarly expeditions to explore it; for one reason or another the findings and evidence have been lost and all we have today are a couple blurry photographs and some eyewitness accounts; and no one has been able to get up Mt. Ararat and find it in more modern times because the mountain is off-limits due to geopolitical tensions in the region.

I've heard of this particular legend in the past as well, and I always wondered how much of this was actually true. I'm an atheist, and last night's special was so full of creationist baloney that it was impossible to figure out where to draw the line between fact and fiction. I assume that it's probably just another popular religious legend like the origins of the Shroud of Turin. Still, I would be interested in seeing a nice summation of what's currently known about the thing on Mt. Ararat from impartial sources. Is there something actually up there? Does the non-religious community take seriously at all the claim that it might be Noah's Ark? Are geopolitical tensions really keeping people from exploring the site, or is it taken for granted that the thing isn't worth exploring in the first place? What about satellite photos of the spot?

Does anyone have a nice summation of available scientific knowledge about this particular claim? Has Cecil Adams possibly done a column on this subject?

[C K Dexter Haven]

Hey, if they ask you for money to contribute to an expedition, my suggestion is that you'd be better off spending your money buying Brooklyn Bridge from some panhandler.

I should caution that I didn't see the TV show that you mention, but the whole thing rests on a number of dubious premeses. The Hebrew text of the Bible is fairly clear, the Ark comes to rest "on the mountains of Ararat." I don't have a KJV with me, but a mistranslatin of "on Mount Ararat" is just wrong. Ararat is an area, a lofty tableland, that is mentioned several times in the Hebrew Bible other than the Noah story: 2 Kings 19:27, Isaiah 37:38, and Jeremiah 51:27. The area is known as Urartu in Assyrian inscriptions. It is mostly in present-day Armenia, between the River Araxes and Lake Van. The sources of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers are neaerby.

There is no reason to associate the current Mount Ararat in Turkey, with the "mountains of Ararat" of 5,000 years ago.

[David B]

How much is actually true, JTR? None. Zero. Zip. Nada. Nuthin'.

:)

Do you remember the name of the show? I'd be interested to see if somebody is still showing the Sun Pictures schlockumentary from about six years ago.

[JTR]

Hey, thanks for the speedy reply, you guys! Two responses in just an hour, and from an Administrator and a Moderator. And early Saturday morning!

I didn’t see the start of the show, so I don’t know the name of it. It was on PAX channel, and it was actually a couple days ago (I typed the query up the next day but didn’t send it in until this morning).

And yeah, I figured there wasn't anything to it. Ararat isn’t that high or that remote a mountain. I’ve heard it can be seen on a good day from the heights in Yerevan, the capital city of Armenia--it’s not like it’s tucked away somewhere in the Himalayas. So I couldn’t imagine that they haven’t resolved this thing one way or the other.

Still, this old legend has been floating around for a long time, and I wondered it it might have any basis in fact: Is there any sort of wooden structure up there of any sort? Any sort of reason for it to warrant the sort of scientific attention and scrutiny that, for example, the Shroud of Turin got (which was quite a lot, given the nature of the claim).

But from your responses I take it that there’s as much substance to this legend as there is to reports of sightings of Elvis on Mars. And that’s pretty much what I figured. I felt a little silly asking, but I had always wondered...

Thanks again!

[Skaill]

They’ve showed the same if not similar programmes on Discovery Channel in the UK. They are quite old documentaries, but if memory serves me correctly the latter of the series culminated in a few guys getting to the site covertly with some 1st generation ground penetrating radar equipment.
The results seemed to indicate that there was what appeared to be the layout of hull skeleton which was actually fused into the geology, resulting in a ‘structure’ formed of an iron oxide type material.
The dimensions of the object were quite close in cubits to that stated in the bible, close enough to further speculation that it could very well be the remains of the Ark (Noah’s not of the covenant that is).
More ground was given to the speculation the object was genuine in that the Government (Turkey?) had banned all access to the site.
Those arguing against however used the points raised by CKDextHavn almost to the letter, but it is an intruiging dabate with both sides having valid points.
I’ll keep an eye on the TV listings, if any of them come on again (highly likely as its nothing but repeats) I’ll note the name and post it.
Incidentally there’s a couple of not very useful references here but it’s a start http://www.discovered.net/discussion/messages/23.html
one of which mentions “Mysteries of the Ancient World - The Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark" based on the book by Charles Sellier” which could very well be the programme in question.
And whilst on a similar subject, did anyone hear the whole (or any of the) story of the recreation of the Tabernacle that was made by some scientists in the USA. It apparently had to be dismantled quickly as it proved to be such a powerful collector of electricity it proved to be to dangerous to be near (plus rumours of lots of unexplained phenomenon).

[JTR]

....And posts like the one from Skaill remind me how intellectually dishonest religious people can be in their desire to substantiate their beliefs.

Have a good weekend, guys!

[David B]

Skaill: I have incredibly high suspicions that the information you mentioned is 100% bogus (not that you are presenting bogus info on purpose, but that the info you saw was).

Here is a link to two articles on the schlockumentary you mentioned, showing how poor their "research" was:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/ark-hoax.html

You'll notice the second article was written by, well, me. :)

[Skaill]

Wow David B a brilliant read and an excellent statement by yourself.

When you put it in the context of deceiving 40million people it puts it into a whole new perspective.
Jammal should have been a politician then maybe he could have gotten away with a deceit on that scale :-).

The Jammal episode is not one which I have seen as a ‘schlockumentary’, there was certainly no wood sample evidence involved nor a cave nor ice.

The name Ed Behling rings a bell as does Ed Davis, but there were quite a few Ark hunters around the area at the time.
There will always be hoaxes and people to be taken in by them, but the existence of a huge boat shaped depression in the rock near the top of a mountain, that would be a hell of a one to pull off.

[lolagranola]

I've read numerous books about expeditions to Ararat.

There is disagreement on whether or not the mountain currently known as Ararat is the same as the one mentioned in the Bible. It is rather likely that it is not.

There are so many "if's" to this whole thing it seems unlikely that anyone would ever find it, even if it does exist.

I'm sorry. I hit reply thinking that I would make a great post filled with references to the books I own on the subject, written by both believers and non-believers, but to me, the whole thing boils down to "maybe, but probably not".

Creationists desperately want the ark to be found, thinking that it would prove the Bible to be true. I think that finding evidence of a boat in the mountiains would simply prove that water was once high enough to place a boat there. That, to me, is not enough to prove the entire Bible as the literal truth.

[Akatsukami]

Skaill writes: The results seemed to indicate that there was what appeared to be the layout of hull skeleton which was actually fused into the geology, resulting in a ‘structure’ formed of an iron oxide type material.
Given that Noah is specificly stated to have built the Ark out of gopher wood (Gen. 6:14, Gen. 6:22), we may suppose that:
[list=1]
"gopher wood" is a hitherto-unsuspected synonym for "iron"
Genesis is not factually inerrant
The results have nothing to do with the Ark
[/list=1]
I'll take #3, with a side order of #2.

[David B]

Skaill said:
Jammal should have been a politician then maybe he could have gotten away with a deceit on that scale :-). But he did get away with it -- that's just the point. He completely fooled the producers of the show because they didn't bother to do any checking whatsoever. That says something about all the other "evidence" on the show, as well.
The Jammal episode is not one which I have seen as a ‘schlockumentary’, there was certainly no wood sample evidence involved nor a cave nor ice. Well, I'm sure they have removed it by now, even if they are using the rest. They may be dumb, but they aren't that dumb! :)
There will always be hoaxes and people to be taken in by them, but the existence of a huge boat shaped depression in the rock near the top of a mountain, that would be a hell of a one to pull off. You're right, it would. But I'm still waiting to see evidence that such a thing does actually exist.

[Pushkin]

Sounds a bit too much like the guy who reckons the Ark of the Covenant is hidden in Ethiopia in a small village guarded by a blind septuagarian.

[Northern Piper]

no, the Ark of the Covenant is tucked away in a huge govrnment storage area, awaiting proper bureaucratic classification.

[Rhythmdvl]

If you are interested in the legend of the flood and its possible origins, check out the work done by Professors Walter Pitman and Bill Ryan. I've studied Earth Science with both of them (Pitman was one of my advisors in college) and remember hearing them speak around the subject as they were in the earlier stages of the research. They may sound at times like they get carried away with their own theories (especially when an editor or interviewer wants to make his piece more intriguing, i.e. cutting out all of their caveats and tempered speech) but they are both very careful scientists. I haven't read their book on the subject yet, but I have heard from other classmates who have that though it is somewhat awkwardly written, the logic and facts generally hold up.

In short, they propose that around five thousand years or so ago a vast natural dam broke in the Black Sea area, in turn causing mass emigration of the region's inhabitants. This flood (of literally biblical proportions) became ingrained in the stories and legends of the displaced people. They carried the story outward with them, and this is why flood stories are common to many peoples in disparate regions of the world. The proceeding, of course, condenses their theory in ways that would make the editors of Reader's Digest blush. Go here (http://www.bbc.co.uk/horizon/noahtran.shtml) and get a better description of the story from the BBC. Or buy the book.

If their ideas pan out, than it would not be too surprising if archeologists someday find an ark. Sure, lots of people at the time would have built large boats at the time. Rising water levels due to a sea's inundation might have been enough to raise it to an improbable location (though not as ridiculously high as a snow-capped mountain top) and leave it there as the waters receded. And if they do find some sort of large watercraft, won't it be fun debating whether it is an ark or whether it is the ark.


Thanks for listening,

Rhythmdvl

[moderator's note: This thead was really, really, messed up. I cleaned up some corrupt characters in this post in hopes of restoring it. Rhythmdvl, if I changed anything in error, please let me know. -manhattan]

[Edited by manhattan on 09-09-2000 at 06:04 PM]

[David B]

I reviewed the book mentioned above for the newspaper when it first came out. They do indeed have some very interesting information, though the book itself could have used some work.

If anybody is interested, my full review is available on Themestream. You can either go to their site and search for it or e-mail me for the link.

[cheezit]

Rhythmdvl

Your link doesn't work.

[C K Dexter Haven]

<< And whilst on a similar subject, did anyone hear the whole (or any of the) story of the recreation of the Tabernacle that was made by some scientists in the USA. It apparently had to be dismantled quickly as it proved to be such a powerful collector of electricity it proved to be to dangerous to be near (plus rumours of lots of unexplained phenomenon). >>

Oh, Lordy, not this one again. And the Ark of the Covenant was a huge electrical generator (it had rings on the side, that's just like a coiled wire, see?). Did you hear that they found this stick out in the Arabian desert, dating back 3500 years, and when you twist it a certain way, it coils like a serpent? And how about the great huge minaret they found out in Iran, with a carving that said, "Construction on this minaret was ceased because all of a sudden the workers couldn't understand each other."
And there's a lake in the Gallilee region in Israel where, at low tide, the water is deceptively shallow, so that you can walk right across it.

Shall I go on?

No one loses money when they bank on the gullibility of the masses.

[Skaill]

David B Said “But I'm still waiting to see evidence that such a thing does actually exist”
When Skaill said “a huge boat shaped depression in the rock near the top of a mountain”

Well pictures do exist (and I just know your gonna tell me they are a hoax too ;-) sketchy though they may be can be found at this page http://www.anchorstone.com/wyatt/number8.html
In no way do I agree or disagree with the contents of the aforementioned page, but do however believe these may be the same blurry photos which JTR referred to when beginning this thread.

If nothing else, the thing is there, it does exist and it is an anomaly.

Skaill said:
quote:
Jammal should have been a politician then maybe he could have gotten away with a deceit on that scale :-).

David B Said
But he did get away with it -- that's just the point. He completely fooled the producers of the show because they didn't bother to do any checking whatsoever. That says something about all the other "evidence" on the show, as well.

Well he only got away with it for a while didn’t he, if that were not the case then his deceit would still be unknown, and he would have gotten away with it.
As for the other evidence on the show, if it were presented by other persons then surely it is not justifiable to assume that just because Jammal is proven to be a fraudster that other parties presenting evidence of they’re own on the same subject, should automatically be assumed to also be fraudsters.
(assuming your remark is aimed at the evidence of others that is, and not that of Jammal – if this assumption is wrong then please accept my apologies for misunderstanding your point)

Anyhow, being someone who is not well read on the subject, and probably one that falls into the category of the 40 million who were sucked in by the fraud it still seems to be a thing worthy of further investigation, as lolagranola implied, this thing could be factual proof of the Big Book it self’s historical factuality.
And answers to questions don’t get much bigger than that.

[Rhythmdvl]

cheezit: Rhythmdvl Your link doesn't work.

Sorry ‘bout that… here is the link w/o my frail attempts at being clever.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/horizon/noahtran.shtml

[Celyn]

Perhaps it is a small question, but what ever happened to the raven? I opened a bible today and found that before Noah sent the dove, he sent a raven, who was, it seemed, ordered just to fly about, check whether the floods were gone, and whether the earth was dry, and so on. This bible tells us that the dove came back etc. But what happened to the raven?

[yabob]

Finally free after being cooped up in the ark, quoth the raven: "nevermore".

[Skaill]

CKDextHavn
said:-
Oh, Lordy, not this one again. And the Ark of the Covenant was a huge electrical generator….etc…etc

I was asking about the tabernacle recreation experiment and nothing to do with Ark of the covenant whatsoever – although the two are always closely associated for obvious reasons.

A disposable camera flash mechanism, some aluminium foil, copper wire and a medium size capacitor are a proven experiment that you can collect static electricity from the surrounding air, sufficient to fire the flash intermittently so why not the structure of something else ?

[dtilque]

From what I understand, the word ark as used in the Bible basically meant box. The ark of the covenant was a box holding the ten commandments and some other holy items. And Noah's ark was just a big waterproof box for holding animals. No keel or nothing.

So why is everyone looking for a boat?

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

Man gets a lot of pack animals. Man has no place to keep pack animals.
Man loads pack animals with wood.
Man leads pack animals ,loaded with wood, up mountain.
Man unloads animals, dumps wood on ground.
Man uses wood; builds large barn.
Man puts pack animals, used in hauling wood up mountain, inside barn.
Animals fill barn with sh*t.
Dunce comes along; points at barn; asks:"What's that?":confused:
Man , frustrated, snarls: "It's a boat, Dummy!"
Dunce says "A miracle!!!!!"
Dunce picks up sh*t; takes it home; venerates it as a Holy Relic.


:wally

[JonF]

a huge boat shaped depression in the rock near the top of a mountain”.
Well pictures do exist ... If nothing else, the thing is there, it does exist and it is an anomaly.

The thing is there, it does exist ... why do you say it's an anomaly? Take a look at Noah's Ark Search (http://www.noahsarksearch.com/durupinar.htm), especially BOGUS "NOAH'S ARK" FROM TURKEY EXPOSED AS A COMMON GEOLOGIC STRUCTURE (http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/bogus.html). You might also be interested in A Great Christian Scam (http://www.tentmaker.org/Dew/Dew7/D7-AGreatChristianScam.html) and Wyatt Archaeological Research Fraud Documentation (http://www.tentmaker.org/WAR/index.html).

[JTR]

Originally posted by Skaill
....these may be the same blurry photos which JTR referred to when beginning this thread....

Okay, I did a little research. I knew that the narrator of the show I watched was one of the guys from the TV series “Law and Order,” so I hunted down the narrator’s name (Jerry Orbach) and checked his credits. I turns out that he narrates a weekly show on PAX channel called “Encounters with the Unexplained.” That particular episode was called “Is It Noah’s Ark?” The previous week the show was about Roswell, and the following week it was about the pyramids. So it wasn’t some kind of formal documentary after all. It was just a weekly series about popular myths. My apologies for the confusion--I think I’ve watched a total of three hours of PAX programming in my life.

One big feature of this show was the assertion that the ark is sitting completely aboveground. The ark is broken into two sections, and it is covered with ice part of the year and revealed part of the year. This accorded with another “documentary” I vaguely remember from about 20 years back: There was a big wooden box sitting aboveground on the top of Mt. Ararat. People crawled on top of it and even got inside of it. A number of expeditions explored it and even took away pieces of it. But the evidence tended to disappear for one reason or another.

So this was really the starting point of my initial question: Is there in fact a big-ass box sitting on top of Ararat, and if so, what do scientists think is the origin? I don’t believe for a second that there was a global flood 5,000 years ago and that we’re all descended from Noah and his family. But for all I know there might in fact be a big wooden box on Ararat, and it might just be a sweat lodge place up there by the local Caucasus tribes back a couple hundred years ago or something. Basically I just wanted to find out if that damned box existed, and to find out if anyone had ever tracked down a realistic explanation for its presence there.

Skaill’s input about the ark being buried underground is perhaps the best proof I can ask for that there’s no box up there. If Biblical scholars can’t even agree on whether the ark is aboveground or underground, then all this fussing about what’s on Ararat is almost certainly bunk. The place is fairly accessible (shepherds graze their livestock all over Ararat), and people have been passing around rumors that the ark is there for 100 years or better. Given all that, the thinness and contradictory nature of the documentation on the existence of the ark is, to me, the best evidence that the whole thing is smoke and mirrors.

I just wanted to find out if there’s any basis in reality for some of the assertions made on the program I saw, such as whether’s there’s some kind of wooden box up there (regardless of it’s origin or original purpose). Apparently the aboveground box is nothing more than myth. Nor do I have any faith in Skaill’s underground box.

I also have zero faith in the “story of the recreation of the Tabernacle that was made by some scientists in the USA....” which “...proved to be such a powerful collector of electricity it proved to be to dangerous to be near....” What crap!

[JTR]

Hey, JonF,

Thanks for the links! It's great material! Really excellent!

It’s so nice to see some links to good old scientific analysis after all the hype and hyperbole from certain Bible scholars on some of these legends. When I see the fantastic claims coming from these types of Bible scholars, I inevitably conclude from the quality of the research that they’re bogus. But it’s hard to know how to refute these myths or even to figure out how they originated. Your posts here and in jabberwalkie’s thread on astrology in the “Comments on Cecil’s Columns” forum have been extremely helpful. I’m very grateful!

[C K Dexter Haven]

Dtilque: << From what I understand, the word ark as used in the Bible basically meant box. The ark of the covenant was a box holding the ten commandments and some other holy items. And Noah's ark was just a big waterproof box for holding animals. No keel or nothing.

So why is everyone looking for a boat? >>

I mentioned this recently in another thread on the Ark of the Covenant. The Hebrew word is tabah and is used to refer to two (and only two) water-bound vehicles: Noah's (translated "ark") and infant Moses' (translated as "basket of bullrushes".) In both cases, there is indeed a sense of "box", the steering is NOT done by the people in the box, they are at the mercy of the elements (steered by God, if you prefer, is certainly the implication of the text.)

The other Hebrew word is aron, which also is used to mean a box, and gets translated "Ark" as in "Ark of the Covenant." Different word, different concept in the original text. English version (KJV) associates Noah's situation with Ark of the Covenant, rather than with Moses... and thus misses some of the poetical self-referencing.

[David B]

Skaill said:
Well pictures do exist (and I just know your gonna tell me they are a hoax too ;-) sketchy though they may be can be found at this page I suspected, as soon as I saw that photo, that it was a simple geologic formation (much like the "face on Mars" or similar things). Then I got to JonF's message and found that, indeed, I was right. Glad that's taken care of. :)

Regarding the Jammal hoax, you said:
Well he only got away with it for a while didn’t he, if that were not the case then his deceit would still be unknown, and he would have gotten away with it. No, you miss the entire point. He revealed himself. The point was not to hoax the country, but to hoax the producers to show that their research methods are nonexistent, and that pretty much anybody could come to the show and make up anything they wanted. In that, he fully succeeded.
As for the other evidence on the show, if it were presented by other persons then surely it is not justifiable to assume that just because Jammal is proven to be a fraudster that other parties presenting evidence of they’re own on the same subject, should automatically be assumed to also be fraudsters. I never said they should. However, it should not be automatically assumed that everything there is real. As we saw, the producers basically did nothing to verify the claims, even though they promoted the show as if it were real scientific evidence and a news documentary.

JTR asked:
Is there in fact a big-ass box sitting on top of AraratQuite simply: No.

[matt]

Hijack:

Skaill said:

"A disposable camera flash mechanism, some aluminium foil, copper wire and a medium size capacitor are a proven experiment that you can collect static electricity from the surrounding air, sufficient to fire the flash intermittently so why not the structure of something else ?

Could you give more details or a link on how to do this?

[Skaill]

Matt
here ya go
http://203.23.131.2/freeenergy/mon.htm

[Chronos]

There's a general rule of thumb here: Any webpage with the string "freeenergy" in the URL is very likely a load of hooey, unless it's debunking free energy claims. Note that the webpage starts off "I haven't yet finished building this device but my contact in Houston Texas assures me it will work"... OK, so let's see a webpage by that unnamed contact in Houston about this miracle device. Even if this thing does work, its source of power is transmitted radio waves... Something which was not present in abundance in the days of the original Tabernacle.

Nice try, though, Skaill.

[Skaill]

Chronos
I'd assumed it was collecting electrostatic, given that it goes off more frequently during storms, altough now you mention radio, that would presumably be given off during a storm also.
Bet the Tabernacle saw a few storms.
Been trying to get round to constructing one myself at some stage, to see if it goes off more often when the Northern Lights are giving a show.

[Skaill]

Skaill said previously

"Been trying to get round to constructing one myself at some stage, to see if it goes off more often when the Northern Lights are giving a show."

forgot to make it clear i was refering to constructing a free energy flashng device, Not a Tabernacle !

[matt]

Interesting. Thanks!

[DrMatrix]

I'm afraid whatever report you saw about the Noah's ark being found was not accurate. There was a thread about this topic before: What IF Noah's Ark was found? (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=22768) started by pashley. In that thread there was this post:
Originally posted by YHVH
I am afraid you will not find the Ark, for it is mounted on the wall of My rec room.So stop looking already!

[Danielinthewolvesden]

Well, the Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopa is likely very real, and also as likely a replica made by those who had never seen the original.


It is also not impossible that thousands of years ago, someone built a replica Ark (Noahs) up on Mt Ararat (which is part of those Mts mentioned in the OT), and the ruins thereof is what folks are stumbling upon from time to time.

There is no "noahs ark" to be found. Even if the story was literally true (unlikely), they would have broken the craft down for building materials. Oh, no doubt, that there was a huge flood, of some sort, that is the basis for the Flood "myth", but that is about it, IMHO.