ONCE MORE THEY'VE FOUND NOAH'S ARK
Noah's Ark found? Not so fast
Posted: Tuesday, April 27, 2010 4:00 PM by Alan Boyle
A photo from Noah's Ark Ministries International shows a member
of the ChineseTurkish evangelical exploration team looking at
wooden beams inside a compartment of a structure that the team
has linked to the Biblical Noah's Ark.
Web sites are buzzing over claims that remains from Noah's Ark
on Turkey's Mount Ararat. The finders, led by an evangelical
group, say they are "99.9 percent" that a wooden structure found
on the mountainside was part of a ship that housed the Biblical
Noah, his family and a menagerie of creatures during a giant
flood 4,800 years ago.
But researchers who have spent decades studying the region - and
fending off past claims of ark discoveries - caution that a
boatload of skepticism is in order.
"You have to take everything out of context except the Bible to
get something tolerable, and they're not even working much with
the Bible," said an archaeologist and historian at Stony Brook
University who specializes in the Near East - and especially the
region around Ararat, known as Urartu.
Zimansky points out that Genesis identifies the mountains of
Urartu (a.k.a. Ararat) as the landing zone for the ark, but not a
specific peak. Over the centuries, 16,946-foot Mount Ararat and
the nearby boat-shaped, Durupinar rock formation have emerged as
the favored locales for ark-hunters (Others, meanwhile, have
looked for evidence of an ancient flood in Turkey's Black Sea
region or Iran).
It seems as if evidence of the ark pops up at least every couple
of years - and not always in the same place. The latest report
appears to follow up on a 2007 expedition that came upon a wooden
structure "in the interiors of an unusual cave" at the
14,700-foot level of Ararat's slopes.
That expedition was organized by Hong Kong-based Noah's Ark
Ministries International, the group that is also behind the fresh
reports appearing this week. Leaders of the Chinese-Turkish
expedition said wooden specimens recovered from the structure on
Ararat had been carbon-dated to yield an age of 4,800 years.
They said several compartments had been found, some with wooden
beams, and suggested that the compartments were used to house
animals. Because the evidence of habitation in that area is
scant, Noah's Ark Ministries International said the best
explanation for the artifacts' existence was ... you guessed it.
"It's not 100 percent that it is Noah's Ark, but we think it is
99.9 percent that this is it," Yueng Wing-cheung, a Hong Kong
documentary film-maker who was on the exploration team, said in
a report from AFP news service. Yeung said local Turkish
officials were trying to win protected status for the site, so
that a more extensive archaeological dig could be conducted.
Zimansky said he would welcome hearing more about the site. "It
would be nice to know what they have found - if there's a
scientific publication in the offing," he told me. "Press
releases are not the way archaeology advances."
He was doubtful about the linkage to the Bible story, however.
"It's not inconceivable to me that they've found pieces of wood
at that level, but that doesn't mean they've found an ark," he
said. Even if you assume the explorers found what they say they
found, linking the discovery to Noah's Ark requires lots of leaps
of faith: is the carbon dating accurate? Cornell's Kuniholm said
he would like to know who did the dating, especially considering
that previous tests reportedly came up with more recent dates. Is
it more plausible that the structure is from a miraculous ark, or
from an ancient shelter on the mountainside? Is there any
evidence of a catastrophic flood that rose to near the top of
Ararat 4,800 years ago?
"We know what's going on with Turkey archaeologically at that
time, and there's no major interruption in the culture," Zimansky
observed.
"There's not enough H2O in the world to get an ark that high up a
mountain," Kuniholm said.
Kuniholm has had to deal with repeated claims from ark-hunters,
including claims based on purported discoveries of ancient wood,
and it sounds as if he's starting to get sick of it. He expects
the latest report will end up in his thick file of ark
discoveries that end up going nowhere.
"These guys have already gotten the answer worked out ahead of
time," he said, "and then they go out to prove it."
Many comments relate to carbon dating: In this case, Kuniholm is
not questioning the validity of carbon-dating techniques, but
just wondering whether the dating was done correctly. He said he
was presented with earlier samples of wood from Ararat that he
was told were dated to just 1,400 years ago.
Also, one of the factors behind the scientists' skepticism is
that there has been no published research about these finds. If
it could be verified that this wooden structure is indeed 4,800
years ago, that would be notable - whether or not it came from an
ark.
..........
As you have just read, the so-called finds of Noah's Ark have
been by the dozens over the last 60 years or so.
And if it was truly so, then the respectable Archaeological
Papers and Magazines would certainly be helping to prove it.
It's all false theology from misguided sects who do not
understand the truth about Noah's flood. That truth I given to
you on this Website. Noah's flood did not cover 16,000 foot
mountains on earth, or how about 29,000 plus Mount Everest. If
you have not done so, then you need to study the studies on this
Website on Noah's flood teaching, then go on to Joshuah's long
day study.
Keith Hunt
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