Claim CH501:
We can expect to find Noah's ark on Mount Ararat.
Source:
LaHaye, Tim and John Morris, 1976. The Ark on Ararat, Nashville: Thomas
Nelson Inc. and Creation Life Publishers.
Response:
- Mount Ararat (known locally as Agri Dagi) is very likely the wrong
place to look. Genesis says only that the Ark landed on the mountains
of Ararat, where Ararat is not a single mountain but a region (2 Kings
19:37, Isa. 37:38, Jer. 51:27). That region, known in Assyrian records
as Urartu, is, roughly, bounded on the west by the Euphrates River, on
the south by the western Taurus Mountains (northern Iraq), somewhat
east of Lake Urmia, and north to include the plain of the Araxes River.
"The mountains of Ararat" implies not a single peak, but a mountainous
region within this area, such as the Qardu region (northern Kurdistan)
west of Lake Urmia. Early reports of the ark place it on several
different mountains, including some in the Qardu region. Mount Ararat
is not mentioned as a landing site until the eleventh or twelfth
century (Bailey 1989, 61-82).
- No wooden structure, including the ark, should be expected to survive
intact after 4,500 years. The weather on Ararat is harsh and
changeable; it would have destroyed the ark if it were exposed. Some
people claim that the ark could have survived in a glacier, protected
by the covering ice, but this also is unlikely. First, the ice would
have crushed the ark. Second, glaciers flow, carrying along whatever
is inside them. Different parts often flow at different rates, which
would deform the ark. And the ark started on the ground, so it would
have been eroded as the glacier dragged it over the rocks.
References:
Further Reading:
Bailey, Lloyd, 1989. Noah: The Person and the Story in History and
Tradition. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.
created 2001-3-31
