Well..., apparently enough people have seen it, over the period of about a century and a half, so that it seems to have not been used up or consumed. Reports seem to indicate a full-sized boat and not one missing most of the structure.
I don’t know if I would call it being in pristine condition, but it appears to be mostly there from prior reports.
As far as physical items being left from the various time periods spoken about in the Bible, I would say that they’ve dug up enough archeological artifacts, for the things spoken about in the Bible, to fill many museums. There’s no shortage there.
Overall, on the weight of everything that the Bible speaks about, that mankind has been able to find and verify, it is accurate. There are things that haven’t been found, but that isn’t something unusual for things so far in the past. You would not expect to not find everything. For what has been found, it matches up with what the Bible says. That gives validity to the other things that people have not been able to find and verify at this point in time.
Regards,
Star Traveler
Believe what you want, you are a literalist and I won't try to talk you out of it. This country was founded and built by people who believed every word of the Bible was the literal word of God. I respect their view, and won't denigrate it the way that media elites do. Some very smart people take the Bible literally, and that's fine.
As for me, I believe that the Bible (old Testament) was an ongoing chronicle of the Jewish people. Parts are mythological and the result of oral traditions handed down by a stone/bronze age people. The flood story clearly came from Babylon. There probably was a flood at the end of the last ice age, sudden or gradual, that was remembered by many peoples in their oral traditions. But there is no way the earth was covered by water up to the mountaintops at any time in the last few hundred million years. Ask yourself this: where did the water go?
At some point in the telling, the Bible becomes more historical than mythological, albeit an idealized history, containing also poetry, prophesy and morality tales. The archeological record supports the validity of many, if not all, of the key factual statements made in the Bible once it became a historical record. There really was a Moses, although his story was so long ago it is difficult to verify. Easier to prove are the historical figures of David, Solomon and all that occurred from their reign to Roman times. Jerusalem, the Temple, the cities mentioned, the wars chronicled, etc., all really did occur for the most part.
Museums have thousands of artifacts from humans, some of which date back hundreds of thousands of years, if not millions of years. However, wooden artifacts do not last very long, and so most are lost within a few hundred years. For that reason, for example, we have only a few pieces of Viking ships in existence, and the best of those come from burials. There are no Greek triremes that have ever been found, we only have a few pictures, although there were thousands of them in existence just 2400 years ago. If there was a 5000 year old boat sitting out in the elements on a mountain in Anatolia, it would be reduced to dust long beore the 1830s.
For that reason, it would not disprove the flood story to hike up Mt. Ararat and not find a boat. It would prove nothing. So, for a scientist to try to disprove the flood by hiking up the mountain would just be a waste of time. For someone with faith to hike up the mountain to try to find an ark would make sense, because if they find one, it would help prove the truth of their belief. People have gone up there; no one has found an ark. The plank of wood someone found once was dated to more recent times, as I recall. Maybe Haji left it up there for his fire.