Why Noah’s Ark Will Never Be Found

MSN ^

[nickcarraway]

Noah’s Ark is among the best known and most captivating of all Old Testament stories: After creating humans, God became so displeased with them that he struck Earth with an all-encompassing flood to wipe them out—with one noteworthy (and seaworthy) exception: the biblical patriarch and his family, accompanied by pairs of each of the planet’s animals, who rode out the deluge in an enormous wooden vessel.

For people who accept the religious text as a historically accurate account of actual events, the hunt for archaeological evidence of the Ark is equally captivating, inspiring some intrepid faithful to comb the slopes of Armenia’s Mt. Ararat and beyond for traces of the wooden vessel.

In 1876, for example, British attorney and politician James Bryce climbed Mount Ararat, where Biblical accounts say the Ark came to rest, and claimed a piece of wood that “suits all the requirements of the case” was in fact a piece of the vessel. More modern Ark “discoveries” take place on a regular basis, from an optometrist’s report he’d seen it in a rock formation above the mountain in the 1940s to a claim Evangelical pastors had found petrified wood on the peak in the early 2000s.

But searches for the Ark draw everything from exasperation to disdain from academic archaeologists and biblical scholars. “No legitimate archaeologist does this,” says National Geographic Explorer Jodi Magness, an archaeologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, of modern searches for evidence of Noah.

“Archaeology is not treasure hunting,” she adds. “It’s not about finding a specific object. It’s a science where we come up with research questions that we hope to answer by excavation.”

Flood or fiction?

[ealgeone]

I liked the simplicity of the game. There was something therapeutic about shooting some ‘stroids.

[ealgeone]

Yes. I agree it was more of a long rectangle shape boat.

[ealgeone]

Except those accounts are also from people removed from the sea.

Genesis and the Tower of Babel also explain why we see ziggurats or pyramid structures around the world.

[EEGator]

I would get into the zone sometimes. I tried to move as little as possible, and hopefully never warp.

[Philsworld]

——>BTW..before you go off on..”It’ll tip over” there is a thing called ballast.

“Ballast”

Yeah, I know.

https://www.arkdiscovery.com/noahsarkstones.htm

The scans from the link I posted show a boat, with the exact measurements of Noah’s ark. It’s not a barge.

[Rockingham]

Not really. Some stories may be similar, but most vary greatly. Comparing the flood accounts of Noah and Gilgamesh makes the point. The floods are similar, but the story of Noah has more of a polished feel.

[ealgeone]

We called it being in the trench. My buddy use to love to fly around.

Did you play the lurker strategy and shoot the alien ships for more points?

[EEGator]

I always shot the UFOs. Especially that little SOB.

[dznutz]

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.

[ro_dreaming]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3iFJpGJiug

[Rockingham]

Most scholars see the Old Testament as incorporating stories that the Israelites acquired from dominant and much larger foreign cultures and from the Israelites experiences during their Babylonian and Egyptian captivity. The Old Testament is thus more derivative than formative of other cultural accounts. My guess is that the story of the Tower of Babel was developed by the Israelites to explain a failed construction they saw in Babylon.

[pollywog]

Yes.......

[ro_dreaming]

People have been trying to debunk the Bible for centuries. There has never been anything DISPROVEN from the Bible. Every investigation results in full correlation with the Bible.

[pollywog]

I unashamedly believe the Bible is God’s message to man....every word!
He said He is going to return. I know that is going to happen... and I’m waiting and ready.

[ealgeone]

Not if you closely examine them. In my seminary classes we looked at a lot of these arguments. The evidence was in favor of the OT influencing the other cultures.

The Tower of Babel account makes it clear the people tried to build a tower to Heaven. It is true it failed. But that event also explains how we got the various languages around the world.

If Genesis isn't an accurate account of events the rest of the Bible has to be called into question. I think that's why a lot of "scholars" have taken the position you noted.

[ro_dreaming]

Genetic degradation.

[ealgeone]

True. Every archeological find further corroborates the Bible.

[gnarledmaw]

Time and a written language would have the tendency to allow that to occur.

have you ever picked up one of those plastic eggs we give kids for Easter or a ping pong ball that had a longitudinal crack in it? When you applied pressure from the ends, did it stay circular in cross section at the equator? When you let go didnt it try to snap back to a shape more closely resembling the original?

If any significant portion of the ice on our balloon sandwich were to melt suddenly and the mass of the water were to stay clinging to the balloon in a more equally distributed fashion, what would happen to the ant? What would be the effect on the water balloon? Would that energy have any effect on the water now covering the surface?

[crz]

Your scans are a fantasy from some dark age artists who had no more idea what the ark would have looked like than anyone.

That is the problem with you new wave evangelicals. You take a fantasy from historical perspective and proclaim it settled science..just like Al Gore did with global warming.

[Fiji Hill]

I believe the Bible is the divinely inspired word of God. That said, I don’t take the first 11 chapters of Genesis as literal. God is revealing Himself and His relationship to His creation at a time when people believed all sorts of unscientific things. And still, those first 11 chapters are a brilliant description of the human condition. I find it sad and disappointing that people of faith will contort themselves into pretzels to make those 11 chapters literal.

Amen! Preach on!