Posted on 07/07/2006 10:05:17 PM PDT by freedom44
High in the mountains of northwestern Iran, a Christian archaeology expedition has discovered a rock formation that its members say resembles the fabled Noah's ark.
The team discovered the prominent boat-shaped rocks at just over 13,000 feet (4,000 meters) on Mount Suleiman in Iran's Elburz mountain range.
"It looks uncannily like wood," said Robert Cornuke, president of the Bible Archaeology Search and Exploration Institute (BASE), the Palmer Lake, Colorado-based group that launched the expedition.
Photos taken by BASE members show a prow-shaped rock outcrop, which the team says resembles petrified wood, emerging from a ridge.
"We have had [cut] thin sections of the rock made, and we can see [wood] cell structures," Cornuke said.
Cornuke acknowledges that it may be hard to prove that this object was Noah's ark. But he says he is fairly convinced that the rock formation was an important place of pilgrimage in the past.
The BASE team has uncovered evidence of an ancient shrine near the outcrop, suggesting that this was an important place to people in the past, Cornuke says.
"We can't claim to have conclusively found the ark, but it does look like the object that the ancients talked about," Cornuke said.
Noah and the Flood
The story of Noah's ark is told in three major world religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
The Book of Genesis describes a great flood created by God "to destroy all life under the heavens."
But before the flood, God told Noah, one of his human followers, to build an ark and fill it with two of every species on the Earth.
But this location doesn't fit the description given in Genesis of the ark's passengers journeying from the east to arrive at Mesopotamia.
Cornuke and his team think that Mount Ararat might be a red herring.
"The Bible gives us a compass direction here, and it is not in the direction of Turkey. Instead it points directly towards Iran," Cornuke said.
Pilgrim Shrine?
Using the Book of Genesis and other literary sources, the BASE team journeyed to Iran in July 2005 to climb Mount Suleiman.
They chose Mount Suleiman after reading the notes of 19th-century British explorer A. H. McMahan.
In 1894, after climbing Mount Suleiman, McMahan wrote in his journal, "According to some, Noah's ark alighted here after the deluge."
McMahan also spoke of wood fragments from a shrine at the top of the mountain where unknown people had made pilgrimages to the site.
"We found a shrine and wood fragments at 15,000 feet [4,570 meters] elevation, as described by McMahan," Cornuke said.
Subsequent carbon dating of samples from the shrine showed the wood fragments from the site to be around 500 years old.
Lower on the mountain, expedition members came across the ark-like rock formation, which they estimate to be about 400 feet (122 meters) long.
Rocks From the Sea?
Not everyone is convinced by the BASE team's claims.
Kevin Pickering, a geologist at University College London who specializes in sedimentary rocks, doesn't think that the ark-like rocks are petrified wood.
"The photos appear to show iron-stained sedimentary rocks, probably thin beds of silicified sandstones and shales, which were most likely laid down in a marine environment a long time ago," he said.
Pickering thinks that the BASE team may have mistaken the thin layers in the sediment for wood grain and the more prominent layers as beams of wood.
"The wider layers in the rock are what we call bedding planes," he said.
"They show fracture patterns that we associate with … the Earth processes that caused the rocks to be uplifted to their present height."
The boat-shaped structure can also be explained geologically, says retired British geologist Ian West, who has studied Middle Eastern sediments.
"Iran is famous for its small folds, many of which are the oil traps. Their oval, ark-like shape is classical," he said.
Meanwhile, ancient timber specialist Martin Bridge, of England's Oxford Dendrochronology Laboratory, is doubtful that a wooden structure would have lasted long enough to petrify under ordinary conditions.
"Wood will only survive for thousands of years if it is buried in very wet conditions or remains in an extremely arid environment," he said.
Bible scholars think that Noah built his ark somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago, making preservation highly unlikely except in extreme environmental conditions.
And even if the wood had petrified, there seems to be little evidence of Noah's carpentry, according to Robert Spicer, a geologist at England's Open University who specializes in the study of petrification.
"What needs to be documented in this case are preserved, human-made joints, such as scarf, mortice and tenon, or even just pegged boards. I see none of this in the pictures. It's all very unconvincing," Spicer said.
Bridge, the Oxford timber specialist, points out that it would also be impossible for a boat to run aground at 13,000 feet.
"If you put all the water in the world together, melting both the ice caps and all the glaciers, you still wouldn't reach anywhere near the top of the mountain," he said.
Your problem is quite obvious, you live in a world where there may as well be voodoo, magic, leprecauns and wood sprites.
You can't actually explain any tiny bit of your fable and you dogmatic beliefs won't allow you to actually think and reason.
You should go chase unicorns and sit out waiting for the great pumpkin since you refuse to live in a world of rational thought.
(except you sure embrace the technologies and discoveries that allow you to live in a comfortable information society. If we all thought like you, we would live in caves)
If we evolved here as presented , from a common ape ancester....then one would assume that our closest genetic cousin would be the apes....but they arent...or closest genetic cousins are dogs and pigs...
Our elemental make up is also way off from other indiginous life...
Look it up...there is no missing link...
Evolution is a faith based belief system....based on the writings of a racist seeking to prove the superiority of the "white" race...
You can look that up too...
You really must be more careful with your assumptions.
You say that carnivores must eat meat, and there was none.
How do you know that meat provisions were not kept on the Ark,
(assuming it existed)?
I am curious to know why you thought that no meat was
available. (especially after a flood which killed many,
many animals)
OK, so you cover a field of wheat for 40 days with several feet of water and its not destroyed? Oh really?
Please, show me the data! After Mount St Helens blasted, all the animals that relied on the plant life that died due to the blast died as well. Magnify that by the entire planet, how did the little bunnies survive without food? How did the wolves survive without the bunnies?
You seem to want to make every possible exception to your fable to prove your point, but by doing so, you really show your ignorance.
No. There is a company in arizona which makes petrified
wood for home decor....you just need the right minerals,
right wwod, and right temperatures I believe. I do
forget the name of the company..
OK, the carnivores ate meat on the ark.
But what did they eat on their several thousand mile treks back home?
Remember there were only 2 of every animal left that they used to use for food. Now, what is the gestation period of a zebra or a wildebeast? Hint: Its a hell of a lot longer than the period that a lion can go without meat! Not that the zebra's or wildebeasts could even breed new food anyway, they were walking several thousands of miles home with no food after the flood wiped it out.
Are you really this ignorant?
I did not personally attack you. I called a spade, a spade. To pretend to be completely unaware of the concept of stories changing after being written or passed down over generations is laughable.
It's interesting how you cut out my entire post except for one sentence, never addressing why the folks who survived the ark's journey never bothered to keep a record--a consistent record--for their followers
Yawn. This is getting quite tiresome. Sorry, if I can't keep up with every assertion and opinion of you and your partner as fact. I can address quite simply by asking that you know no record was kept how again? Good grief.
If Noah's small family went off to populate the world, wouldn't their children be engaging in incest
A quick learner, I see. Here's an idea - go read the Old Testament some time. You'll see that indeed there was a lot of breeding within families. Did you know that Abraham was a half-brother to Sarah? God eventually put an end to such close marriages (or least told people not to do it) but that was long after the flood. Perhaps the gene pool was not nearly messed up back then as it is now, but eventually it became that way, so God told them not to marry close family members any longer.
Then again, you're not really looking for answers, are you?
LOL
I'm going to bed, trying to use logic and reason on these folks is like trying to teach my dog algebra, sure you might succeed, but my dog has no desire to learn it.
So I guess it's on an equal level with all religions. OK.
....based on the writings of a racist seeking to prove the superiority of the "white" race...
Are you positive no racists were involved with writing the Bible? I'm not being sarcastic--do we know all the pertinent data on the writers of the Bible?
And if it turned out tomorrow that verifiable data existed proving the Gospels, for example, were written by racists, would you stop believing in God?
Evolution or religion: Do you believe in the message, or in the messenger?
I am an asshole because I am asking real logical questions to people so that they can prove their point?
Do some research for me, find out what all the animals ate and how the sloth and the snakes and the tapirs and such swam back to S. America. Show me the buffalo that swam back to america. Show me the penguins that swam back to Antartica.
You call me an asshole because you can't prove a fable and it pisses you off.
I would be amazed at you actually doing real scientific research and having to prove something that wasn't so farcical.
And, part of the TOS here is no calling names or profanity.
And, of course, magically, the rain forests grew back hundreds of feet tall to accommodate all the animals that somehow swam all the way back to the amazon, wasn't that peachy!
And none of the species got messed up and went extinct because of the inherent problems of inbreeding that occurs from trying to build an entire population from just two examples of a species.
Evidently, to prove the Ark story, you have to make up a few million lies and gueses and assumptions and outright fantasies.
Wow, that's a doozy. Curious as to where you managed to get THAT one from....
There are plenty of out-and-out lies, most pretty old, originating with a variety of some Creationist leaders that are then unfortunately picked up by their trusting minions as truth (there are no transitional fossils, crazed interpretations of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, etc.) but this one is a new one on me.
Man...I thought anti-religious bigotry was something exclusive to the left.
Here's the answer to your questions...
There is no answer you would accept...ever...
For you there is no god....it's all BS...it's a bunch of fables...
Fine...dont let me disuade you from that "belief"...
I offered up several valid scientific possibilities to explain how such an event could take place...while you are hung up on literal interpretations...
I also cant explain how jesus walked on water...arose from the dead..or healed the sick....or how moses parted the red sea...
You did, and can't admit it. WHat does your God say about that?
To pretend to be completely unaware of the concept of stories changing after being written or passed down over generations is laughable.
And I said this where, exactly?
You're dodging, as usual. Never said any such thing.
Yawn. This is getting quite tiresome.
And yet you keep posting--you claim it's tiresome, and yet here you are. I call a spade a spade, too, and I'm calling you someone who is so frightened by someone asking simple, direct questions that you keep dodging.
Sorry, if I can't keep up with every assertion and opinion of you and your partner as fact.
I don't have a "partner" here, but you keep spinning, anything to avoid actually sticking to the topic.
I can address quite simply by asking that you know no record was kept how again? Good grief.
ROFL! Oh, please, that's the best one yet!
That there is no consistency is my proof. That the names of those involved appear in no other record is my proof.
Oh, man, you're hilarious! You avoid direct question after direct question, and you finally address one point and your response is the equivalent of "How do you know?"
A quick learner, I see. Here's an idea - go read the Old Testament some time. You'll see that indeed there was a lot of breeding within families. Did you know that Abraham was a half-brother to Sarah? God eventually put an end to such close marriages (or least told people not to do it) but that was long after the flood.
So all of us are the products of incest, approved by God?
Perhaps the gene pool was not nearly messed up back then as it is now,
We're one sentence into your one answer of all my points and you're already on "Perhaps". LOL
but eventually it became that way, so God told them not to marry close family members any longer.
How do you know?
Then again, you're not really looking for answers, are you?
I am. You're just not giving them. You have addressed maybe two points of the many I've made, because you don't have answers, because thinking about these things will take you out of your comfort zone, so you take the lazy way out--ignore, obfuscate, and insult.
What a good Christian.
I don't even believe in God but I have more respect for His creations than these folks do. If God existed I imagine he'd ask them all "Didn't you use the brains I gave you to THINK? If I wanted you to just say 'Whatever you say, don't hurt me!' I'd have stopped at the parrots!"
Ok, here's a question for you. If there was a world-wide flood that killed nearly every living thing on the planet, what happened to them? Do you think that some of the animals that had perished just recently could have been eaten by those animals on the Ark? What about all the plant life that had existed before the flood? Was that hauled away by UFOs? Gee, might some of that been available for food? How long does it take for some edible plant life to grow?
Evidently, you've created your very own flood fairy tale and then you proceed to shoot it down. They call that the straw man argument don't they? In your version of the flood, every animal jumped off the Ark and was home before dinner time. You also evidently don't think the animals were having offspring. Hey, did you know that rabbits can produce quite rapidly? I know, shocking, isn't it? Well, gee, maybe some of those little bunnies got eaten by those who like bunny meat. Of course that's but one example of many I could offer to explain how the animals could possibly have had anything to eat.
Like your friend, you aren't looking for answers, are you? Your mind is made up so you refuse to accept any possible explanation.
Keep the blindfold on and enjoy the darkness.
"MRE's
Perhaps I should have written:
'If one looks hard enough for anything, they will "find" it regardless of whether it is really there.' (note the quotes)
A conspiracy theorist can turn anything into "evidence" of a theory if they fixate upon it enough. A 4 year old that hopes to find a dinosaur in the woods will "find" one (ie a lizard, a misshapen tree, etc) if they try hard enough.
And if one looks very hard for an Ark, guess what they'll "find"...
That this "Christian Expedition" "found" an Ark is a testament to the power of the human imagination, not proof of its existence on a mountainside in Iran.
The next time I lose my keys I might "find" them, only to realize I've actually found something else that my mind wishfully mistook for my keys.
And, considering the state of my car's battery, the sound of it starting might still just be a figment of my imagination... ;-)
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