Posted on 02/17/2008 5:05:48 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Dogubayazit (Turkey’s Iran-Armenian Border) • For the first time in the seven decade-long history of the search for the legendary Noah’s Ark, a Turkish-Hong Kong exploration team on Tuesday came out with “material evidence”, to prove that the Ark was nestled on Mount Ararat, Turkey’s highest mountain peak bordering Iran and Armenia.
A panel of experts, comprising Turkish authorities, veteran mountaineers, archaeologists, geologists and members of Hong Kong-based Noah’s Ark Ministries International, also displayed an almost one-metre-long peice of petrified wood before the media and specially invited international experts.
The experts claimed it to be a part of a long structure they had unearthed during their February-August 2007 exploration. “It is for the first time in the history of the Ark search that an exploration team is getting a material evidence and graphic documentation. This makes it not only a the significant breakthrough in the Ark-search, but one that is supported with the most substantial evidence in recent history,” the panel said.
The revelation is expected to open up a fresh chapter in the ongoing debates in the scientific community on the search for Noah’s Ark.
Narrating the genesis of their exploration on Mount Ararat, the mount which has a direct reference in Holy Quran (Mount Judi) and Bible, the panel said the search team had made several foiled attempts before unearthing the evidence at an altitude of 4,500-metres of the estimated 5,165 metre volcanic mountain.
“The structure was discovered in the interiors of an unusual cave. The 11.5m wide and 2.6m high white wooden texture was revealed after removing thick layers of volcanic ash on the cave wall,” panel members said at a press conference.
One of the underlying issues in the search for the Ark is the proper identification of its wood fragments. A petrographic examination carried out by the Applied Geoscience Centre of the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Hong Kong, identified the object as a petrified wooden structure, the panel said.
“Some of the big holes found on the structure indicate the locations where branches used to grow on tree. In places, original holes are partly or completely replaced by individual minerals and crystalline materials that can be found in rock materials,” said Dr Ahmet Ozbek, a panel member, who is also a faculty of Geology Engineering Kahramanmara Suctcu Imam University.
Dismissing the possibilities of the structure being wood that could appear naturally around the discovery site, Professor Oktay Belli, director, Eurasian Archaeology Institute, University of Istanbul, said researches have proved that there was no vegetation on Mount Ararat ever since 2000BC, because of the asperities of Ararat’s climate.
Talking to The Peninsula, Cemalettin Demircioglu, Dogubayazit City Governor, under whose jurisdiction the mount is located, said the civic body will invite more international experts to conduct further scientific studies on Mount Ararat.
“History has more than one times corroborated the legendary evidence that the ark was nestled on Mount Ararat. We will introduce the latest findings to the world and continue the scientific study. All interested scientists and NGOs can join our missions” he said. However, he said, those who are involved in the project must ensure the findings are not used politically, religiously, or for any vested interest.
Located in the Far Eastern Turkey, Ararat is great prize for mountain collectors. Ark sighting has often been reported from this mountain. The observation of Vessel-shaped features in aerial photograph of Ararat had caused a stir in the late 1950’s. However, this is the first time an exploration team is coming out with “material evidence”.
Did you see the new trailer? Seems they pay a visit to Warehouse 23.
They found Steve Fosset in the wearing a parka next to a campfire on top mount Ararat. They asked him where did the fire come from? He held up a lighter. They then asked him where he got the wood. He pointed to a huge wooden structure and said, “I used part of the Ark.”
I’ll check it out, thanks. From what the Strong’s says, it implies the Hebrew word isn’t in use anymore. I two pastors up in New York, one a messianic Jew, the other from Greece. They love these types of questions.
God Bless.
In actuality it is a mistranslation. What really happened is when Noah asked God how to build the ark, God responded,”First go fer wood.”
Yea, but what about the unicorns?
And when you chew on it, pieces of it get stuck betwen your teeth ;)
"International explorer, archaeologist and author Jonathan Gray has traveled the world to gather data on ancient mysteries. He has penetrated some largely unexplored areas, including parts of the Amazon headwaters. The author has also led expeditions to the bottom of the sea and to remote mountain and desert regions of the world. He lectures internationally."Yea and he smokes some really bitchin' weed too.
Ah, but what you don't realize is that back then we had hands with eight fingers, and we could bend our elbows backwards.
(Warehouse 23 is actually a Steve Jackson Games reference, but it was partially inspired by that last scene in the film.)
ping
ping
I believe it could be Noah’s Ark, because I believe Noah’s Ark happened. The funny thing is how it will trip out atheists and evolutionists if it is proved.
Here is another thing you can run past them, the bible doesnt necessarily say that the Ark came to rest on top of Mt. Ararat.
Genesis 8:4 ... and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.
The Biblical says that the ark came to rest on the "mountains" of Ararat. Mountains is plural, not singular.
This does not exclude Mt. Ararat, but it does widen the area.
The ancient Hebrew word for mountains is bar, and can the ancient Hebrew meaning covers any from a small hill up to the top of a mountain peak, depending on its usage.
The geographic area that the "mountains of Ararat" covers are a debate. Different experts will give different geographic boundaries, but it does cover more than one mountain.
According to some Armenian scholars, "the mountains of Ararat" encompass the entire mountainous region eastern Turkey, the west side of Iran, northern Iraq, and southern Russia.
Maybe it is the one mountain, maybe not, I don't know. Maybe there is something to the posted article, maybe not, I dont know. I just like to throw in that bit of information when the topic comes around.
We had a guy come speak at our church about this exact thing. It was really interesting. I got his book and DVD so that we can use them when our 2nd grader needs to do a report on the dinosaurs or evolution.
The concepts expressed in this text establish much of the basis for the Judeo-Christian theology, but Genesis is not a literal historical text, but a moral story. I suspect that is a lack of faith that prompts so many to seek physical evidence to support the word of God. The first five books of the Bible, including Genesis, were collated during the 5th century BC from four main sources, which themselves date from no earlier than the 10th century BC. Two of these, the Jahwist, composed in the 10th century BC, and the Priestly source, from the late 7th century BC, make up the chapters of Genesis which concern Noah. The attempt by the 5th century editor to accommodate two independent and sometimes conflicting sources accounts for the confusion over such matters as how many pairs of animals Noah took, and how long the flood lasted.
More broadly, Genesis seems to contain two accounts concerning Noah, the first making him the hero of the Flood, the second representing him as a husbandman who planted a vineyard. This has led some scholars to believe that Noah was originally the inventor of wine, in keeping with the statement at Genesis 5:29 that Lamech "called his name Noah, saying, 'Out of the ground which the Lord has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands.'"
>>Now, I don’t doubt there was a local flood that was referenced in the Bible but even the base of what is called Mt Ararat today is 5000 feet above sea level and to be even a few thousand feet above that as part of a world wide flood would have left observable evidence.
Right. The height is ~5000 meters or 16,000 feet. But the base is already 5,000 feet above sea level so a sea level would have to be 5,000 feet higher to even reach the base of the mountain.
And the various geologic strata are far too oldto have been laid down while man was alive. And for that matter there are no modern animals in the older layers and no ancient animals in the top layers.
If you go back, there used to be a debate between physicists and geologists because the geologists had clear evidence that the earth was 2 billion+ years old but physicists said the sun could not have been burning more than a few million years.
Then we discovered atomic theory and fusion and found the sun was billions of years old, and astronomers got similar numbers from space and a dozen other scientific avenues all yielded numbers in the billions.
A world wide flood deep enough to be even to the base of Mt Ararat in the last 10,000 years really doesn’t fit.
I think of that story much like the parables of Jesus - a way for God to explain to man in a time when man had neither the math nor the science to understand the magnitude of creation and how it was so vast and so old that it beyond a shepard’s ability to imagine.
Heck, its a rare modern man who really has a feel for how old a billion years is.
So God sanctioned incest...what an interesting belief system you have. Incest was perfectly all right until God gave Moses the Ten Comandments...funny I don’t recall “Thou shalt not sleep with your siblings, children, parents, et al” anywhere in the Ten Commandments. Must have been in the five that Mel Brooks dropped as he was coming down the mountain.
Wow, you know how to cut and paste from Wikipedia.
Impressive.
If for whatever reasons you choose not to believe that particular paper, there are many others with evidence that support the story. The evidence comes from archeologists, geologists and other scientific types from various parts of the world. They all tell essentially the same story; would you believe any of them? FWIW, much of the documentation is from a time when PC science hadn't quite taken hold yet.
You've not doubt heard about virtually complete islands north of Siberia that are made almost exclusively of megafauna bones, etc? Found the general discussion HERE that includes comments about the piles of bones also found in Alaska.
Even more impressive is that I know how to paste to Wikipedia and do so frequently.
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