In Search of Noah’s Ark

MSNBC ^ | July 21st, 2003 | Eve Conant

[LOL Clinton Was Impeached]

He found the Titanic. Now Robert Ballard hunts the quarry of a lifetime

July 21 issue — Ten thousand years ago, the Black Sea was a freshwater lake in the middle of a vast, low-lying basin. Its fertile valleys and lush pastures would have given Neolithic hunter-gatherers a perfect opportunity to make the leap to a more settled, agricultural society. But then disaster struck.

ABOUT 7,500 YEARS ago the ice age ended, the world’s climate warmed and the seas rose. The Aegean Sea breached a narrow strip of land, where the Strait of Bosporus is today, like a dam bursting. Seawater poured into the basin with the force of 200 Niagara Falls’, raising the water level six inches each day and sending the human settlers scurrying to the hills. The story of the Great Flood was told and retold, eventually in Genesis: “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life... the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights.”

Did Noah’s Flood really happen this way and in this place? Some people think it did. In August, underwater explorer Robert Ballard intends to put this theory to the test. To do it, the 60-year-old Connecticut-based geologist—better known for his elaborately publicized ship-hunting escapades, including the discovery of the Titanic in 1985—is going to have to push the state of deep-sea technology. He’s designed a remotely piloted submersible, Hercules, which he claims can excavate for signs of human civilization at depths of 300 meters with a precision approaching what archeologists can muster with human hands.

[Theo]

When the dinosaurs ruled the earth, the largest mammals where the size of rats. Dinosaurs where long gone millons of years before the first human walked the earth.

You were there?

[kidd]

The problems RC's have with what I have to say isn't what I don't know; it's what I do know

I'm RC. I've read the bible cover to cover at least twice. I read individual books of the bible on a regular basis. I've participated in independent bible study groups that have covered Acts, Romans and each of the gospels. I've done this with other RCs. Nearly every parish that I know of has an active independent bible study group.

You really don't know what you are talking about.

You are walking that fine line between ignorance and lying. Choosing to remain ignorant is a form of deception. Its not just RCs that have a problem with this - most people have a problem with this. RCs will just speak out to defend themselves from your slander.

[agrace]

You yourself said you believed the "second testament." So what parts do you believe? And if not all, what is your criteria for picking and choosing? For example, how can we trust what Jesus said about the gospel if we don't believe what He said about Noah?

[al_c]

do you want to bring a flood of angry Roman Catholics down on me, or what?

Is LOL baiting you? ;o)

[al_c]

Then you might want to read the testimony of the RC priest who ended up leaving Rome for Jesus.

Interesting. Do you have any comparison stats between how many priests leave for a non-Catholic church and how many non-Catholic ministers come home to the Catholic church?

[BibChr]

Rhetoric, and nothing but. I already called you.

If you're Roman Catholic, you can read the Bible a thousand times and, apart from a work of the Spirit of God, it won't matter. You will not let you see what Rome tells you isn't there. You'll believe Rome, not your lying eyes.

You have cited ZERO evidence that I am ignorant in ANYTHING I have said about RCism. You share that in common with every other RC I've talked with in FR.

You just think you're obliged to defend that which cannot be defended. I pray that you will learn that you needn't, and discover the joy and liberty of knowing Jesus Christ, as He is revealed in the Word of God alone.

Dan

[BibChr]

Don't know, don't care, irrelevant. If it's an issue to you, write the ex-RC. Maybe he knows.

Dan

[Long Cut]

One does not have to have "been there" to know that the last dinosaurs perished approximately 65 million years before Biblical times. One need only examine the scientific evidence with unbiased, unclouded eyes.

It is indeed interesting to see people respond to questions about the, to put it extremely mildly, fanciful logistics of the story of Noah (Loading the animals, caring for them, assembling the sheer number of them, etc.) with "God did it; it was a MIRACLE!!".

If that were true, why did He even need the ark OR Noah in the first place?

The Bible is an excellent and heartwarming source of morals and principles to live by, as well as cautionary tales. But it's not a history or scientific text, regardless of how hard some attempt to make it so.

[AFreeBird]

B4L8r

[Twinkie]

Sea life didn't have to. It could swim. Guess we'll
find out the truth of all this stuff some day. Seems
like just yesterday I was 36, now I'm 56, nearly 57.
Time flies. So, the Creator will have the last word.
I'll hope in the Lord, thanks. Why don't people just
tell Him the truth if they doubt Him and ask him what
about it? Sometimes God's subtle, sometimes not. Christ
is fully able to speak to all men if they're listening.

[LOL Clinton Was Impeached]

"Before Later"???

[TomB]

If that were true, why did He even need the ark OR Noah in the first place?

DING! DING! DING!!!! We have a winner.

Well put, LC.

(so, is mini-cut going to be another flying squid?) ;-))))

[TomB]

Sea life didn't have to. It could swim.

How did sea life survive all that rain, enough to raise sea levels above the highest mountians, when it would have reduced salinity to a point that would have normally killed sea life?

[agrace]

"Fountains of the deep" were also opened.

[Long Cut]

"(so, is mini-cut going to be another flying squid?) ;-)))) "

Only if he wants to be. Right now, i just want him to be a healthy, happy, and much-loved baby.

[Twinkie]

It had a special dispensation.

[kidd]

I have read the bible, as is required to be a good Catholic. It tells me that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for my sins so that I may be saved.

Every good Catholic believes this. We have learned this through the bible, not Rome.

Are we in error in believing this?
(a) if you answer "Yes" - then there is no need for us to discuss anything further because you would not be a Christian.
(b) if you answer "No, RCs are not in error in believing this" - then we can discuss things further.
(c) if you give me some more bs about "lying eyes" or something similar then I will simply dismiss you as being either stubborn, dillusional or ignorant.

You know, some Protestants simply amaze me. Catholics and Protestant both believe the same singlemost important thing: that Jesus died for our sins so that we may be saved. We are also in good agreement on most other things: God, heaven, satan, how to live a Christian life, marriage, family, abortion, etc. There are thousands of hedonists, non-believers, atheists, agnostics - and millions of poor, hungry and lonely people. Yet some Protestants devote enormous amounts of energy to attacking Catholics.

Read Luke 11:17,18.

[BibChr]

Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons would agree with that statement. Are they Christians?

Now, honesty (or knowledge of your Rome's dogma?) test: what does the church of Rome ADD TO that statement as requirements for salvation ("...Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for my sins so that I may be saved")?

Dan

[D Rider]

This is a repost of older material that may be relavent to this discussion:

Mt Ararat didn't become Mt Ararat until the 12th century. When the Bible was translated in to Armenian.

The problem is that the Armenians moved. Modern Archaeology has discovered that ancient Armenia is in the Mountains of north Iran. which would eplain how as the Bible says "And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in Shinar..."

If you want to find the Ark start here: The True Location of Noahs Ark and here Noah's Ark in Iran-not Turkey

If they ever do find the Ark on Mordern day Mt. Ararat, then the Bible is one screwed up book. Have fun ya'll

[lupie]

These are assumptions that they are buried there, not facts, like Tut or another ancient figure.

I think if you truly do your research, you will find these are not just assumptions.

The second testement is more real because it is eyewitness accounts of Jesus.

I am sorry, but that doesn't make any sense to me. I don't understand the logic behind it. For one thing, the Old Testament contains many eyewitness accounts. By your own logic, then it is true. But I am not here to change your mind, that is not my place. However, nobody can truly understand the Greek scriptures (NT) until the understand the Hebrew scriptures (OT). For all of the New Testament is based on the Old Testament. But since some wish to give more weight to the New Testament, they might wish to consider these passages from the New Testament because they reinforce the importance of the OT:

While they were talking and discussing, Jesus Himself approached and began traveling with them. But their eyes were prevented from recognizing Him...And He said to them, "O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! "Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?" Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.

Jesus said:"...You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life."

Now when they had traveled through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. And according to Paul's custom, he went to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, "This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ...The brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. Therefore many of them believed, along with a number of prominent Greek women and men.

There are several others also, but I won't list them here. If you are interested, I will gladly look them up and post them for you to consider. But somehow, I don't think you are interested.

Don;t mistake me for a Christian Basher.
The thought never crossed my mind. I am sorry that it did yours though.

In Jesus alone,
Andra