In the Bible is a story that almost everybody is familiar with.
11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 14 So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15 This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. 16 Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit high all around. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. 17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. 19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. 21 You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.” 22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him. (Genesis 6:11-22 NIV)
All three theistic religions — Judaism, Christianity, and Islam — include the story of the flood, and flood stories are found in nearly every culture. Atheists argue that this means there’s nothing special about the account in Genesis because that just means as humanity spread out, they carried the “myth” with them. Then the “myth” took on a life of its own and was embellished with each culture’s priorities.
But a nearly universally existing “flood” account doesn’t prove a myth. The obvious question is that if every culture has an account of a worldwide flood, couldn’t that instead point to some kind of ancient cataclysmic event? (By the way, the primary meaning of cataclysm is “flood.”)
At least one study seems to suggest that there is a common event being remembered, and that the original account is to be found in the Bible:
Strickling concluded from his study of flood legends from all over the world that “nearly all” flood accounts “are variations of the theme in the biblical account … however, a statistical analysis indicates the purity of the biblical account and reveals evidence of subsequence [sic] upheavals having corrupted in varying degrees all other accounts” [53, p. 152]. Among the similarities that Strickling found include a favored family was saved in thirty-two of the flood accounts, and in twenty-one survival was due to a “boat” of some type. He concluded that a correlation exists between them in the following areas: 1) survival by boat, 2) a forewarning, 3) one flood only, and 4) preservation of non-human types of life such as animals. The same correspondence with the biblical account is also found in world wide-creation accounts.
Among the aspects of the early history of the world found in Genesis and the flood that also appear in many or most creation stories are the confusion of tongues at Babel. Syrian, Sumerian, Greek, Babylonian, Chinese, Persian and even the Estonian, Irish, American Indian, Toltec and Cholulan creation stories all include a variant of the flood story. In the American Indian tradition the flood causes “universal destruction” because the world grew “extremely sinful” [37]. Warshofsky notes regarding the great flood that “with variations” the
biblical account of a great, universal flood is part of the mythology and legend of almost every culture on earth. Even people living far from the sea—the Hopi Indians in the American Southwest, the Incas high in the Peruvian Andes—have legends of a great flood … covering the tops of the mountains and wiping out virtually all life on earth [56, p. 129, emphasis mine].
I bring all of this up because there has been an enduring fascination with Noah’s ark and whether the biblical account is true or not. The most recent report I’ve seen comes from just a couple of days ago.
Scientists have placed humans at the site of what is believed to be the “ruins of Noah’s Ark,” in the eastern mountains of Turkey.
The findings, released earlier this week, of rock and soil samples determined that “clayey materials, marine materials and seafood” were present in the area between 5500 and 3000 BC, according to the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet.
The study is comprised of three Turkish and American universities that have been investigating the theory of the site since 2021.
It certainly looks like a boat. What’s also fascinating is that the structure pictured above corresponds to the dimensions of the ark as described in Genesis 6:
The size and shape of the formation correlate with the dimensions of what the ark is said to be in the Bible Book of Genesis, a “length of three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits.”
In the Bible readings, God commanded Noah, a 600-year-old father of three, to build the ark and fill it with two of every animal before a global flood hit.
The Durupinar site is 18 miles south of the Greater Mount Ararat summit, which the Book of Genesis states is where the ark came to rest on the seventh month and seventeenth day.
There have been many other claims of finding the remains of the ark frozen in the snow and ice on Mt. Ararat, none of which have been conclusive, but many of which are consistent in what they describe: a very large, dark rectangular object sticking out of the ice and resembling a barge.
That description does not fit the object nor the location being discussed in the Post article. However, the very next sentence in the article does reflect the skeptics:
The holy texts of three major religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam all have references to Noah and the ark, but scientists have yet to determine the authenticity of the stories.
You see, we have to wait for SCIENCE to validate scripture in order for it to have any credibility. Just like SCIENCE validated the COVID-19 vaccines and boosters. Which means we’ll have to wait for Dr. Fauxchi, who is the SCIENCE, to weigh in.
JK! Some of us are willing to look at the rest of the Scriptures and, seeing that they are reliable, trust that the stories of creation, the flood and, say, the Tower of Babel, are true. After all, both Jesus and Peter referred to the account of Noah as though it really happened:
36 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away.” (Jesus in Matthew 24:36-39)
18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. 19 After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits— 20 to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, 21 and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also.” (1 Peter 3:18-21)
4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others…” (2 Peter 2:4-5)
If Jesus and Peter spoke of it as a real-world event, then I trust that it did, in fact, happen. It’s fun to speculate along with the explorers and researhers what might come from their investigations.
Even if they were to prove that there is some kind of giant ship-like structure, however, it still wouldn’t be enough to convince the atheists, who would explain it away as not “proving” anything about the existence of God or the reliability of the Bible because you couldn’t conclusively prove that the structure was in fact “Noah’s.”
Even so, it’s amazing that after 5,000 years, there’s still interest in trying to discover whether or not the remnants of Noah’s ark still exist.
Go to doubtingthomasresearch.com for more info on the discoveries in Turkey -I’m on the Board of this organization-they have also done much research with regard to the real Mt Sinai being located in Saudi Arabia -all so fascinating
Thanks Lisa! I will … I had heard the claim about the “real” Mt Sinai being located in Saudi Arabia. Very cool that you’re on the board there!