Noah's Ark Found?

I thought it was supposed to have been found on Mount Ararat in Turkey

I guess it could be the Ark, but either way I believe the story of Noah to be fact and these findings have neither increased or decreased that belief [smile]

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Original post by ViLiO I thought it was supposed to have been found on Mount Ararat in Turkey I guess it could be the Ark, but either way I believe the story of Noah to be fact and these findings have neither increased or decreased that belief [smile]

That's what I thought, but then again maybe he had a whole fleet of arks, personally I think it's much more likely that each animal had their own canoe.

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Original post by ChurchSkiz What do you nonbelievers think this is?

A petrified piece of wood 13 000 feet up in a mountain?

Bias is a form of ill thought. How exactly are we supposed to verify/disprove that it is an/the Ark? The dimensions? Wouldn't someone else, say, an army, have another boat just like it?

This is probably going to be another screaming match like the Shroud of Turin controversy (I think a couple people still believe it to be real [rolleyes]) and the other Biblical artifacts that have been used to scam people throughout the ages (such as that "James box" that was found a couple months back).

"Bible Archaeology Search and Exploration (B.A.S.E) Institute"

Not at all biased. *sheesh*


Some people will believe anything:

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What do you think about the story of Noah's Ark? It's fact 69% It's fiction 31% Total Votes: 200,944

70%? No doubt the same people who know evolution is false.


$10 says this will go right up there with every other Noahs Ark hoax ever perpetrated by desperate theologians.

EVEN if we suppose for a second that it is the "Ark" are you sure its the Christian one:


Mesopotamian flood stories

Well the old findings in Turkey were harder to verify because no one can go up there. This site can be verified, hiked too, and up close pictures can be taken. I mean even in the article they have a closeup.

So although it may or may not be the ark, at least it can be researched and refuted from both sides.

And the bias goes both ways.

Ravuya, wouldn't a piece of wood the size of an aircraft carrier 13,000 feet high be a little suspect? It surely isn't natural and I doubt anyone would spend the effort to haul it up there.


One would verify it being the Ark because the bible records exact descriptions of dimensions and layout. Also, since the wood is old and petrified, it's not like you could build one up there and then "pretend" to find it like the James Box. Also, it's size and weight prevents it from being moved up there. So realistically, either it is a boat that floated up there some time ago, or it is something else entirely (maybe an old building or something?)

If it is found to be a boat of any kind, one has to ask the question: How would anyone know in advance that a massive flood was coming giving them enough time to build such a massive structure?

Once as a child, in bed, desperately trying to sleep the night through as quickly as possible as it was christmas the next morning, I was disturbed by the sound of creaking floorboards. I rolled over and opened by blurry eyes to be confronted with the sight of the dim light bleeding through the door cracks making out the silohette of Santa Claws. I couldn't beleive it, there he was stading in my room watching me, presumably delivering my presents. I lept out of bed in joy and flicked on the light only to discover that Santa Claws was infact just a stack of boxes with a sheet thrown over them which my Mum had put in my room whilst she cleaned out the loft.

Ok so that was purely fictional but I made it up to prove a point. With me being a child as so excited about it being christmas I was so desperate to find Santa Claws that I 'found' him. This Noah's ark story has the same scent all over it. A bunch of christian archeoligists go out looking for biblical proof and find a large deposit of what appears to be old wood. To say this is Noah's ark is so far fetched its just as silly as me thinking Santa Claws was in my room, but yet they're so desperate to believe and find proof that they've convinced themselves otherwise.

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Original post by Mithrandir Some people will believe anything: Quote: What do you think about the story of Noah's Ark? It's fact 69% It's fiction 31% Total Votes: 200,944 70%? No doubt the same people who know evolution is false.

Yep - this shocked me as well. There is not enough water in the world for it to rain 40 days and 40 nights and flood every part of the world.

I wish people would stop taking the Bible literally - then we wouldn't have so much anti-science in the world.

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Original post by ChurchSkiz Ravuya, wouldn't a piece of wood the size of an aircraft carrier 13,000 feet high be a little suspect? It surely isn't natural and I doubt anyone would spend the effort to haul it up there.

Well, let's go study it.

"Hey, there's an enormous pile of really old wood over there. It must be the Ark!" is not study.

I'm not even sure if a wooden boat that size is feasible from an engineering perspective. How big is an aircraft carrier anyway?

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Original post by ChurchSkiz I'm not going to rush out and say that this is Noah's Ark. But if it's not, why is a petrified piece of wood the size of an aircraft carrier sitting 13,000 feet up on a mountain?

Who knows? Maybe if we get some real archaeologists to look at it we might be able to find out some useful information. I'm not sure how much I trust these guys to do a proper objective study of this.

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What do you nonbelievers think this is? And if after further study we see that it is the same dimension and layout as the boat in the bible, would you be willing to accept that it is Noah's Ark? Please not another Dinosaur thread.

It doesn't bother me in the slightest. It's highly probable that the flood was based on real events. It's only the literal interpretation of the flood story that is patently ridiculous. The truth behind it is probably a hell of a lot more mundane than the exaggerated version in genesis.

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"There's this idea, if we can prove that the ark existed then we can prove that the story existed, and more importantly, we can prove that God existed," said Bruce Feiler, author of "Where God Was Born."

Not too bright this one.

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Original post by Ravuya I'm not even sure if a wooden boat that size is feasible from an engineering perspective. How big is an aircraft carrier anyway?

450 feet long, 45 feet high, 75 feet wide.

Engineering wise, I believe they've made models of the ark given the dimensions and they were found to be sea-worthy.

If you've ever been to the mountains you know that 13,000 feet is way above treeline. So it is an interesting find regardless of what it turns out to be.

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Original post by ChurchSkiz Quote: Original post by Ravuya I'm not even sure if a wooden boat that size is feasible from an engineering perspective. How big is an aircraft carrier anyway? 450 feet long, 45 feet high, 75 feet wide. Engineering wise, I believe they've made models of the ark given the dimensions and they were found to be sea-worthy.

Hrm. Lemme convert that to meters and I'll see if I can do some back-of-the-envelope physics. Do they know what kind of wood it is?

13,000 feet above sea level, means the flood must have covered 13,000 feet above sea level.


Volume of a sphere = 4/3 pi r^3



Earth mean radius = 6,372,797 m
13,000 ft = 3,962 m


volume of earth = 4/3 pi * 6,372,797^3 =
1,084,123,761,257,676,342,855 cubic meters.

volume of earth + 3,962m of water =
4/3 pi * 6376759^3 =
1,086,147,034,227,515,190,954 cubic meters.


volume of 3,962m of water =

1,086,147,034,227,515,190,954 cubic meters -
1,084,123,761,257,676,342,855 cubic meters =

2,023,272,969,838,848,099 cubic meters.

1 cubic meter = 1000 litres.

= 2,023,272,969,838,848,099,000 litres

3.785 litres = 1 gallon

= 534,550,322,282,390,514,927 gallons of water.

yes, 534 QUINTRILLION gallons.



Now that I've done all these calculations, I realised that I cannot find any water statistics in gallons, so I have to redo them in cubic kilometers:

Earth mean radius = 6,372.797 km
13,000 ft = 3.962 km

4/3 pi * 6,372.797^3 = 1,084,123,761,257.676 km^3
4/3 pi * 6,376.759^3 = 1,086,147,034,227.515 km^3

V = 1,086,147,034,227.515 - 1,084,123,761,257.676 = 2,023,272,969.839 km^3,

or 2 billion cubic kilometers of water.


The sum total of water on this planet right now is 1.37 × 10^9 km^3,

or 1,370,000,000 km^3.

1.3 billion.


So, the amount of water on the planet magically increased in size by 250% for 40 days, then just disappeared?



riiiight.


Where did it come from, where did it go?


Oh, right. Invisible imaginary dude in the sky did it.

That's a lot of water.

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Original post by Ravuya Do they know what kind of wood it is?

gopher wood. No-one knows what that is though.

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Original post by Sandman gopher wood. No-one knows what that is though.

How do they know it's gopher wood then?

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Original post by Sandman It doesn't bother me in the slightest. It's highly probable that the flood was based on real events. It's only the literal interpretation of the flood story that is patently ridiculous. The truth behind it is probably a hell of a lot more mundane than the exaggerated version in genesis.

Exactly. All early civilizations have a flood myth. All early civilizations started next to volatile rivers and flood plains, since that was the only area humans could cultivate without knowing much about how to cultivate crops. Flood plains tend to flood, hence the name.

It's not surprising that the myth exists in almost every culture.

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Quote: "There's this idea, if we can prove that the ark existed then we can prove that the story existed, and more importantly, we can prove that God existed," said Bruce Feiler, author of "Where God Was Born." Not too bright this one.

I thought the whole point of faith was that you shouldn't have to prove it in the first place (you know, since you really can't anyways).

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Original post by Ravuya Quote: Original post by Sandman gopher wood. No-one knows what that is though. How do they know it's gopher wood then?

That's what the bible says the ark is made of.

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Original post by Sandman Quote: Original post by Ravuya Quote: Original post by Sandman gopher wood. No-one knows what that is though. How do they know it's gopher wood then? That's what the bible says the ark is made of.

Well, that's conveniently unverifiable. I wonder what kind of wood this big chunk of Persian wood is.