Noah’s Ark—Fact or Fiction Updated

Wishful thinkers of the carnal clan discount the credibility of the Holy Scriptures in order to justify their rejection of God’s authority and to negate His moral commandments. Jesus Christ clarifies this issue in John 3:16-20:

16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.

The Word of God is the inerrant truth authored by the finger of God. Its unparalleled veracity—from its account of creation to the fall of man, to Jesus Christ and the world’s grand finale—is proven on this website scholastically and pragmatically, time after time. God is, and all who have rejected the Light will stand before an angry God at a place called the Great White Throne judgment. During this lifetime, man decides whether to come to the light or to reject it. What is your decision? If you haven’t yet chosen Jesus Christ, the true Light, click on to "Further With Jesus," and do it today. Surely you will be able to say with the saints of old, "I sat in darkness and saw a great light." NOW FOR TODAY’S SUBJECT.

GOD SAID, Genesis 6:12-17:

12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.

13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

14 Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.

15 And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.

16 A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.

17 And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.

MAN SAID: These miraculous Biblical accounts are foolish and unfounded. A famous evolutionist said that a thinking man must check his brain at the door if he attends a Bible-believing church.

Now THE RECORD. Many miraculous accounts in the Bible strain credulity, but only in the minds of those who choose ignorance. The issue of Noah’s ark is one of the most dramatic examples. Could it be true? Is it more than just a preacher’s story? Could the God of creation have destroyed all creatures that had the breath of life in their nostrils with the exception of those who were aboard Noah’s ark? Did the whole earth find itself covered with water? Did the animals actually come two-by-two into the ark? Do geology, paleontology, archaeology, history, and more support such a bizarre account? The answer is a heavy duty YES!

Much information has been published concerning the quest of various groups attempting to find the physical ark. Besides a plethora of printed material, numerous documentaries have aired over the years including one as recent as 2006. The earliest expeditions to find Noah’s Ark in modern times, that I’m aware of, took place in the mid-1900s.

In 1955, there was a man by the name of Fernando Navara. He was a French explorer. Navara not only claimed to have found Noah’s ark, but he estimated it at a weight of about 50 tons. He actually brought back a piece of wood that was coated with a bituminous compound. What was so amazing about a piece of wood with a bituminous coating? He was up 14,000 feet on Mt. Ararat, which is a mountain between Turkey and Russia. There is no wood within 300 miles of this place. Explorers and adventurers risk their lives climbing to this level. They can only go at certain times of the year. Nobody carries beams of this nature up 14,000 feet, which is miles above sea level.

Navara brought it back, where the age of the beam was measured to be between four and five thousand years old. The Scriptures’ account of Noah’s ark took place approximately 4,500 years ago.

It must be noted that even though discovering the actual ark would be a kind of "icing on the cake," the scientific evidence of the worldwide flood as described in the days of Noah is monumental—absolutely monumental—and that, in fact, is the cake. The information in this article is only a sample. More data continues to pour in on at least a daily basis.

About three quarters of the earth’s surface is covered with sediment or sedimentary rocks, which were originally deposited under moving water. This is true even on the tops of many mountains. Clearly, a catastrophic flood once submerged the entire earth.

This very day there are fish fossils on nearly every mountain peak in the world. Men have actually found shark fossils in Cleveland, Ohio. Remember, fish fossils are on nearly every mountain in the world. How does a fish fossil get to a mountain peak? Geologists talk about the tectonic plates converging to build mountain ridges. That’s very Biblical and very possible, and would have occurred in the days of Noah. Imagine, these fish fossils are on nearly every mountain peak in the world.

In the last 122 years, Noah’s Ark has been spotted by over 186 people of note. In ancient times, it was seen by the Jewish historian Josephus, who was one of the most famous historians immediately following the time of Christ. Josephus speaks about Noah’s ark, saying that he saw it.

Marco Polo, about whom you’ve read in history books, was a famous explorer. Many pay homage to this man in regard to his accomplishments, but lose respect when he gets to the point where he says, "I saw Noah’s Ark."

According to the Turkish government, there was a team of workers that entered three of the ark’s compartments in 1840. A man by the name of Dr. Noui, the Archdeacon of Jerusalem in Babylon, saw the ark in 1892. There was a Russian pilot by the name of Vladimir Roscovitski who went with a military expedition to find the ark just prior to the Russian Revolution. He reported that plans were drawn and complete measurements, as well as photographs, were taken. I believe these records were destroyed during the Russian Revolution.

In the 1960s, NASA sighted what could be Noah’s ark: an alien, cigar-shaped object approximately 14,000 feet up on Mt. Ararat. The Biblical ark was, of course, cigar-shaped.

Many paleontological specimens are found in rock strata, horizontal layers of hardened sediment, which are seen all around the world. Nearly all the dinosaurs that have been found were buried in sandstone, which means they were killed by flood action. Hundreds of the great, frozen mammoth beasts that have been found in Siberia were all buried in ice. Some of the wooly mammoths that have been found in the Arctic still have green foliage in their mouths. These animals were destroyed suddenly by massive water action. It is reported that hungry people have actually eaten them. That’s the way it happened. That’s the way it is.

The September-November 2000 issue of Creation reports on a Scientific American article. The title of the article is "Flood Link to Fossilized Dino Family." The excerpt follows:

A ’family’ of six fossilized dinosaurs have been found buried together in Patagonia. Resembling Tyrannosaurus rex and Gigantosaurus, (Greek gigas [giant] and notos [south]) the yet-to-be-named dinosaur could be the largest apparent meat-eater to have ever walked the earth.

The ‘family’ of one large adult, two smaller adults, two juveniles and one quarter-size ‘baby’ dinosaur were found buried together with no indications of volcanic eruptions or attack from other dinosaurs.

Paleontologists are therefore theorising that the group ‘may have perished in a flood’. [End of quote]

Some contest Noah’s Ark on the grounds of its size. They contend the ark couldn’t possibly have existed, because the ship wasn’t big enough to hold all the animal life. Here is a little account to take into consideration. This is also in Genesis, chapter six: The size of the ark, according to the Scriptures, was 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. Now, 45 feet high is about five stories tall. It would have taken 17,000 species of animals to sustain all life on the earth. So, in other words, they would have needed 35,000 plus animals (male and female) to fit into the ark. This ark had to be big enough to hold some 35,000 odd animals. When you take all animals into consideration, the average size of an animal is the size of a sheep. If you took sheep and put them in boxcars, it would take 146 railroad boxcars to hold 35,000 sheep—146 boxcars. The ark actually had a capacity of 522 boxcars. So, those who make the contest that the ark was not big enough are simply ill-informed. Noah had room for a swimming pool, a basketball court, and a gymnasium, too! For those who want more details on this subject, read John Woodmorappe’s excellent book, Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study.

Noah and his family had almost four times the room necessary to house all the animals. It is also a practical possibility that Noah could have taken baby animals instead of fully-grown ones. That would have generated even more room because the average size of an animal would have been possibly that of a rabbit.

In 1853, while excavating at Nineveh, archaeologist H. Rassam uncovered the palace of King Ashur-Bani-Pal. There he found a priceless clay tablet which reads, "I, Ashur-Bani-Pal, within this palace, learned the wisdom of Nebo, the entire art of writing on clay tablets of every kind. I made myself master of the various kinds of writing...I read the beautiful clay tablets from Sumer and the Akkadian writing, which is hard to master. I had the joy of reading inscriptions on the stone from the time before the flood."

Many ancient non-Jewish and non-Christian civilizations have passed down accounts of the flood. One of the world’s oldest, the Miao or Miautso of China, passed down this story from generation to generation:

So it poured forty days in sheets and torrents.
Then fifty-five days of misting and drizzle.
The waters surmounted the mountains and ranges.
An earth with no earth upon which to take refuge!
A world with no foothold where one might subsist!
The people were baffled, impotent and ruined,
Despairing, horror stricken, diminished and finished.
But the Patriarch Nuah was righteous.
The Matriarch Gaw Bo-lu-en upright.
Built a boat very wide.
Made a ship very vast.
Their household entire got aboard and were floated,
The family complete rode the deluge in safety.
The animals with him were female and male.
The birds went along and were mated in pairs.
When the time was fulfilled, God commanded the waters.
The day had arrived, the floodwaters receded.
Then Nuah liberated a dove from their refuge,
Sent a bird to go forth and bring again tidings.
The flood has gone down into lake and to ocean;
The mud was confined to the pools and hollows.
There was land once again where man might reside;
There was a place in the earth now to rear habitations.
Buffalo then were brought, an oblation to God,
Fatter cattle became sacrifice to the Mighty.
The Divine One then gave them His blessing;
Their God then bestowed His good graces.

The following two paragraphs are from the December ’00-February ’01 issue of Creation under the heading, "Uncanny Coherence To Noah’s Account." The excerpt reads:

There are at least 500 legends of a worldwide deluge. Many of these show remarkable similarities, with many aspects similar to the details about Noah’s Flood in the Bible.

We are left with a few options. Perhaps all the peoples of these remote civilisations had different flood experiences that, by chance, had all these features in common, on which they based their stories. However, the more reasonable alternative is that these legends all find their root in the same one global Flood experience that Genesis records. [End of quote]

There are some final facts to consider. The following information is from an article titled, "Time, Life and History in the Light of 25,000 Radiocarbon Dates."

When carbon-14 dating is "correctly" calibrated, and 25,000 radiocarbon dates are graphed, the results show evidence of a great peak of death about 4,000 years ago. [End of quote]

A secular scientist once said that "If Noah’s ark is true, we’ll have to rewrite our textbooks because they have been written on the premise that the ark was a fairy tale." It is time to start writing.

According to an article reported in the January 1999 issue of Discover magazine, titled "Forty Days and Forty Nights, More or Less," a great flood of possibly Noahitic proportion did take place in ancient times. I’m quoting:

About 7,500 years ago, (they’re off about 3,000 years) a flood poured ten cubic miles of water a day—130 times more than flows over Niagara Falls—from the Mediterranean Sea into the Black Sea, abruptly turning the formerly freshwater lake into a brackish inland sea.

The evidence has been slowly accumulating over the past five years. In 1993, William Ryan and Walter Pitman of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory dug up cores of sediment from the bottom of the Black Sea. The core samples showed that the sea’s outer margins had once been dry land and that it had been two-thirds its present size. Furthermore, over the entire sea bottom was a thin, uniform layer of sediment that could only have been deposited during a flood.

This past year, even more evidence came to light when researchers collected sediment samples from several new, nearby sites. "If there had been a flood, there would have been a flood everywhere," says Ryan, "so we know that we had to find the same features—the same evidence that the Black Sea had once been smaller." The new samples are consistent with that story. [End of quote]

In an article in the Smithsonian, written by James Trefil, under the heading, "Evidence for a Flood," he reports on the research of Columbia University geologists, Ryan and Pitman. Trefil reports on the research that claims that antediluvian "ocean levels were about 400 feet lower than they are today" and that "the east coast of the United States was 75 to 150 miles farther out than it is today, and places like Manhattan and Baltimore would have been inland cities." Of course, this was a result of God changing the world’s atmospheric structure when he opened the windows of heaven and poured the water down for forty days and forty nights.

The core samples taken by Ryan and Pitman from the area of the Black Sea lead them to believe that a flood of Noahitic proportion actually occurred, although they don’t make the complete jump to global. The following paragraph is from the Smithsonian:

It was this event that Pitman and Ryan believe could be the flood recorded in the Book of Genesis. The salt water poured through the deepening channel, creating a waterfall 200 times the volume of Niagara Falls (anyone who has ever traveled to the base of the falls on the Maid of the Mist will have a sense of the power involved). In a single day enough water came through the channel to cover Manhattan to a depth at least two times the height of the World Trade Center, and the roar of cascading water would have been audible at least 100 miles away. [End of quote]

Obviously the Smithsonian’s article was written before September 11th of 2001.

In a 1999 article titled "Evidence of Ancient Disaster Found," an account of a huge pile-up of dinosaur bodies in Shell, Wyoming, was reported. Kirby Siber, director of a dinosaur museum in Switzerland, believes the fossils represent a remarkable Jurassic catastrophe, such as a huge hurricane, flood or similar natural event.

Consider these geological facts that certify the Bible’s account of Noah’s Ark:

1. All the mountains of the world have been underwater at some time or times in the past, as indicated by sedimentary rocks and marine fossils near their summits.

2. Most of the earth’s crust consists of sedimentary rocks which are formed almost entirely underwater.

3. All sedimentary formations appear to have been formed rapidly — even catastrophically.

The Bible is not just printer’s ink and paper. It is the Word of a living God. Noah’s ark? YES! For more shocking information, click on to "Noah II."

GOD SAID, Genesis 6:12-17:

12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.

13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

14 Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.

15 And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.

16 A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.

17 And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.

MAN SAID: These miraculous Biblical accounts are foolish and unfounded. A famous evolutionist said that a thinking man must check his brain at the door if he attends a Bible-believing church.

Now you have THE RECORD.




References:

Authorized King James Version

Conolly, R., "Flood!" Creation, December ’00-February ’01, p29

"Flood Link To Fossilized Dino Family," Scientific American, 4/12/00

Halley’s Bible Handbook

Keller, W., The Bible As History

Segraves, Dr. K., The Great Dinosaur Mistake

Svitil, K. A., "Forty Days and Forty Nights, More or Less," Discover magazine, January 1999

"The World’s Lost Mysteries," Reader’s Digest, 1978

Trefil, J., "Evidence Of A Flood," Smithsonian

Whitcomb, J. C., and H. Morris, The Genesis Flood

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