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Dr. Randall Price, Professor of Judaic Studies at Liberty University, looks through ancient Israeli artifacts in the university’s Center for Judaic Studies on Thursday.
It’s one of the most familiar Bible stories.
Saddened by the wickedness of man, God directs the righteous Noah to build an ark for his family and two of each species of animal.
Together, they ride the ark through 40 days and 40 nights of torrential rains that God unleashes upon the Earth. And when the waters subside, Noah and the animals return to land.
“That seems almost like a fairy story,” said archaeologist Randall Price, who is director of Liberty University’s new Center for Judaic Studies. “But we believe it was an actual event.”
This summer Price, 57, plans to continue on a journey to prove just that as he joins an expedition to Mount Ararat. His team believes that it is there, in Eastern Turkey, where Noah’s Ark remains preserved underneath layers of rubble and ice.
“There’s a whole trail of history pointing to it (Mt. Ararat),” Price said. “But in our age, people tend to think it is more of a story like ‘Jack and the Bean Stalk.’ Our aim is to show that the Bible is good history.”
Price has led dozens of expeditions in biblical archeology and has been to Israel on more than 90 separate occasions over the past 30 years. His expeditions there include the site of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, where he has led archeological digs. The trip to Mount Ararat will be his second to the hoped-for site of the ark.
He pointed to Genesis 8:4, which states, “and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat,” in The New International Version of the Bible.
For centuries, expeditions have set out to find Noah’s Ark but have been unable to find any concrete evidence, beyond that of an unwavering faith, to support its existence.
Richard Bright, 64, has visited Turkey more than 30 times over the past 25 years in search of the vessel. Bright, who currently is writing his third book on the search for the ark, will join Price on the expedition this summer.
“We’ve received many leads over the years, dating back into antiquity,” he said in a recent phone interview. “We’ve had so many reports over the years, and they talk about the same mountain.”
Last fall, a new tip piqued both his and Price’s interest.
A Kurdish shepherd told them that he had seen the ark, and even climbed on top of it, when he was a boy.
The team hypothesizes that the ark is preserved in several pieces beneath a glacier on the mountain, and every so often the glacier recedes, exposing part of the vessel.
“That’s when he saw it as a boy,” Price said, adding that they had interviewed the shepherd and could find no reason to distrust him.
The shepherd asked for nothing in return, and agreed to lead Bright to the site where he said he had seen the ark.
Bright first climbed to the site in September. Then a team including Price, the shepherd, a mountaineer and several others made a follow-up ascent to 15,000 feet later the same month.
They found the spot, Price said, but it now is covered by an estimated 60-foot-deep pile of boulders. Price believes the landslide may have resulted from attacks against Kurdish rebels on the mountain, or perhaps from explosives that were set off to cover up the ark.
“It’s a very delicate and almost clandestine environment,” he said of the area, which is near the Turkish border to Iran and Armenia. “The danger level is high.”
But his team has negotiated with government and military authorities and gained access to work at the site starting this spring, Price said.
That’s when the team of archaeologists, geologists, explorers and other volunteers plan to start removing boulders.
By summertime, they hope to reach the glacier and use ice-melting equipment to access what they believe is preserved beneath. If a structure is found, they plan to take samples to have analyzed and dated.
But that may not be proof enough for some. Bright said people would have to make up their own minds.
“We intend to, God willing, find enough of it to at least show that we have an ancient structure,” he said. “If we find a great big structure up there that fits the dimensions, and if there are compartments in there, and it’s ancient — What else could it be, way up there, thousands of feet in the air?”
Work also must be done leading up to the expedition.
Price estimated that the team needs to raise about $60,000 to pay for permission to use the site, to buy the necessary machinery and to fund about two months of work on location.
Bright said a discovery would “mean so much to so many, many people worldwide.”
“Keep your ear to the road, so to speak, this summer,” he said. “Because there will be discovery. The only thing that’s holding us back is to finance the machinery that we need.”
Reader Reactions
Another myth that has swept over the world is the myth of Atomic Clocks and Radiometric Dating. There is a page on our website www.mexicobeachcwc.com that explodes these myths. Look for the links at the bottom of the welcome page.
In short these “ dating methods “ are a perversion of “ rate equations “ that are used routinely by physical chemists, to monitor, or predict reaction outcomes, in the lab.
When you see, or hear, the term “ millions of years or billions of years0 “ a red flag should pop up. You are about to receive a brainwashing attack.
When a chemist is present at the beginning to log in the start time and the initial conditions, and to monitor the reaction rates, and to assure that nothing has been added to, or taken away, from the reaction, it works just fine.
When the beginning conditions and start time, and the early reaction rates, are not known, it is just one assumption after another, and an outcome that will have you tempted to believe all those long geologic ages.
keep digging till you get to the 10 million year old rock go down alittle further till you get to the 30 million year old rock and you got it
It’s going to be right down in that hole next to the 10 million year old rock!
vi11agemouse sez - “What I want to know is…if we came from monkeys,why are there still monkeys and why aren’t THEY evolving still.“
Now you should know that the Darwinists have an easy answer to that one, you don’t think they would have left THAT out do you?
It was a different SORT of monkey that evolved into humans. The monkeys we have NOW aren’t the kind that evolve into anything else, which is why there’s no transitional types, and why there aren’t almost-intelligent chimpanzees, and fire-making gorillas.
They aren’t the right kind. The kind that were going to evolve already evolved (back where we couldn’t see it happen, of course), and that’s done with.
AND, once people evolve to the point where they take care of their weak and sick, and allow their “less than fit” members to breed, then evolution stops.
See what a nice package it makes? Almost like it was designed that way ...
What I want to know is…if we came from monkeys,why are there still monkeys and why aren’t THEY evolving still.If we are changed to adapt to the environment,then why aren’t we now evolving to adapt to this “global warming”.
(Older)
The object claimed by Vonbora is not my discovery nor is there really sufficient public data available to be absolutely conclusive, however Its findings can be reproduced by anyone with the means. I haven’t seen that elsewhere. It is scientifically testable. Additionally, there is plenty of tangential information on the site that can be corroborated elsewhere on the WWW, and there are individuals of sufficient credentials included on the site to take the site seriously. It is an abundantly thorough site. At the very least the people of prominence that are mentioned should voice their opposition to be included on the site if there are any misrepresentations concerning them.
I appreciate your cursory explanation of why Greater Ararat is the correct mountain, but I haven’t seen a convincing explanation of the method, other than Project Vonbora’s (and frankly Vonbora does explain the process sufficiently to be reproduced by anyone, but it does not draw it out as explicitly as it could).
Frankly if there is not sufficient rigor in explaining how a discovery is made, from the ancient text, then I don’t see much value, in relation to the text.
Cheers,
PA
“Good comment Imprimis. And you could have taken it a lot further.“
Why thank you. I think I will.
In this day of computer simulations, it should be very easy for anyone to set up a simulation, generation by generation, of a particular type’s evolutionary development. The same proto-mammal whose descendants evolved into, say, a bat, and a whale respectively. That supposedly happened in about 60 million generations (probably less, given the huge gestation period of the whale, but give it 60 million to be fair).
Given the start and end conditions, and some “rules” for change, a computer could run that sequence in a few days.
NOW scientists would have to explain HOW and WHY the changes that are seen from generation to generation occurred. HOW did a mammal with no wings develop wings 2 feet long? What did the transitional type look like? An animal with wings 2 inches long, then 3 inches long etc? How did it survive in the meantime with those stubby wings in the way, with which it could neither run fast nor fly? Why are there no fossils of this stumpy-winged proto-bat? And how could it, in the meantime, been “the fittest”?
No scientist has EVER answered these questions. So to say “evolution has been observed, proven, etc ad nauseam” is MUCH sillier than saying that some creative intelligence was behind things ....
We have two choices in this world. We can study and research. Or we can talk. If you had done even a little research, you would know that for all practical purposes there are only two mountains of Ararat,- greater Ararat and little Ararat. The other mountains nearby are some distance away and much lower in elevation.
If what you say about the Armenian government is true, the officials are neglecting the eye witness testimony of a number of their own citizens. At the beginning of the 20th century many Armenians climbed the mountain and saw Noah’s Ark, or a very large piece of it.
Georgie Hagopian saw it twice with his uncle during the period from 1906 to 1910. He also passed a lie detector test concerning his testimony.
I don’t know who said that evolution has been observed, tested, documented, confirmed and forms the basis of science as we know it. I know that is what some people are teaching, but that is absolute nonsense.
When, many years ago, I was a chemistry student in a nearby state college, I tried desperately to prove the validity of evolution. It sounded real good to me. It offered me the privilege of living my life in pleasure and selfishness, ignoring any need to serve God or my fellow man. What I soon learned was that I was seeking to deceive myself.
There were ( or still are ) no transitional species. Evolution from one kind of organism to another has never been observed, and never will. There seems to be a boundary in our DNA/RNA system that permits only slight changes in organisms.
Good comment Imprimis. And you could have taken it a lot further.
PA: With regard to the mountains of Ararat. As I stated above, for all practical purposes there are only two. And, there is only one spot in that area where the Ark could have landed in such an orientation that Noah could have looked out his window and seen the tops of “ mountains “. That spot happens to be near the eastern summit of Ararat just into the saddle area between the eastern summit and the western summit. Isn’t it strange that that is where we found the upper piece, the first piece that Ed Davis reported seeing in 1943?
Ed Davis was told by his Kurdish friends that the Ark was broken into 3 or 4 large pieces, and a number of smaller pieces. I have located 3 of those pieces, and am willing to consider that there might be another major piece,- perhaps your Von Bora piece.
God Bless everyone!
(Older)
Your identification of “born from above” rather than “born again” demonstrates that you are no slouch of study. I agree to that.
Your precision you expect of others though does not appear to be required of yourself. Surely you know the land of Ararat does not contain just one mountain and Genesis 8:4 does not identify plainly which mountain the Ark landed on. It says it came to rest in the mountains of Ararat.
I might as well say I built a house in the mountains of Colorado and tell you to go look for it. Without further description as to its location you could never make a legitimate claim to have found it on Pikes Peak.
If Dr. Ahmet Ali Arslan (and others) are able to explain the portion of Genesis that identifies the particular mountain they search as the proper mountain of landing, then why have the not done so?
If they neglect to at least demonstrate that they are in fact on the correct mountain then their pictures of whatever on whichever mountain mean nothing, in relation to Genesis, which after all is the only reason any one has ever looked among the mountains of Ararat for the Ark.
Vonbora.org does explain how Genesis provides the necessary information to discern which mountain (among many in the land of Ararat) is the specific mountain described as the location of the Ark.
Those who are precise in their study will approve of the method.
Cheers,
PA
“As for evolution being mythology, its well settled that it is more than just mythology or faith. It has been observed, tested, documented, confirmed and forms the basis of science as we know it”
Actually, it has been none of those things. Nobody has EVER described the process that could result in a human eye being formed, or messenger RNA, much less observed or tested it. OR confirmed it. Where are you getting that? Wishful thinking? No one denies that species can adapt to their environment. But no mechanism for creating incredibly complex structures we see in animals and humans has EVER been even postulated.
People who are ignorant of the actual science just sit back fatly and SAY that it is settled.
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