Archaeologica.org

Arch tends to black out unwanted evidence of his fairy tales being demolished.

Can't blame him, though. We have a president that does the same thing.

Minimalist wrote:Can't blame him, though. We have a president that does the same thing.

Now, now! Clinton has been out of office for six years now!

--J. "It Depend on What 'is' Is" D.

Better to screw one intern than a whole country.

Arch tends to black out unwanted evidence of his fairy tales being demolished.

how could i black any out? none has been presented in a logiclal, concise manner that warrants any reading or brings it credibility.

There are 75 pages of scientific proof that a global flood could never have happened.

I have no doubt that you don't see it. You are blinded by visions of arks.

there is also 75 pages of biblical evidence from both secular and religious authors yet you ignore that as well because you are blinded by your desire to live the way you want to.

(i am using the words 'you' and 'yours' in a general not specific sense here since there are so many of you).

though i do not hold to a traditional date for the flood, i am flexible since it is not that important to date it, i do hold that it all went down as the Bible says.

if it didn't, then there is nothing to offer you and i am wasting my time believing. but since it did and all the Bible is true then there is something to offer you and a way out for you.

archaeologically there is enough evidence to show that the Bible is accurate, even for the flood. scant it may be but it is there.

Minimalist wrote:Better to screw one intern than a whole country.

I know. Clinton refused to stop at the intern.

--J.D.

archaeologist wrote:how could i black any out? BLAH BLAH WAAAA!! MOMMY BAD MAN!! BAD MAN INSULT POET!! reading or brings it credibility.

Yeah.

--J.D.

scientific proof

too many people make the mistake that God is limited by science and its theories. or that science dictates to God how to act. two arrogaant fallacies which misleads people down the wrong trail to misconceptions and misunderstandings.

once you put science inits proper place, then maybe you wil get the answers you seek but as long as you make science a god, you won't.

The search goes on

Before discussing the recent claims regarding the whereabouts of Noah's vessel, a history of Ark "finds" is instructive.

Violet M. Cummings is the author of several books on Noah's Ark, among them "Noah's Ark: Fable or Fact?" (1975), in which she claimed that Noah's Ark was found on Turkey's Mount Ararat. According to the 1976 book and film "In Search of Noah's Ark," "there is now actual photographic evidence that Noah's Ark really does exist.... Scientists have used satellites, computers, and powerful cameras to pinpoint the Ark's exact location on Mt. Ararat."

This is a rather remarkable claim, for despite repeated trips to Mt. Ararat over the past thirty years, the Ark remains elusive.

Undeterred by a lack of evidence, in 1982 Cummings issued a book titled, "Has Anybody Really Seen Noah's Ark?," published by Creation-Life Publishers. The subtitle, "An Affirmative Definitive Report," hints at Cummings's conclusion.

Interest in Noah's Ark resurfaced in February 1993, when CBS aired a two-hour primetime special titled, "The Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark." (Little did CBS know that they were using incredible in its accurate, proper meaning: "not credible.")

As Ken Feder describes in his book "Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries," the special "was a hodgepodge of unverifiable stories and misrepresentations of the paleontological, archaeological, and historical records." It included the riveting testimony of a George Jammal, who claimed not only to have personally seen the Ark on Ararat but recovered a piece of it. Jammal's story (and the chunk of wood he displayed) impressed both CBS producers and viewers. Yet he was later revealed as a paid actor who had never been to Turkey and whose piece of the Ark was not an unknown ancient timber (identified in the Bible as "gopher wood") but instead modern pine soaked in soy sauce and artificially aged in an oven.

Red-faced CBS, which had done little fact-checking for their much-hyped special, said that the program was entertainment, not a documentary.

Recent claims

More claims surfaced periodically, including in March 2006, when a LiveScience writer reported on yet another incarnation of the Ararat claim. A team of researchers found a rock formation that might resemble a huge ark, nearly covered in glacial ice. Little came of that claim but a few months later, in June, a team of archaeologists from the Bible Archaeology Search and Exploration (BASE) Institute, a Christian organization, found yet another rock formation that might be Noah's Ark.

This time the Ark was "found" not on Ararat but at 13,000 feet in the Elburz mountains of Iran. "I can't imagine what it could be if it is not the Ark," said team member Arch Bonnema. They brought back pieces of stone they claim may be petrified wood beams, as well as video footage of the rocky cliffs.

The team believes that, within the rock formation, they can see evidence of hundreds of massive hand-hewn wooden beams laid out in the presumed size and shape of the Ark.

The Biblical archaeologists seem to have experienced pareidolia; seeing what they want to see in ambiguous patterns or images. Just as religious people will see images of Jesus or the Virgin Mary in toast, stains, or clouds, they may also see images of Noah's Ark in stone cliffs. (In New Mexico's Sandia National Forest there is a large rock formation called Battleship Rock, which—from a certain angle—does indeed look like a battleship. One wonders what the BASE team would make of that.)

Other researchers remain certain that the Ark is in fact on Mt. Ararat. Noah's Ark enthusiasts are therefore in the somewhat awkward position of deciding which (if any) of several scientifically "definitive" Ark finds is the real one.

The BASE claims, as with all previous reports of finding the Ark, have yet to be proven. Ultimately, it may not matter, because, as BASE president Bob Cornuke states, "I guess what my wife says my business is, we sell hope. Hope that it could be true, hope that there is a God."

Yet the question is not about faith, hope, or God; the question is if Noah's Ark is real and has been found. Like Atlantis, the ever-elusive Ark will continue to be "found" by those looking for it—whether it exists or not.

archaeologist wrote:too many people make the mistake that God is limited by science and its theories.

ed?

Warn the poor boy about the Good Doctor's Perniciously Pespicaciously Pertinently Pretentious Pedagogical Pediatric Pontine Tumor Proof [Tm.--Ed.]

It just might give him that stroke Minimalist is concerned about. . . .

--J.D.

Tech:

Indeed.

"Serious Scientists" [Tm.--Ed.] may not wish to bother to debunk such nonsense, but then they fail in their responsibility to the Body Politic. I thought about starting a topic on whether or not one can separate religion from archaeology. Archaeology is about the past, if not distant past. That is why it is call "archaeology" and not, like, "post-modernology."

Religions tend to be based or founded in a mythic past. Thus, adherents, the public in general, will want to know what the study of the past says about it.

It may be irritating, it may be inconvenient, but it is not to be ignored, else in silence ignorance wins.

--J.D.

archaeologist wrote:

scientific proof

too many people make the mistake that God is limited by science and its theories. or that science dictates to God how to act. two arrogaant fallacies which misleads people down the wrong trail to misconceptions and misunderstandings.

.

Unsupported speculation.

Doctor X wrote:

archaeologist wrote:too many people make the mistake that God is limited by science and its theories.

ed?

Warn the poor boy about the Good Doctor's Perniciously Pespicaciously Pertinently Pretentious Pedagogical Pediatric Pontine Tumor Proof [Tm.--Ed.]

It just might give him that stroke Minimalist is concerned about. . . .

--J.D.

errr .. I know of pontine tumors but the rest is a blur. Care to illucidate?

It just might give him that stroke Minimalist is concerned about. . . .

"Concerned" is probably too strong a word.