ARK HUNTERS LEFT HIGH AND DRY
By Jen Waters, The Washington Times

The Washington Times
July 26, 2007 Thursday

Search for Noah’s boat generates flood of questions, few real answers

Forty days and 40 nights of rain, two of all living creatures, a
dove with an olive leaf and a rainbow. The story of Noah’s ark has
intrigued for generations, says author Eric H. Cline.

"I’m fascinated by people’s fascination in Noah’s ark when there are
many more solvable mysteries out there, and yet that might be exactly
what draws them to it. They know it’s inherently unsolvable," says
Mr. Cline, an associate professor of ancient history and archaeology
at George Washington University in Northwest and author of "From Eden
to Exile," recently published by National Geographic.

According to the book of Genesis, God observed humankind’s wickedness,
and it grieved him. He decided to wipe mankind from the face of the
earth. However, a righteous man named Noah found favor with God. So
God told him to build an ark to save himself and his family. After
the flood passed, God made a covenant with Noah, promising never
again to destroy all living creatures by the waters of a flood.

In literature, many civilizations have a flood narrative, including
multiple versions of the same story from ancient Mesopotamia, says
Mr. Cline, who holds a doctorate in ancient history.

"I don’t know if that helps or hurts the story of Noah," Mr. Cline
says. "Stories like that were floating around, if you pardon the pun,
even before the Bible. Maybe you don’t believe the biblical story
because you have the other ones, or maybe you do believe the biblical
story because other stories exist."

There is no geological or archaeological evidence of a universal flood,
says Lloyd Bailey, the Barrow professor of biblical studies at Mount
Olive College in Mount Olive, N.C. He has a doctorate in Hebrew and
cognate studies. After all, a wooden ark would tend to rot, he says.

"There is a question of the historicity of the flood," Mr. Bailey
says. "Was it a local flood or a universal flood? Was there a Noah?

Who survived?"

However, there is a lot of evidence for smaller floods, Mr. Cline
says. For instance, in 1998, William Ryan and Walter Pitman, two
geologists from Columbia University, estimated that a flood took
place about 5500 B.C., starting from the Black Sea.

"A local flood could have been really bad," Mr. Cline says. "The
world as you knew it could have been flooded to the horizon. Think of
[Hurricane] Katrina and what happened with New Orleans."

But then whatever happened to the boat? Although many explorers have
set out to find Noah’s ark, it has not been found, Mr. Cline says.

"I’m not so sure anyone is ever going to find it," Mr. Cline says.

"Even if it did exist, it’s thousands of years old by now. If it ever
existed, by this point, it’s long gone."

There have been many theories about what happened to the boat, he
says. Probably the only way it would have been preserved would have
been if it had been buried in sand the way the Egyptians preserved a
few of their royal boats. It also could be at the bottom of the Black
Sea or a similar body of water at a depth where there is no oxygen,
he says.

"Everyone is looking on the top of Mount Ararat in the snow line,"
Mr. Cline says. "It’s very unlikely it would be freeze-dried or
petrified. It’s a one-in-a-gazillion chance, but that doesn’t stop
people from looking for it."

Furthermore, the Bible says the ark "rested in the seventh month,
on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat,"
not Mount Ararat, he says. The mountains of Ararat cover roughly
100,000 square miles, according to Armenian scholars.

"There is this quest," Mr. Cline says. "It’s amazing how many people
keep going to look for it and how many people are willing to give
them money to do it."

No one has ever used radar to look underneath the entire icecap on
Mount Ararat, says Rex Geissler, president of ArcImaging, a nonprofit
foundation based in Highlands Ranch, Colo.

Because of the icecap, Mount Ararat is the only peak in the
mountains of Ararat that would enable the ark to be hidden, if it
has survived, he says. It has not been found in any other location
through satellite. Therefore, Mr. Geissler plans to explore 17 square
miles of ice-covered ground on Mount Ararat with ground-penetrating
radar, providing the Turkish military gives permission. He had an
archaeological expedition in the area in October and November 2001.

"We’re not assuming the ark is intact," Mr. Geissler says. "We are
looking for anomalies on the radar. Then we plan to go back and dig
down to anomalies to see what we would find."

If the boat has survived, Mr. Geissler would like to look for any
type of archaeological information in the ark, he says. However,
he says he is under no illusions about finding the boat.

"I’m not a treasure hunter," Mr. Geissler says. "I’m confident we
will find a lot of archaeological artifacts; whether it pertains to
Noah and his family, I can’t say that. It may also help the Turks
with geology. They have problems with earthquakes. We may be able to
find some indicators of faults as well."

Despite good intentions, critical examination needs to be taken
of people who misinterpret science and the Bible when it come to
Noah’s flood, says Hugh Ross, president of Reasons to Believe, an
interdenominational ministry in Pasadena, Calif., established to
communicate the factual basis for belief in the Bible. He also holds
a doctorate in astronomy and is author of "The Genesis Question."

"The ark was very large, a minimum of 450 feet long," Mr. Ross says.

"It was made of ‘gopher wood.’ It would have been a very strong
timber. The lumber of Noah’s ark wouldn’t have been left lying
around. It would have been quickly exploited after the flood."

Further, the flood could have been universal without being global,
Mr. Ross says. In the Bible, God told humanity to disperse throughout
the earth. However, Mr. Ross says mankind disobeyed God and remained
in the area of Mesopotamia.

A universal flood can be local if humanity is local, he says. The
Bible also has many examples in which "the whole world" is used to
describe a local area. For instance, kings and queens supposedly came
from throughout the entire world to hear of Solomon’s wisdom.

"They actually came [from] as far as Ethiopia," Mr. Ross says. "In
1 Kings 10, the Queen of Sheba came the farthest, and she only had
to travel 1,500 miles, roughly. In the New Testament, Paul says the
faith of the Roman Christians has been heard throughout the whole
world. He meant throughout the entire Roman empire."