Randall Price: Ark Discovery a Hoax! (Probably)

Dr. Randall Price-Liberty

University

Again, the law of probability attaches little cost to proclaiming the "Noah's Ark Discovery" a fake, the odds are always in the favor of the doubter:

AOL News - "In a leaked e-mail that had made the rounds on the Web, Price, a longtime ark-hunter who directs the Center for Judaic Studies at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., says that in the summer of 2008, a group of Kurdish laborers, hired by a local guide working with the Chinese expedition, removed several large wooden beams from an old structure near the Black Sea, then hauled them to a cave near the peak of Ararat, long thought by believers to have been the spot where Noah's Ark washed up.

Price says that those photos of the supposed ark include cobwebs in the corners of the structure's rafters, 'something just not possible in these conditions.' "

No spiders I guess, could live on Ararat. And of course, no life could live in Volcanic vents on the bottom of the ocean, and there are no lakes at the bottom of the sea with life in them nor are there Antarctic lakes beneath glaciers, with life in them.

But there are.

I fervently hope the Ark has been found. The cruelest parts of me would enjoy the good laugh that comes with such a discovery.

The green jealousy of archaeologists and academics that didn't discover the Ark, is already on display. They have no more proof that the "Ark" was hauled up piece by piece than the discoverers do, to prove the Ark is there, or at least, that proof hasn't been offered. Yet.

Those that don't believe will explain it away. Islamic crazies will probably scale Ararat to blow it up, because it is an affront to Islam since Ararat is not Mt. Judi.

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Ark Doubters have their say

In truth, if it's not the ark that was just found, they're not Ark Doubters, they're fraud finders. Who is right? Probably the doubters:

National Geographic - "As a creationist, (Biologist Todd) Wood (director of the Center for Origins Research at Bryan College in Tennessee) believes God created Earth and its various life-forms out of nothing roughly 6,000 years ago.

'If you accept a young chronology for the Earth ... then radiocarbon dating has to be reinterpreted,' because the method often yields dates much older than 6,000 years, Wood said.

Radiocarbon dating estimates the ages of organic objects by measuring the radioisotope carbon 14, which is known to decay at a set rate over time. The method is generally thought to reach its limit with objects about 60,000 years old. Earth is generally thought to be about four and a half billion years old.

Across the board, radiocarbon dates need to be recalibrated, Wood believes, to reflect shorter time frames.

Given this perceived overestimation in radiocarbon daiting (sic), the wood the Noah's Ark Ministries International team found should have a 'traditional' radiocarbon date of several tens of thousands of years if the wood is truly 4,800 years old, Wood said.

'I'm really, really skeptical that this could possibly be Noah's Ark,' he added. The wood date is 'way, way, way too young.'

Wood thinks Noah's ark will never be found, because 'it would have been prime timber after the flood,' he said.

'If you just got off the ark, and there's no trees, what are you going to build your house out of? You've got a huge boat made of wood, so let's use that," he said. "So I think it got torn apart and scavenged for building material basically.' "

Wood has a point. Actually, more than one. In case you didn't understand his point well, let me rephrase. Wood believes that Radio Carbon dating is inaccurate and increasingly so as you go farther into the past.

Why?

Our cosmology, on which we base radio carbon dating, is all wrong. Without going to deeply into it, it is clear that if radio carbon dating shows that an object is a billion years old, but the Earth by other means can be demonstrated to be 6000 years old, then something happens several thousand years ago with carbon 14 absorption or decay that we haven't accounted for.

Another way of putting it? Carbon 14 dating is the product of a circular argument. "These rocks are 14 billion years old" says the geologist. The Carbon Dating assumption is then that the rock is 14 billion years old. It is also based on a constant rate of decay being assumed, and we haven't been observing radioactive decay long enough, to say with a certainty, that it is constant. We can't even say that Carbon 14 was present in the atmosphere in the same amounts that it is now, way back when. That's the rough form of the criticism of Carbon dating.

In short a group of amateur hoaxers may have offended the science of the group their pandering to, which are creationists and Biblical literalists.

I tend to agree that the Ark would have been building material, and not. That's a lot of wood, high up on a mountain and it was put together to withstand rough seas. Labor is in short supply, and there would be a lot of log jams as the flood waters receded. Wood is correct though, if he was saying the Ark was the only source of "processed" timber available.

In the end all the brainy explanations aren't why I think the doubters are right. It's just that the odds are in their favor. Every time one of these claims comes up, you could just say "It's a fraud" and you stand a "99.9%" chance, of being right.

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Noah's Ark Found?

Is this Noah's Ark?

I'm always enthusiastic about the possibility, because Noah's ark was a real historical object.

Since it was, the only question in my mind would be, is it still? There is no reason the Ark having once existed, still exists, but high elevation and several other factors do make it possible.

The UK Daily Mail - "The team of Turks and Chinese researchers from Noah's Ark Ministries International in Hong Kong say they made the discovery on Ararat - the biblical resting place of the ark - in October.

At a press conference yesterday to announce the discovery, another team member, Panda Lee, said: 'I saw a structure built with plank-like timber. Each plank was about eight inches wide. I could see tenons, proof of ancient construction predating the use of metal nails. We walked about 100 metres to another site. I could see broken wood fragments embedded in a glacier, and some 20 metres long.'

The structure had several compartments, some with wooden beams, the team said.

The wooden walls of one compartment were smooth and curved while the video shown by the explorers revealed doors, staircases and nails. The team said the wood appeared to be cypress although, according to the Bible, the ark was built from gopher.

The group ruled out identifying the find as a human settlement, saying none had been found so high up in that area. They are keeping the exact location secret."

I seem to remember that no one really knows what "Gopher Wood" is, perhaps now we know.

Christian Answers - "Most modern English versions of the Bible translate it as 'cypress.' This is probably incorrect and is really only a guess supported by very weak evidence. Why cypress? In trying to solve the identity of 'gopher wood,' some guessed that a transliteration might be involved ('kupar' into 'gopher'). Adam Clarke's Commentary says, 'supposing the Greek word kuparissov, cypress, was formed from the Hebrew rpg, gopher; for take away the termination issov, and then gopher and kupar will have a near resemblance.' Another supposed evidence for 'cypress' is based on the fact that cypress trees are large and strong, and in the post-Flood earth, at least, once grew abundantly in Chaldea and Armenia. Armenia is where the ark is believed to have landed, in the mountains of Ararat."

Either our Ark seekers are pandering, or maybe the modern scholarship is right, it's cypress.

I've been enthusiastic about possible finds before. There are a lot of charaltans out there in the Biblical Relic Search, but this is intriguing.

Here's a video of the find.

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More Thoughts on the Beautiful One, Naamah

Rick Beckman decides to go scholarly on my analysis of Cain, and his eventual offspring Naamah. Yes Alicia, I like the name too.

I've already decided that should I have another daughter (unlikely) that I will name her Naamah. It not only sounds beautiful, it means that. Check him out.

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The Monument of Cain, first born of Adam?

Cain, is hardly a sympathetic figure in scripture. He sulks after the rejection of his offering, but Cain, as Abel and his parents do, converses directly with God regarding all. In this way he is somewhat to be envied since we all sin, but the word of God is scarce in these days. When I say "why?" I must search the scriptures. Cain could take his whines to God. In fact, he could sulk and God would walk over to him and ask him "what's wrong?"

"The Lord said to Cain, 'Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it'." (ESV)

Ever the angry child, working out not generations of sinful build up, but purely his own, Cain moves from divine revelation, to further sin.

"Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him."

After trying to cover up his deed to an all knowing God, Cain is sentenced to wander and to be a fugitive. Cain sees his own death in his murderous guilt, lamenting that whoever finds him, will destroy him. God however shows love for Cain and preserves him.

"Then the Lord said to him, 'Not so! If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.' And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him. Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden."

To think that Cain at least, did not know of the LORD, is folly. To think his children did not either, is also error. Cain conversed with God, he bore God's preserving mark, but his immediate punishment is to dwell away from the LORD, instead of in his close presence. Cain's line goes by an inferior path of inheritance, like Ishmael, like Canaan, like Esau. All these men go these paths for different reasons, but they walk out of the story line of the Bible, and into relative obscurity.

One of the bookends of Cain's story is God's promise to him that he will be avenged if he is himself killed, a promise echoed at the other end of Cain's line, for Cain's patrilinear line dies, in the flood. How then, is Cain remembered? He is driven from his home, his genealogy is known from male descendant to male descendant. Most likely, and almost certainly it is not written down, but witnessed to from one generation to the next. It is said that Noah could have known (and probably did know) a man that knew Adam. Noah's knowledge of Adam is second hand, probably witnessed to by more than one man, likewise Cain's line would be similarly confirmed, from Cain forward. In fact we have more detail about Cain than we have about the "Godly Line of Seth" and any of it's members. What is the most likely meaning in terms of genealogy? Cain separates from Seth and Adam. The confirming witnesses of his line look back not to Adam, but to Cain. One of the two bookends of his story.

Fast forward to Lamech, who recites the protection of Cain to his witnesses, his wives.

"Lamech said to his wives: 'Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say: I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain's revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech's is seventy-sevenfold.' "

Ofttimes this is interpreted to mean that Lamech is a bad man, but we do know why he killed. He killed in self defense. Lamech seems to then claim the protections of God, the inheritance of Cain, passed down to him. He has killed two men (possibly just one, these references could be to the same man) and asserts that his protection ought to be greater as a result. His frame of reference genealogically speaking, is Cain. Cain, the inferior father of all his line, unlike Seth's whose father present and with him, is Adam. It's not much to claim but Lamech claims it and does what all men do in these times, he recites it orally to his family. His witnesses are his wives. Perhaps even, these are his dying words, the recitation of his inheritance. How then is Cain preserved, if he is to die in the flood?

In conversations with a close friend we have mulled over this point for a while. No woman is mentioned by name from Adam and Eve to Noah except for Lamech's wives and daughter. He is the father of Naamah, husband to Adah and Zillah. Suddenly detail blossoms and we have not one woman mentioned, but three. The words of Seth are not recorded in his line, only those of Adam his father and Eve, his mother. None of the words of the men between Lamech the Father of Noah (not Lamech, the father of Naamah, Cain, Jubal and Tubal-cain) are recorded, but like the other Lamech, Noah's father's words are recorded. He says of his son Noah;

"Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands."

Lamech, the father of Noah looks forward, Lamech, the father of Naamah, back. This is fitting, for the patrilinear line of Cain is about to die. But instead of the differences, let us look upon the similarities. Words at the beginning of an age are recorded, and words at their end. Noah knows the words of Lamech his father, because he hears them. How though, does he know the words of Naamah's father, the other Lamech, descendent of Cain? How does he know the genealogy? It would be lost to the line of Seth. Intermarriages between Seth's line, and Cain's line would retain their own patrilinear records passed from one generation to the next, emphasizing the family name, Seth. Why do we even know Naamah's name, much less the detail of her generation?

It is because she did not die in the flood. Naamah was on the ark. Naamah brought with her the story of her line, and someone who loved her, preserved it. That man would be her husband. That man is almost certainly Noah. Cain's name is not transcendent, but in a lesser way, Cain goes on, to this day, in all of us, for Naamah like Eve, is our mother.

Once again, this is an educated guess, but I would not bet against it. After coming to this conclusion without outside help, and marveling for a long time that such detail is given to the last in Cain's line, it suddenly dawned on me what the most likely explanation was. Knowing that if only I saw this, it would likely be a falsehood, I then began to research the names of Noah's family and their wives. Lo and behold, it is an ancient Hebrew Tradition, in Midrash, that Naamah is the wife of Noah. I am not alone.

Movies increasingly tell the popular stories of our time. From one of them, a 1992 movie script and remake of a popular American Novel by James Fenimore Cooper, there is this line uttered by Hawkeye about those who are gone, almost without a trace, and who live only as a memory;

"My father's people say that at the birth of the sun and of his brother the moon, their mother died. So the sun gave to the earth her body, from which was to spring all life. And he drew forth from her breast the stars, and the stars he threw into the night sky to remind him of her soul. So there's the Cameron's monument. My folks' too, I guess."

Bad theology, I know. Awful in fact, but if I felt any way at all in stumbling across one of my first grandmothers, that I never knew was there, it was that feeling. Scattered somewhere I will never know, is my mother from before the flood. When I look up at the stars it will seem that Naamah is memorialized there. Naamah (who else would it be?) speaks only of the greatness of her family, the accomplishments of her brothers, and not her own.

"Lamech took two wives. The name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. Adah bore Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother's name was Jubal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. Zillah also bore Tubal-cain; he was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron. The sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah."

Who else would remember and who else would know? Everyone in this story is important, Lamech a patriarch, mothers of the great inventors of their age, all of them having names. The only distinction of Naamah? She has a name. She is Cain's monument. More →

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