Noah’s Ark is among the best known and most captivating of all Old Testament stories—but searches for the Ark draw everything from exasperation to disdain from academic archaeologists and biblical scholars
on the extent of that event, just as historians of the era differ on whether writings about a deluge were inspired by real life. It seems likelier that floods were simply experienced in different places and at different times—and that those events naturally made their way into the world’s oral and written lore.
Complicating the issue even further, scholars differ on the precise location of Noah’s Ark according to the Hebrew Bible. In the Book of Genesis, the ark came to rest “” located in the ancient kingdom of Urartu, an area that now includes Armenia and parts of eastern Turkey and Iran—not the single, iconic peak that bears its name today.And both Cline and Magness say that even if artifacts from the Ark have been or will be found, they could never be conclusively connected to historical events.
“We have no way of placing Noah, if he really existed, and the flood, if there really was one, in time and space,” says Magness. “The only way you could determine that would be if you had an authentic ancient inscription”—and even then, she points out, such an inscription could refer to another Noah, or another flood.
That hasn’t stopped the proliferation of pseudoarchaeology that upholds the Bible as literal truth. The fruitless searches are often aligned with adherents of “young-earth creationism,” the belief that, despite evidence to the contrary, Earth is only thousands of years old.Such groups use secular archaeological evidence to bolster their literal interpretation of Scripture—and simply disregard or attempt to disprove evidence to the contrary. But they don’t all share the same tactics.
“We do not expect the Ark to have survived and been available to find after 4,350 years,” says Andrew A. Snelling, a geologist and Director of Research for Answers in Genesis who has spent decadesSnelling differs from archaeologists, however, about why the vessel’s remains will never be found. “With no mature trees available for Noah and his family to build shelters after they got off the Ark, there is every reason to expect they dismantled the Ark to salvage timber from it,” he says.
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