Noah’s Ark located in Turkey! (except it wasn’t)
April 27, 2010 by William K. Wolfrum
In keeping with the theme of the previous post, big-time journalists like Matt Drudge and Andrew Breitbart are now promoting a story that Noah’s Ark has been located in Turkey. Fox News is also giving the story ample PR.
Drudge links to a story at the UK Sun:
THE remains of Noah’s Ark have been discovered 13,000ft up a Turkish mountain, it has been claimed.
A group of Chinese and Turkish evangelical explorers say they have found wooden remains on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey.
They claim carbon dating proves the relics are 4,800 years old — around the same time the ark was said to be afloat.
Somehow, biblical discoveries are only made by evangelists and UFO discoveries are only made by UFO fetishists. Go figure.
Breitbart even includes video:
Now that’s journalism you can believe in. The only problem? It’s complete and utter bollocks. First off, there was no “Noah’s Ark” so there’s nothing to find. Secondly, the story is bollocks.
Remember, kids, when you see stories about UFOs, Noah’s Ark and other such things, they all share one common thread - they are not true. Ever.
Update: Hey, how about that. It was a hoax.
-WKW
The credulous are everywhere.
The “Noah’s Ark” story originally takes root in ancient Mesopotamian myth, the first civilization, like most stories from the Bible. It was been passed down for millenia orally before the Bible was even written. I like to think that what happened was that one guy, who had a small boat got lucky when the Tigris and Euphrates river flooded and wiped out his entire village, and used his subjective experience to think that it was a worldwide phenomenon.
I’m less confused about it being a lie than I am about it being a completely crap story. Even if it were true (and even if Jesus was enormous), who gives a crap?
I think the usual point of these stories is to say, “See! The Bible IS true!” Except that this would only show that one story happened (sort of), and is in no way related to the 10,000 other stories that have absolutely no empirical evidence. And I fail to see why “legitimate” news organizations would waste time promoting such garbage.
Isn’t this similar to the time someone found Jesus’ brother’s coffin? Except that it wasn’t Jesus’ brother? And it wasn’t a coffin?
Michael,
It would seem that modernity is taking a toll on the magic and faith required by religion. They make this crap up to keep the pews and coffers full.
If I ran a news organization, I’d cover it for the sheer folly and waste involved.
@Ryan: Some historians have proposed that humanity might have been around when the Mediterranean Sea was created by a giant flood-like event, and that such an event might be the source of all of these flood stories. Personally, I think it’s much simpler (akin to your suggestion), but I thought you might find that interesting if you weren’t already aware of it.
Roger Ebert, via Twitter this morning:
Chinese evangelical Ark discoverer says carbon dating proves age of Ark. Carbon dating remains false for all other fossils.
Does carbon dating only go back 10,000 years? If not, megafail.
I wish God would ask me to write the book of dgun. Because I would use terms like, ‘fail’, and LMAO, etc. It would be so awesome. And everyone posting in this thread would be like totally in heaven and stuff. And Dick Cheney? LMAO. He would be so screwed. I mean, it would be kind of hard to avoid hell when the book of dgun calls you out by name. lolz.
dgun, I’ve already written the “Gospel According to Michael.” Unfortunately, nobody read it. So I’ve been posting it one sentence at a time on my Facebook page (where I have renamed “my friends,” my “disciples”). Eventually, people will take these single-sentence quotes out of context and use them to perpetuate some of the worst attrocities in the world. And then I will be like a god. And there will be much rejoicing.
There were those who did not believe Noah when he warned of the great flood, too and they all perished.