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Boat shaped formations on Mt. Ararat.

GT/CS said:
How do you know the story is not literal? How do you decide which bible stories are literal and which are not?
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It's pretty easy, really: all the ones located between the front and back covers are not literal. For any others: the jury's still out.

Ysidro said:
Sorry, but Noah's Ark is being built in Maryland.

http://www.godsark.org/

It's true! :)
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Gee, I'm so proud of my neighbors.
 
Vortigern99 said:
Could some ancient jewish author have seen these things and assumed they were boats?

It's possible. The point of the story, though, is not that a bunch of animals and a few people got in a boat and floated around on the inundated earth while everything else (except, one presumes, aquatic life) died.

The story is about obeisance. It's a parable designed to instruct.

So focusing on the literal, provable, evidenciary aspects of the story are, in a word, pointless.
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Since yu come from Austin you might want to get in touch with Atheist experience. I'm sure they would have insights on the Ark story.
 
As for story about ark being found I read about this "finding" at least year ago or longer.
In other words old story.(But don't rember where)

However magazine/website was quite sceptical about it.
 
Roadtoad said:
If you drive along US 50 from Tahoe to Sacramento, you'll find a rock formation that looks like someone bending over and grabbing their ankles. What does that one suggest?

No, you don't need to remind me. I need help....
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Bush waiting for Cheney?:D
 
When Noah's Ark is found it will be the headline on CNN and Fox news will do a special. The National Enquirer...not into breaking news except in the movie "Men in Black"

The point was the ark was going to be found when the Soviet Union fell because THAT was the part where the boat was to be found. Didn't happen.

It's WOOD. I mean my neighbor has an old boat in her yard that she plants flowers in (hey it's a New England thing) and after just 5 years the thing has collapsed. Besides Biblical tradition (not actual written in the Bible) says that the ark was used to build homes and such after the flood. Now that makes sense to me. (no not the 2 animal part, but hey let all that good wood go to waste?)
 
Hi

Vortigern99 said:
Could some ancient jewish author have seen these things and assumed they were boats?

It's possible. The point of the story, though, is not that a bunch of animals and a few people got in a boat and floated around on the inundated earth while everything else (except, one presumes, aquatic life) died.

The story is about obeisance. It's a parable designed to instruct.

So focusing on the literal, provable, evidenciary aspects of the story are, in a word, pointless.
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Ummm...

What, exactly, does bowing or curtsying have to do with the story of the arc? The, "obedience," connotation went out with Chaucer in, "The Grammarian's Tale." ;)
 
So sue me, I'm a medievalist. Obedience was the word I was looking for, Mr. Webster*.

*This is a clever pun, because Webster's first name was Noah... and so is mine!
 
These rocks are in one of the VonDanniken books, or something like them from the '70s.
I remember a show about them.
WOO!
All sorts of freaks have claimed to have crawled on the ark and brought back wood.
When Raiders of the Lost Ark first came out, I thought it was about that.
I was surprised to find out there is more than one "ark" held as a holy thing by those so inclined.
 
plumjam said:
Just going from memory, the main 'boat' was indeed largely covered in.. I guess, sediment, though the outline was still visible. Much of the sediment was removed as a result of an earthquake, I forget which year that was.. some time in the 1980s or 1990s.
That revealed the 'boat' better.
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There might have been some sediment on top of it. There is some sediment shift on the flanks of mountains due to rockslides, slumps, aeolian drifts etc. But in general, these are temporary features. Mountains, are being constantly eroded. They are not depositional sites in general. Certainly there wouldn't be enough sediment for the kind of burial that petrification would need.

Also note what was said in the OP. (bolding mine)
Cainkane1 said:
I was reading The National Enquirer and they said Noah's ark had been found. There actually is a rock formation that I have to admit is shaped remarkably like a boat with the same dimensions as the biblical ark. In fact there are two boat like natural rock formations with the same dimensions. Could these formations possibly be the basis for the description of Noah's ark? I mean these formations have never been boats only ancient rocks. Could some ancient Jewish author have seen these things and assumed they were boats? I can sure understand why.
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Note that this is a "rock formation". That means it is solid rock. I would bet anything that it is composed of the same type of rock in nearby formations, and would be complete with the same sedimentary features you see in the rock around it. This is assuming, of course, that the rock is sedimentary at all. It might be igneous, meaning the "ark" had formed from molten rock.

I would further bet that a geologist would need only a few minutes to confirm that it is nothing more than a boat-shaped rock, not the remains of a boat. For that reason, I suspect they are not inviting geologists to look at the rock.

As to the thought that the ark story came from finding boat-shaped rocks, I also think that is highly unlikely. The ark story is very similar to parts of the myth of Gilgamesh. It is unlikely to have arisen from prehistoric rock enthusiasts.
 
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Cainkane1 said:
Could some ancient jewish author have seen these things and assumed they were boats?
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The Noah's Ark story didn't start with the Jews, so no, a Jewish author seeing rocks that look like boats had nothing to to with it.

It's possible a Sumerian author was inspired by boats that looked like rocks, I guess. He or she would have had to climb Mt. Ararat and looked at those rocks from just the right angle. More likely, someone just made it up, the way most stories are made up.
 
Ah, yes... this is one of those perennial favourites. Hardly a new find.

There's been an 'ark' tourist center there since before I was born. At least since the 1970s.

Every now and again, some crackpots get whipped up and finance a bible-scientific expedition. The most recent one of which I'm aware of was about ten years ago, when a team visited with ground-penetrating radar and reported detecting buried keel &c.

As an exercise in confirmation bias, apparently every stone in the neighbourhood is ark-related: anchors, ballast.

Surprisingly, [Answers in Genesis has gone on record] saying they're sure this is a mundane geological formation.
 
Just a minor digression:

If the ark landed atop the mountain, the water must have been pretty deep. Where did all that extra water go?
 
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