Charging high fees to fundamentalist Christians who want to prove the Bible by finding Noah's ark is a lucrative business for bureaucrats in Turkey. Price says he is following up on a lead from a shepherd who claims he remembers playing on the ark as a boy. Supposedly, he led Price to the spot -- at 15,000 feet -- last September, where they expected to find the ark buried in a glacier, but discovered nothing more than a 60-foot-deep pile of boulders. The article says that "Price believes the landslide may have resulted from attacks against Kurdish rebels on the mountain, or perhaps from explosives that were set off to cover up the ark."There's always an excuse, a theory, a speculation -- but never an ark. One of Price's predecessors, retired pilot Richard Bright, says he has made 30 trips to Turkey in search of the ark. There are always tips, but never so much as a peg made of gopher wood: just enough to keep the wealthy Westerners coming back.
Of course, the late pseudo-archaeologist Ron Wyatt, a retired medical doctor, claimed to have found the ark years ago and published pictures of it on his website, which is more akin to supermarket tabloids touting an alien invasion than to archaeology. Wyatt also claimed to have found brimstone from Sodom and Gomorrah, Egyptian chariot wheels from the Red Sea, and the Ark of the Covenant, among other things.
But back to Price and his effort to raise $60,000 to pay off Turkish officials, buy earth-moving and ice-melting equipment, and somehow transport it to the top of Mt. Ararat: he believes the project is worthwhile because making a discovery would "mean so much to so many, many people worldwide."
It seems to me that if God had wanted us to prove ancient Bible stories true (thus eliminating the need for faith), the ark would have been miraculously preserved and left in plain view, rather than hidden beneath inconvenient rubble in the wide variety of places aging shepherds claim to have remembered seeing it.
I can think of many ways $60,000 could "mean so much to so many" in this world. Spending it on yet another expedition to Mt. Ararat is so far down the list that I'd have to move 60 feet of rock and melt a glacier to find it.
[The photo of Mt. Ararat is my own, taken from the Armenian side of the border with Turkey. "Big Ararat" is to the right, and "Little Ararat" to the left.]
7 comments:
Person economic recovery packages come in such marvelous variety.
Dr. Cartledge,
Now you know that if we cannot find the ark and that if the world was not created in October, 4004 BC, and if science cannot prove that the earth stopped rotating for a literal 24 hour period, then the whole Bible is false, and Jesus is not Lord, and we are all on a road to dispair.
The interesting thing about expeditions to find the ark, to prove that dinosaurs and humans co-existed, are really indications that those who believe in the "inerrancy" of scripture (as a hermeneutical theory) are really wrestling with existential doubt. "Blessed are those who have not seen, yet believed."
You've discovered a veritable end-of-days industrial center. Apparently in addition to his alleged current Ark unearthing expedition, he has a Noah's Ark book and DVD for sale at his World of the Bible Ministries publishing enterprise. He has plans for a Liberty University Biblical Museum. He makes himself available for guest appearances with luminaries of greater wattage than he, presumably to enhance their image of expertise.
I heard that Richard Land was lobbying for the $60,000 to be part of the Obama porku...I mean, stimulus.
Great posts, Dr. Cartledge and Tim Marsh.
It's getting harder and harder for me to take these inerrantist scholars seriously. It sounds like Turkey's a lot like Israel where it seems every rock or tree is part of the Bible story and therefore worthy of pilgrammage...not that the souvenir shops beside it have anything to do with it. The sad thing is, Price will probably get the $60,000 (and a whole lot more). He won't find the ark, but even if he did...is an expedition to "prove" the Bible worth it when we could use that money to help dig wells for clean water in Africa? Is it worth it when AIDS and cancer research is badly needed. It's nice to see the people who take the Bible literally take it so seriously...
Matthew 25:42-43
With all that money I think I'd embark on an expedition to pay back my student loans.
Another fraudulent attempt to take money from the poorly educated, naive folks out there in the US looking for bells and whistles to 'prove the bible. As for Ron Wyatt, was never a MD, was but a practical nurse, got his degree from Western Michigan in Kalamazoo.
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