The Search for Noah's Ark

Noah's Ark (1846), a painting by the 
American folk painter Edward Hicks.

The story of Noah's Ark appears in the Genesis flood narrative (Genesis chapters 6–9) as the vessel in which God spares Noah, his family, and a remnant of all the world's animals from a world-engulfing flood. The Genesis flood myth is similar to numerous other flood legends from a variety of cultures, such as the Sumerian flood myth of Utnapishtim from the Epic of Gilgamesh, which many historians believe is the most likely source of the Genesis flood story. The earliest known written flood narrative comes from a Sumerian source found in the Deluge Tablet in which the hero is named Ziusudra. The story in Genesis is repeated, with variations, in the Quran, where the ark appears as Safina Nūḥ (Arabic: "Noah's boat"). 

Searches for Noah's Ark have been made from at least the time of the ancient historian, Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 275–339 CE), and believers in the myth continue to search for it in modern times. Many searches have been mounted for the ark, but no confirmations or physical proof of the ark have ever been found. According to Genesis 8:4, the Ark came to rest "on the mountains of Ararat." Early commentators such as Titus Flavius Josephus and authorities quoted by him, Berossus, Hieronymus the Egyptian, Mnaseas, and Nicolaus of Damascus, record the tradition that these "mountains of Ararat" are to be found in the region then known as Armenia, roughly corresponding to Eastern Anatolia (modern-day Turkey).

Syrian tradition of the early centuries BC had a tradition of the ark landing at Mount Judi, where according to Josephus the remains of the ark were still shown in the 1st century BC. The location of the "Place of Descent" described by Josephus was some 100 km to the southeast of the peak now known as Mount Ararat, in what is today Iraqi Kurdistan.

According to Jewish Rabbinic tradition, the Ark was looted in antiquity, the remains being used for idol worship, as related in the Talmud Tractate Sanhedrin by Sennacherib circa 705 – 681 BC, and as related in the Midrash anthology Yalkut Shimoni by Haman circa 486–465 BC.

Other traditions: The flood myth motif is found among many cultures as seen in the Mesopotamian flood stories, Deucalion and Pyrrha in Greek mythology, Manu in Hinduism, the Gun-Yu in Chinese mythology, Bergelmir in Norse mythology, in the lore of the K'iche' and Maya peoples in Mesoamerica, the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwa tribe of Native Americans in North America, the Muisca, and Cañari Confederation, in South America, and the Aboriginal tribes in southern Australia. 

There are some scholars and historians who believe Eric H. Cline, a biblical archaeologist, summed it up the best when he said, 

"The earlier Mesopotamian stories are very similar where the gods are sending a flood to wipe out humans. There's one man they choose to survive. He builds a boat and brings on animals and lands on a mountain and lives happily ever after? I would argue that it's the same story."

During antiquity a few notable explorers took part in trying to locate Noah's Ark, such as Marco Polo, (1254–1324) whom wrote in his book, The Travels of Marco Polo:

"In the heart of the Armenian mountain range, the mountain's peak is shaped like a cube (or cup), on which Noah's ark is said to have rested, whence it is called the Mountain of Noah's Ark. It [the mountain] is so broad and long that it takes more than two days to go around it. On the summit the snow lies so deep all the year round that no one can ever climb it; this snow never entirely melts, but new snow is for ever falling on the old, so that the level rises."

In circa 1616, Sir Walter Raleigh made a laborious argument taking up several whole chapters of his History of the World, that the term "Mountains of Ararat" originally encompassed all the adjoining and taller ranges of Asia, and that Noah's Ark could only have landed in the Orient – especially since Armenia is not technically east of the plain of Shinar (or Mesopotamia), but more northwest.

In modern times the race continues to find the fabled boat of Noah: 

• In 1829, Dr. Friedrich Parrot, who had made an ascent of Greater Ararat, wrote in his Journey to Ararat that "all the Armenians are firmly persuaded that Noah's Ark remains to this very day on the top of Ararat, and that, in order to preserve it, no human being is allowed to approach it." 
• In 1876, James Bryce, historian, statesman, diplomat, explorer, and Professor of Civil Law at Oxford, climbed above the tree line and found a slab of hand-hewn timber, four feet long and five inches thick, which he identified as being from the Ark. 
• In 1883, the British Prophetic Messenger and others reported that Turkish commissioners investigating avalanches had seen the Ark.

Searches since the mid-20th century have been largely supported by evangelical churches along with local farmers and sustained by ongoing popular interest, faith-based magazines, lecture tours, videos and occasional television specials. The following is the official findings of various other explorers:  

• In 1949, Aaron J. Smith, dean of the People's Bible College in Greensboro, NC, led an unsuccessful expedition to locate the ark.
• Former astronaut James Irwin led two expeditions to Ararat in the 1980s, was kidnapped once, but found no tangible evidence of the Ark. "I've done all I possibly can," he said, "but the Ark continues to elude us."
• In the 1980s and 1990s, the Durupınar site was heavily promoted by Ron Wyatt. According to the local authorities a nearby mountain is called "Mount Cudi" (or Judi), making it one of about five Mount Judis in the land of Kurdistan. Geologists have identified the Durupınar site as a natural formation, but Wyatt's Ark Discovery Institute continues to champion its claims.

The search for Noah's Ark continues into the 21st century as well. There are many explorers, archaeologists, and biblical enthusiasts undertaking various measures to prove a claim to Noah's Ark.

• In 2004, Honolulu-based businessman Daniel McGivern announced he would finance a $900,000 expedition to the peak of Greater Ararat in July of that year to investigate the "Ararat anomaly". After much initial fanfare, he was refused permission by the Turkish authorities, as the summit is inside a restricted military zone. The expedition was subsequently labelled a "stunt" by National Geographic News, which pointed out that the expedition leader, a Turkish academic named Ahmet Ali Arslan, had previously been accused of faking evidence of the Ark for a CBS documentary.
• In June 2006, Bob Cornuke of the Bible Archeology Search and Exploration Institute (or BASE Institute) took a team of 14 American "business, law, and ministry leaders" to Iran to visit a site in the Alborz Mountains, purported to be a possible resting place of the Ark. The team claimed to have visited an "object" 13,000 feet above sea level, which had the appearance of blackened petrified wooden beams, and was "about the size of a small aircraft carrier" [400 ft long (120 m)], and supposedly consistent with the dimensions provided in Genesis of 300 cubits by 50 cubits. No one outside the expedition has offered independent confirmation, and apart from a few purported beams, no photographic images of this supposed Ark have been made available (though short video segments have been made available).
• In 2007, a joint Turkish-Hong Kong expedition including members of Noah's Ark Ministries International (NAMI) claimed to have found an unusual cave with fossilized wooden walls on Mount Ararat, well above the vegetation line. In 2010, NAMI released videos of their discovery of the wood structures. Members of NAMI reported carbon dating suggests the wood is approximately 4,800 years old. It is unlikely that there was any human settlement at the site at altitude of 4,000 meters. In April, 2010 it was reported that Turkey's culture minister ordered a probe into how NAMI brought its pieces of wood samples from Turkey to China. A Scottish explorer investigating the NAMI claim was reported missing, on 14 October 2010, from an expedition on Ararat. His last camp site and personal effects were subsequently located but the circumstances remain unresolved.
• In an interview with Christiane Amanpour for ABC News, Robert Ballard, one of the world's best-known underwater archaeologists, talked about his findings. His team is probing the depths of the Black Sea off the coast of Turkey in search of traces of an ancient civilization hidden underwater since the time of Noah. According to a controversial theory proposed by two Columbia University scientists, there really was one in the Black Sea region. They believe that the now-salty Black Sea was once an isolated freshwater lake surrounded by farmland, until it was flooded by an enormous wall of water from the rising Mediterranean Sea. The force of the water was two hundred times that of Niagara Falls, sweeping away everything in its path. Fascinated by the idea, Ballard and his team decided to investigate. Four hundred feet below the surface, they unearthed an ancient shoreline, proof to Ballard that a catastrophic event did happen in the Black Sea. By carbon dating shells found along the shoreline, Ballard said he believes they have established a timeline for that catastrophic event, which he estimates happened around 5,000 BC. Some experts believe this was around the time when Noah's flood could have occurred. Ballard does not think he will ever find Noah's Ark, but he does think he may find evidence of a people whose entire world was washed away about 7,000 years ago. He and his team said they plan to return to Turkey next summer.

Many attempts have been made to find Noah's Ark for thousands of years. Critics and non-believers are quick to give their opinion, such as Michael Shermer, who said, "There is no possible way that Noah could've retained all ten billion species on a single boat and then distributed them appropriately, where the marsupials are all in Australia, and so forth... This is just ridiculous. It is so ridiculous, I find it embarrassing for people who attempt to prove that it's true!"

Other critics claim there is no scientific evidence that Noah's Ark existed as it is described in the bible, nor is there evidence in the geologic record for the biblical global flood. Even a few historical scholars and theologians agree that catastrophic events of this kind are not unique to the Bible. Some contemporary examples include the 2004 Indonesian earthquake tsunami that wiped out villages on the coasts of 11 countries surrounding the Indian Ocean. There was also Hurricane Katrina, described as the worst hurricane in United States history. Scholars aren't sure if the biblical flood was larger or smaller than these modern day disasters, but they do think the experiences of people in ancient times were similar to our own. 

Some of the details of the Noah story seem mythical, so many biblical scholars believe the story of Noah and the Ark was inspired by the legendary flood stories of nearby Mesopotamia, in particular "The Epic of Gilgamesh." These ancient narratives were already being passed down from one generation to the next, centuries before Noah appeared in the Bible. The theory goes on to suggest that the story of this traumatic event, seared into the collective memory of the survivors, was passed down from generation to generation and eventually inspired the biblical account of Noah.

Whether or not Noah's Ark existed is still up for debate, but only one question truly remains ... Who's ? Right