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Gen.
11:2 says that the people of
the world moved "from the east" to the land of Shinar, or Babylon and
later Babylonia. The ark, we are told, settled on the "Mountains of
Ararat" which is north of Shinar, up in Armenia.
The
word Ararat, comes from a Hebrew word, meaning 'creation' or 'holy land'.
It is a very general description, and not the name of a specific mountain peak.
The 16th cent. translators had a problem with the word, and picked Ararat as a
likely equivalent.
The
danger of relics.
The
actual location of the ark is not described in Scripture, possibly because it
could have become a relic-hunter's Mecca, and the actual boat could have become
more important than the God who designed it. The same could be said of Moses,
whom the Lord buried. Can you imagine the value of Moses' bones today!?
"And He (God) buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Peor,
and no one knows his grave to this day." Deut. 34:6.
Jude
9 also describes an event which we are not fully informed about, when Michael
the archangel disputed with the devil over the body of Moses. Why? Perhaps
because the devil was interested in starting up relic-worship?
If,
as the Bible says, the people moved "from the east" to the land of
Shinar, they must have been in the west when they started, which puts them in
modem-day Persia, where there are many suitable peaks: Ke Danar 14640 ft., Kuh-e
Bul 12011 ft.., Shahr-e-Babak 6086 ft., Kuh 13352 ft.., and many others.
(Readers Digest Great World Atlas)
There have been many claims that the ark has been sighted on present-day
Ararat, but all of them have been unconvincing in some way. For example, a
Seventh-Day Adventist TV program made many credible-sounding claims, and
produced several witnesses, but one of them admitted later that he had picked up
the alleged ark wood from his garage. All the other so-called evidence was open
to question, ambiguous, or relied on a single person's testimony. Photographs
purporting to be of the ark were hazy and ambiguous too.
A
Mr. Plimer recently made many bold claims that he had discovered the remains of
the ark, but his findings are just an unusual land formation. His site, which
forms a lens-shaped, or canoe-shaped form, does not fit the Bible description
anyway, because the ark of the Bible had length, height and width. It was square
ended, like a barge. It had no need for a pointed prow because it was not
powered, and had no need to cut through the water like a jet boat.
A
similar case of making a tiny amount of ‘evidence’ go a long way is seen in
the 'Shroud of Turin'. Many claims have been made that this strip of cloth was
the very sheet in which Jesus was wrapped. Tests have shown that a man's body
has been inside the cloth. Bloodstains in certain places have led people to
infer that the man was crucified. The cloth was laid along the body as a single
strip, beginning at the head, down to the feet, under and back to the head.
However, the Bible describes the burial clothes as having been
"wrapped" Gr. = entulisso = to roll in. This means that the body of
Jesus was wound up, like a corkscrew shape, or spiral, and not as a single
straight strip each way. He same word is used in Luke 23:53, and John 20:7. When
the disciples came to the tomb, they saw the grave clothes intact, like a
cocoon, and the "handkerchief" or face cloth, "that had been
around his head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded together in a place
by itself." The Shroud is a single strip, laid flat along both sides of the
body. The actual burial clothes for Jesus were wound, like a cork-screw along
the length of his body, with a separate sheet for his head. Once again, the
Bible gives the true and accurate picture.
Many
illustrated Bibles, and movies, show a rumpled mess of gravecloths, as if Jesus
had to struggle to free himself. The Bible tells the truth. The gravecloths were
not strewn about. They were basically where they had been wrapped, and Jesus had
risen through them, leaving them largely undisturbed.
It is always better to accept what the Bible says that what people assume or imagine.