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It is written:
Genesis 8:4-Then the ark rested in the seventh month, the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.
One of the most powerful events in the history of the world is the Great Flood. Due to the increasing wickedness of both humankind and angelkind in the world (Genesis 6:1-4), the Lord brought a devastating Flood upon the Earth. God spared Noah and his family, along with several animals who were representatives of the different animal kinds in the world, on a giant Ark that God commanded the Noahs to construct.
Not only does the Bible record these events, but so also do several extra-biblical references which the Bible encourages people to study (the book of Jasher, the book of Jubilees, the book of First Enoch, etc.). Furthermore, there are many accounts of the Flood from around the world, as well as multiple geological evidences which document these events.
One of the interesting evidences of the Great Flood comes from the eyewitnesses who have witnessed Noah’s Ark on the mountains of Ararat. Unless otherwise noted, the following historical accounts are from: Henri Nissen (translated from Danish by Tracy Jay Skondin, Bruce Steuer, Dorthe Orbesen and Irene Kjaedegaard), Noah’s Ark-Ancient Accounts And New Discoveries; Copenhagen, Denmark; Scandinavia Publishing House)
Berosus ( a historian who lived in Babylon,Historian who lived in Babylon who wrote three books between 350-290 B.C.) wrote:
“It is said there is still some part of this ship in Armenia, at the mountain of the Cordyaeans; and that some people carry off pieces of the bitumen, which they take away, and use chiefly as amulets for the averting of mischiefs.” (Berosus The Chaldean)
Nicolas Of Damascus: “There is a great mountain in Armenia, over Minyas, called Baris, upon which it is reported that many many who fled at the time of the Deluge were saved; and that one who was caried in an ark came on shore upon the top of it; and that the remains of the timber were a great while preserved. This might be the man about whom Moses the legislator of the Jews wrote.”
Josephus: “However, the Armenians call this place, The Place of Descent; for the ark being saved in that place, its’ remains are shown there by the inhabitants to this day.”
Bishop Theophilus: “And of the Ark, the remains are to this day to be seen in the Arabian mountains.”
Bishop Epiphianus (a Christian who was defending the truthfulness of the Bible against skeptics around the year 380 A.D.)- “”Do you seriously suppose that we are unable to prove our point, when even to this day the remains of Noah’s Ark are shown in the country of the Kurds?” (Ephiphianus Of Salamis)
Isidore Of Seville (560-636 A.D.)-Ararat is a mountain in Armenia, where the historians testify that the Ark came to rest after the Flood. So even to this day, wood remains of it are to be seen there.”
William of Rubruck (a Franciscan monk who was sent by King Louis IX of France to the Mongolian Emperor, wrote the following when he travelled near Mount Ararat):
“Near this city (Naxua) there is a mountain of which it is said, ‘Here lies Noah’s Ark.’ The one (is) larger than the others, and Araxes (River) flows at the foot of them; there is a city they call Cemanum, which, when translated, means ‘eight,’ and they say that it is named after the eight people that came out of the Ark and who built it on the great mountain.’
Sir John Madeville: “…and there beside is another mountain called Ararat, but the Jews call it Taneez, where Noah’s ship rested, and still is upon that mountain; and men may see it afar in clear weather. That mountain is a full seven miles high; and some men say that they have seen and touched the ship, and put their fingers in the parts where the devil went out, when Noah said ‘Benedicte.’ “But they that say so speak without knowledge; for no one can go up the mountain for the great abundance of snow which is always on the mountain, both summer and winter, so that no man ever went up since the time of Noah, except a monk, who, by God’s grace, brought one of the planks down, which is yet in the monastery at the foot of the mountain.”
Jan Janszoon Struys (a slave who was near Ararat travelled from 1647-1672.). Writing of a monk who was suffering from a hernia, he was encouraged by other monks to help him. After rendering aid, he recorded:
“The brave hermit thanked me so profusely that I was embarrassed. He added that his sacred vows prevented him from giving me rich presents and that he had nothing more precious than a cross attached to a little silver chain. He removed it from his neck and gave it to me. It consisted of a little fragment of reddish- brown wood, and with it he gave me a piece of the rock on which the Ark came to rest. Such a high value did he attribute to these pieces of wood and rock that, in his judgment, I would be too rich if I retained them. If, on the other hand, I was willing to take them to St. Peter’s Church in Rome, he assured me a recompense that would make my fortune. He had been born at Rome, and he said that his name was Domingo Alessandro, and he was the son of one of the richest and most influential families of Rome… When I was ready to depart, I thought that it might not be a bad idea to obtain from him an attestation as to my experience on Mt. Ararat. He willingly gave it to me in the following terms: 4 I have thought it unreasonable to refuse the request of Jan Janszoon (Struys) who besought me to testify in writing that he was in my cell on the holy Mt. Ararat, subsequent to his climb of some thirty- five miles. This man cured me of a serious hernia, and I am therefore greatly in his debt for the conscientious treatment he gave me. In return for his benevolence, I have presented to him a cross made of a piece of wood from the true Ark of Noah. I myself entered that Ark and with my own hands cut from the wood of one of its compartments the fragment from which that cross is made. I informed the same Jan Janszoon in considerable detail as to the actual construction of the Ark and also gave him a piece of stone which I had personally chipped from the rock on which the Ark rests. All this I testify to be true – as true as I am in fact, alive here in my sacred hermitage. Dated the 22nd of July, 1670, on Mt. Ararat.”
Haji Yearam is a man who grew up near Greater Mount Ararat. His family would take specially chosen individuals to see the remains of Noah’s Ark. Once they were approached by a group of atheists who wanted to disprove the story of Noah and the worldwide Deluge. Years later, Haji reported the event to a close friend, Harold Williams, in 1952:
“When Haji was a large boy, but not yet a man fully grown, there came to his home some strangers. If I remember correctly there were three vile men who did not believe the Bible and did not believe in the existence of a personal God. They were scientists and evolutionists. They were on this expedition specifically to prove the legend of Noah’s Ark to be a fraud and a fake. They hired the father of young Haji Yearam as their official guide….”It was an unusually hot summer, so the snow and glaciers had melted more than usual. The Armenians were very reticent to undertake any expeditions to the Ark because they feared God’s displeasure, but the father of Haji thought that possibly the time had come when God wanted the world to know the Ark was still there and he wanted to prove to these atheists that the Bible story of the Flood and the Ark is true. “After extreme hardship and peril the party came to the little valley way up on Greater Ararat, not on the very top, but a little down from the top. This little valley is surrounded by a number of small peaks. There the Ark came to rest in a little lake, and the peaks protected it from the tidal waves that rushed back forth as the Flood subsided. “On one side of the valley the water from the melting snow and glacier spills over in a little river the rims deep mountain as they reach the spot there they found the crown of a mighty ship protruding out of the ice. They went inside the Ark and did considerable exploring. It was divided up into many floors and stages and compartments and had bars like animal cages of today. The whole structure was covered with a varnish or lacquer that was very thick and strong both outside and inside the ship. “The ship was built more like a great and mighty house on the whole of the ship without any windows there was a great doorway of immense size but the door was missing. The scientists were appalled and dumbfounded and went into a Satanic rage at finding with they hoped to prove nonexistent.” They were so angry and mad that they said they would destroy the ship but the wood was more like stone than any wood we have now. They did not have tools or means to wreck so mighty a ship and had to give up. They did tear out some timbers and tried to burn the wood but it was so hard it was almost impossible to burn it. They held a council and then took a solemn and fearful death oath. Any man present who would ever breathe a word about what they found would be tortured and murdered. They told their guide and his son that they would keep tabs on them and that if they ever told him anyone and they found it out they would surely be tortured and murdered. For fear of their lives Haji and his father had never told what they found except to their best trusted and closest relatives. “Here Haji was in America, an old man about 75 years old by this time. The scientists were much older and he doubted if any of them were then living. To be sure the record was left he wanted his story recorded before he died. So I recorded it very carefully and he went over it again and again to make sure no mistakes had been made. He felt quite sure that the men who had threatened his life if he told were dead and gone by then…”One evening… I sat reading the daily paper in our apartment in Brockton. Suddenly I saw in very small print a short story of a dying man’s confession. It was a news item one column wide and, as I remembered it, not more than 2 inches deep. It stated that an elderly scientist on his deathbed in London was afraid to die before making a terrible confession. It gave briefly the very date and facts that Haji Yearam had related to us his story. I got out the composition book containing the story he had me write. It was identical in every detail. “Haji Yearam had died in my parents home in Oakland California about the same time that the old scientist who died in London. We had never for one moment doubted Haji’s story, but when this scientist on his deathbed on the other side of the world confessed the same story in every detail, we knew positively that the story was true in every detail.” (As reproduced in Tim LaHaye and John Morris, The Ark On Ararat, 43-49; (published jointly) Nashville, TN and New York, N.Y.; Thomas Nelson Publishers and Creation Life Publishers)
These are some of an ever-increasing flood of evidences (pun intended) that document the trustworthiness of the Bible.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen.
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