Ex-Ark Hunter Calls Ark Find "Likely A Hoax"
A former member of the expedition whose sponsors this week claimed to have found the legendary biblical boat buried beneath the snows of Turkey's Mount Ararat says the "discovery" was probably a hoax.
"If the world wants to think this is a wonderful discovery, that's fine," Randall Price, an archaeologist who in 2008 was working with the Chinese-led evangelical team, told The Christian Science Monitor. "My problem is that, in the end, proper analysis may show this to be a hoax and negatively reflect how gullible Christians can be."
Price says that those photos of the supposed ark include cobwebs in the corners of the structure's rafters, "something just not possible in these conditions."
Meanwhile in ark-hunting circles, news of the alleged hoax is being greeted as hardly surprising.
"There are certain biblical artifacts -- like the Ark of the Covenant and the Ark of Noah -- that just seem to bring out a lot of amateur searchers," says Bill Crouse, president of Christian Information Ministries, who has himself spent years searching for Noah's Ark. "My concern is that well-meaning Christians jump the gun, and this thing becomes viral on the Internet. A lot of Christians are confused because they thought the ark was found two years ago, or two years before that. These things seem to come up every two years or so."
In 2006, for example, a national security analyst reported a "new and significant development" in the quest for the ark: a high-resolution satellite image of the northwest corner of Mount Ararat, where ark hunters had long been intrigued by a large, ice-submerged "anomaly" whose proportions seemed to match almost perfectly the Bible's description of Noah's Ark.
In 1993, CBS aired a documentary hailing the discovery of Noah's Ark, also on Ararat. It turned out that "The Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark" was predicated largely on evidence provided by an actor who later acknowledged having made the whole thing up.
And in a story with strong parallels to the latest hoax, a French explorer named Fernand Navarra claimed to have found a wooden beam from the ark on Ararat in 1955. Navarra's guide, however, later said the explorer had hauled the 5-foot-long plank up the mountain with him. See Chick's KILLER STORM.
"If the world wants to think this is a wonderful discovery, that's fine," Randall Price, an archaeologist who in 2008 was working with the Chinese-led evangelical team, told The Christian Science Monitor. "My problem is that, in the end, proper analysis may show this to be a hoax and negatively reflect how gullible Christians can be."
Price says that those photos of the supposed ark include cobwebs in the corners of the structure's rafters, "something just not possible in these conditions."
Meanwhile in ark-hunting circles, news of the alleged hoax is being greeted as hardly surprising.
"There are certain biblical artifacts -- like the Ark of the Covenant and the Ark of Noah -- that just seem to bring out a lot of amateur searchers," says Bill Crouse, president of Christian Information Ministries, who has himself spent years searching for Noah's Ark. "My concern is that well-meaning Christians jump the gun, and this thing becomes viral on the Internet. A lot of Christians are confused because they thought the ark was found two years ago, or two years before that. These things seem to come up every two years or so."
In 2006, for example, a national security analyst reported a "new and significant development" in the quest for the ark: a high-resolution satellite image of the northwest corner of Mount Ararat, where ark hunters had long been intrigued by a large, ice-submerged "anomaly" whose proportions seemed to match almost perfectly the Bible's description of Noah's Ark.
In 1993, CBS aired a documentary hailing the discovery of Noah's Ark, also on Ararat. It turned out that "The Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark" was predicated largely on evidence provided by an actor who later acknowledged having made the whole thing up.
And in a story with strong parallels to the latest hoax, a French explorer named Fernand Navarra claimed to have found a wooden beam from the ark on Ararat in 1955. Navarra's guide, however, later said the explorer had hauled the 5-foot-long plank up the mountain with him. See Chick's KILLER STORM.
posted by chickcomics | 10:32 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home