On Apr 29, 8:22�pm, wrote:
On Apr 29, 8:39 pm, "Calif Bill" wrote:





"Harry Krause" wrote in message

...

Calif Bill wrote:
"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
Calif Bill wrote:
"Chuck Gould" wrote in message
egroups.com...
On Apr 28, 8:11?pm, "tak" wrote:
From another NG, for long cruises and rainy weather?

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe....ap/index.html
There are villagers in Eastern Turkey who not only believe that the
story of Gilgamesh (or Noah) is literally true, they believe that what
remains of his boat is buried in mud along a river that runs nearby.
Aerial photography seems to confirm that there is something that
*could be* a large, double-ended boat.

One of the believers has constructed a site:

http://www.noahsark-naxuan.com/arkmodel.htm

Interesting factoid about "gopher" wood:

Translations of Genesis into English normally have Yaweh instructing
Moses to build his ark of "gopher wood". Unfortunately, there is no no
such thing as "gopher wood"........however, the symbols for the sounds
of G and K are very similar in the Hebrew alphabet and the word
"Kopher" means "protected", so Kopher wood wold be protected wood, and
could be any wood covered in pitch, tar, resin, etc.

I wonder if the guy who built the modern version of the ark is really
going to try to launch it? Looks to me like it has a ridiculously high
COG. Over she goes in the first decent blow. As it is, it reminds me
of those roadside attractions we used to see traveling around in the
50's and 60's. Big plywood sign in a farmer's field: "See Noah's Ark!
Only 75 miles ahead!" Then while everybody is eating snow cones and
marveling at the models of giraffes and elephants in the ark the
parking lot crew is wiring paper signs to the chromed rear
bumpers..... "Noah's Ark! See it Near Centerville!"

The Dutch model is probably closer to the design. *It would have been a
large retangular barge shape. *There was no need for a double ended,
steerable design. *It just needed to float. *With a large load aboard.

You actually believe those biblical fairy tales? Figures.

Believe it or not, the boat design would have been barge like. *As to
world floods, yes there have been. *At least once, *Indian legends in
South America talk of a great flood. *If you look at the coal seams in
Kentucky, Appalachia they are all at about the same elevation and there
had to be huge amounts of lumber piled up to make the size seams they
find. *Think of a tidal wave washing over the earth. *Maybe Noah saw the
big asteroid coming to clean up the earth?

D'oh. I wasn't questioning whether there was a flood. I was asking whether
you believed biblical fairy tales.

All the tales have some basis in fact. *Even Merlin the Sorcerer.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Let's stipulate for the purpose of discussion that the bible is based
on fact, in fact the word of God. Even so, it is only the word as
interpreted by men, with a very limited point of refernce, in a
culture that for eons has embraced if not encouraged exageration. Even
today in that part of the world exageration is not only accepted, but
expected. Even beleivers like myself understand that after so many
translations by men, it can not be taken literlally. Only killers and
liars take it literally, and then only to use it against and control
their populations.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

In Old Testament times, there was no real distinction between
scholarship and religion. Only the very rich and the priests had the
luxury of any time to contemplate philosophy, religion, etc. Aside
from some engaged in trade, few people needed to read or write to
conduct a full and meaningful life.

The story of Noah appeared after the Jews had been help captive in
Babylon. It probably began as an oral tradition, a retelling of the
Epic of Gilgamesh with a new, more culturally acceptable hero and a
better moral ending. If the Bible is not literally the "word of God",
it is a recording of the words and stories told by the people
representing God as priests in their society.

The story of the deluge is told by virtually every culture around the
globe. Buddha, IIRC, was elevated above the flood on a lotus flower.
Native Americans in the Pacific NW tell a traditional tale of a person
who founded the Frog clan. He was judged "worthy" by some spirit or
another, and when the great flood wiped out his
entire society he was kept afloat with his head above water by a team
of frogs.

The Noah story may or may not be literally true. Certainly a number of
folks who believe that it is literally true adopt that position as
much from a blanket conviction that every word in the Bible is the
absolute truth moreso than from scientific evidence. What seems to
supported by cultural anthropology, archeology, and geography is that
cataclysmic floods capable of wiping out all of local civilization or
the "known world" have been a reality.

Whatever sorts of structures are being found in eastern Turkey on
these various "ark quests", they seem to be very old. 30-40 years ago
I bought a book called "Noah's Ark: I've Seen It!" written by a guy
who sincerely believed that some
old timbers and an associated structure he found buried in a glacier
in the "mountains near Ararat" were the remains of Noah's Ark. Now
there's the site referenced up thread where somebody claims to have
found a huge boat, buried in mud, in a Turkish river basin. There have
been many others over the years.

If they ever find enough of any one of these possible "arks" to
completely confirm that it is indeed a boat, it would be interesting
to see what the carbon dating turned out to be.

Could a wooden boat, or any wooden structure, survive for several
thousand years?
Probably so, if it were covered with pitch to start with and then
buried in mud. It isn't unusual to haul up 500-year old shipwrecks and
discover that the frames and planks that were covered with mud or sand
when the boat settled remain recognizable as a boat. We probably don't
know what the practical limit to this sort of preservation is, but if
we found the boat that belonged to Noah, or Gilgamesh, or any of the
ancient flood heroes we would be dealing with one of the oldest known
vessels ever built.