The Winter 2012 issue of Bible and Spade may be the most important issue we have ever produced. It is dedicated to the subject of child sacrifice in the ancient world and Israel, and modern day abortion. In conjunction with the release of this issue, ABR will also be posting online articles to supplement Bible and Spade. In addition, ABR is offering the '180' DVD, featuring Ray Comfort. This 33 minute video documents discussions with 8 individuals who are pro-abortion. With impeccable logic and grace, Mr. Comfort helps these folks change their minds about modern day child sacrifice taking place in abortion clinics all across our land. We pray that this DVD, Bible and Spade, and our online articles will help changes hearts and minds on this critically important subject. 

---

Introduction

Despite considerable biblical evidence already summoned to support a strong pro-life position, more scriptural testimony seems to be needed to convince some Christians that anything less than such a position is unbiblical. One objection frequently raised to a dogmatic stand against abortion is that the Bible never specifically addresses the issue.

The reason for this omission has been pointed out by the Old Testament scholar Meredith Kline who, commenting on the lack of abortion legislation in biblical law says, "It was so unthinkable that an Israelite woman should desire an abortion that there was no need to mention this offense in the criminal code."[1]

There was, however, a rite performed in ancient Israel which has many parallels to the modern practice of abortion and is specifically addressed in the Sciptures. It was the rite of child sacrifice and Moses said it was one of the "detestable things the Lord hates" (Deuteronomy 12:31). In this article the largely neglected parallels between the ancient rite of child sacrifice and the modern practice of abortion will be examined in detail.

Archaeological and Extra-Biblical Literary Data

Before the biblical texts which address the practice of child sacrifice are examined, it will be helpful to draw on some of the archeological and extra-biblical literary data for the background they provide.

In 1921 the largest cemetery of sacrificed infants in the ancient Near East was discovered at Carthage. It is well established that this rite of child sacrifice originated in Phoenicia, ancient Israel's northern neighbor, and was brought to Carthage by its Phoenician colonizers.[2] Hundreds of burial urns filled with the cremated bones of infants, mostly newborns but even some children up to age six years old, as well as animals have been uncovered at Carthage.

They were buried there between the 8th century B.C. and the fall of Carthage during the third Punic War in 146 B.C. On the burial monuments that sometimes accompanied the urns, there was often inscribed the name or symbol of the goddess Tanit, the main Phoenician female deity, and her consort Ba'al Hammon. Infants and children were regularly sacrificed to this divine couple.

Fulfillment of a vow was probably the most frequent reason an infant or child was sacrificed as witnessed by the third century B.C. Greek author Kleitarchos (paraphrased by a later writer):

Out of reverence for Kronos (the Greek equivalent of Ba'al Hammon), the Phoenicians, and especially the Carthaginians, whenever they seek to obtain some great favor, vow one of their children, burning it as a sacrifice to the deity if they are especially eager to gain success.[3]

A typical example of an inscription follows:

To our lady, to Tanit, the face of Ba'al and to our lord, to Ba'al Hammon that which was vowed (by) PN son of PN son of PN. Because he (the deity) heard his (the dedicant's) voice and blessed him.[4]

Thus fulfillment of a vow before or after obtaining a special favor from the gods, a favor that brings blessing or success to the dedicant, appears to be the most common reason for child sacrifice. Occasionally, however, at times of civic crisis, mass child sacrifice was practiced as attested by the first century B.C. Greek historian Diodorus Siculus who reported the response of the Carthaginians to their army's defeat by Agathocles in 310 B.C.:

Therefore the Carthaginians, believing that the misfortune had come to them from the gods, betook themselves to every manner of supplication of the divine powers . . . In their zeal to make amends for their omission, they selected two hundred of the noblest children and sacrificed them publicly.[5]

The actual rite of child sacrifice at Carthage has been graphically described by Diodorus Siculus:

There was in their city a bronze image of Cronus extending its hands, palms up and sloping toward the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire.[6]

Plutarch, a first and second century A.D. Greek author, adds to the description that:

the whole area before the statue was filled with a loud noise of flutes and drums so that the cries of wailing should not reach the ears of the people.[7]

There is conflicting evidence regarding the actual cause of death of the victims. Some reports suggest that they were burned alive[8] while other reports suggest that the infants and children were slaughtered first.[9] The victims themselves were members of both the wealthy mercantile and estate-owning class as well as the lower socioeconomic class as attested by the titles of the dedicants on the burial monuments.[10] Occasionally, however, the upper class would substitute lower class children for their own by purchasing them from the poor and then sacrificing them as Diodorus Siculus reports:

in former times they (the Carthaginians) had been accustomed to sacrifice to this god the noblest of their sons, but more recently, secretly buying and nurturing children, they had sent these to the sacrifice.[11]

Two inscriptions at Carthage even show that occasionally the parents would sacrifice a defective child hoping to later receive a healthy one as a substitute. In one inscription a man named Tuscus says that he gave Ba'al "his mute son Bod'astart, a defective child, in exchange for a healthy one. "[12] Child sacrifice probably became a standard practice for both religious and sociological reasons. Diodorus Siculus suggests that the:

ancient myth that Cronos did away with his own children appears to have been kept in mind among the Carthagians through this observance.[13]

The second and third century A.D. Roman lawyer and Christian apologist who was a native North African and spent most of his life in Carthage, Tertullian, wrote:

Saturn (the latinized African equalivant of Ba'al Hammon) did not spare his own children; so, where other people's were concerned, he naturally persisted in not sparing them; and their own parents offered them to him, were glad to respond...[14]

According to the ancient myth, Saturn selfishly swallowed up the first five of his children in order to prevent his destined dethronement by one of them.[15] Hoping to gain Saturn's favor and thus his blessing, the Carthaginians worshipped Saturn by imitating him. Serving a god with ungodly attributes, the Carthaginians were willing to submit to his murderous demands. Indeed Saturn's demands may have assisted the Carthaginians in their own self-serving plans. The Syro-Palestinian archeologists Lawrence Stager and Samuel Wolff suggest that:

Among the social elite of Punic Carthage the institution of child sacrifice may have assisted in the consolidation and maintenance of family wealth. One hardly needed several children parceling up the patrimony into smaller and smaller pieces . . . for the artisans and commoners of Carthage, ritual infanticide could provide a hedge against poverty. For all these participants in this aspect of the cult, then, child sacrifice provided special favors from the gods.[16]

This suggestion is supported by archeological evidence at Carthage that the practice of child sacrifice flourished as never before at the height of its population as well as civilization.[17]

A funerary stela dedicated to the goddess Tanit at Carthage. Archaeologists have discovered upwards of 20,000 burial urns at the Carthaginian Tophet, which contain the incinerated remains of children sacrificed to Tanit and her consort, Ba'al Hammon. The Carthaganians came from Phoenicia (north of Israel in modern day Lebanon), and brought with them Canaanite customs and practices, including child sacrifice. The Israelites were repeatedly warned by God not to adapt the despicable practices of the Canaanites. Failing to heed these warnings, God eventually brought judgment upon the Israelites. Wikimedia Commons

Biblical Citations

Child sacrifice was not confined to Phoenicia, Carthage and the western Mediterranean world. It was also practiced by the Canaanites and through the process of religious syncretism by some Israelites. The earliest reference to child sacrifice in the Bible is found in Leviticus where the practice is address by Moses in connection with Molech:

Do not give any of your children to be passed through (the fire) to Molech for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the Lord. (Lev. 18:21; see also 20:1-5).

In I Kings 11:7, Molech is identified as "the detestable god of the Ammonites" and recent archeological evidence in the former territory of the Ammonites from the period of the Conquest supports biblical testimony that child sacrifice was practiced in Jordan roughly contemporarily with Moses."[18] The Hebrew word Molech is the same Semitic root as the Punic word mulk which was found inscribed on several burial monuments at Carthage giving linguistic evidence for the continuity between the practice of child sacrifice in Canaan and at Carthage. But whereas at Carthage the word refers to the sacrificial offerings including human sacrifice, in Leviticus it refers to the god who demands child sacrifice.[19] The "passing through" refers to sacrificing by burning in a fire.[20] For this "passing through to Molech" (same Hebrew words in Leviticus and Jeremiah) took place later in Israel's history in the region of the high places of Ba'al in the Valley of Ben Hinnom in Jeremiah 32:35. This murderous scene was described by the Lord through the mouth of Jeremiah in earlier chapters:

For they have forsaken me and made this a place of foreign gods; they have burned sacrifices in it to gods that neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah ever knew and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. They have built me the high places of Ba'al to burn their sons in the fire as offerings to Ba'al -something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind. So beware, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when people will no longer call this place Topheth [possibly derived from an Aramaic word meaning hearth or fireplace but here referring to the precinct of child sacrifice] or the Valley of ben Hinnom, but the Valley of slaughter. (Jeremiah 19:4-6; see also 7:31-32)[21]

The history of child sacrifice in ancient Israel and God's response to the practice can be uncovered by examining the biblical texts that address it in the Pentateuch, historical books and prophetic writings. In the Pentateuch, Moses warns the Israelites who will soon enter the land of Canaan (Leviticus 18:3 and 20:21-24) where they will be exposed to the cult of Molech not to sacrifice any of their children to the god:

The Lord said to Moses, say to the Israelites: "Any Israelite or any alien living in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech must be put to death. The people of the community are to stone him. I will set my face against that man and I will cut him off from his people; for by giving his children to Molech he has defiled my sanctuary and profaned my holy name. If the people of the community close their eyes when that man gives one of his children to Molech and they fail to put him to death, I will set my face against that man and his family and will cut off from their people both him and all who follow him in prostituting themselves to Molech. (Leviticus 20:1-5; see also 18:21).

The penalty for sacrifice to Molech is harsh, i.e., stoning to death (Lev. 20:2); for it is a serious offense against the Lord.

1. It defiles God's sanctuary (Lev. 20:3) and since His holy presence cannot abide in a place polluted by sin, it threatens abandonment by God of His people.

2. It profanes God's holy name making God appear less than the holy God that He is by inferring that He is a God who desires, or at least permits, child sacrifice.

3. God knew that the practice of child sacrifice to Molech was a form of spiritual prostitution (Lev. 20:5). God's relationship to His people is a close personal one with a human analogy in the sexual intimacy of marriage. God, of course, expects the exclusive commitment of marriage, not the pick-and-choose relationships of prostitution.

4. In Deuteronomy, God through Moses rejects child sacrifice even if allegedly done in the worship and service of God Himself (Deut. 12:29-31). In reference to the nations of Canaan that Israel was about to invade and dispossess (12:29) and the worship of their gods (12:30), Moses commands:

You must not worship the Lord your God in their way because in worshipping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods. (Deuteronomy 12:31)

With remarkable discernment, Moses recognized that such unacceptable service can sometimes begin not as a conscious determination to do ungodly things but as an "ensnaring" by other nations and their gods (12:30).[22]

Two of Moses' admonitions against child sacrifice are found in the stipulation section of the loosely covenant treaty form of Leviticus 18:21 and the more rigid covenant treaty form of Deuteronomy[23] (Deut. 12:29-31). In the covenants made between God and Israel, the Lord expected His people to obey the civil, moral and religious stipulations. His commands were to be obeyed because of allegiance to His Lordship and out of a sense of gratitude for His great acts of redemption (Lev. 18:2-3 and Deut. 5:1-2,6 and 12:1).

Failure to obey the covenantal stipulations is failure to give God full allegiance as Lord and failure to respond appropriately to His gracious acts of redemption.

Disregarding the covenant stipulations is a serious offense, some of which, including child sacrifice, are so grievous as to be punished by capital punishment which is to be done by the entire community (Lev. 20:2-3). If the offense goes undetected by the community, God Himself threatens to "set my face against" and "cut off" the offender (Lev. 20:3), probably a threat of premature death.[24] So detestable to God is child sacrifice that He even threatens to set His face against and cut off those who, though not participants in the practice, "close their eyes" to the crime (Lev. 20:4-5). Further, the warning not only applied to God's covenant people but to any non-Israelite living in Israel (Lev. 20:2). Child sacrifice was not one of the many tribal customs aliens who lived in Israel were permitted to practice.

In these Pentateuchal passages dealing with child sacrifice the offense is recognized as a sin in at least three different ways. As noted above it was seen as a sin against God, i.e. in defiling His sanctuary, in profaning His holy name, in spiritual prostituting to Molech and in ungodly worship of the Lord Himself. But child sacrifice was also perceived as a sexual sin and/or sin against the family as well as a sin against the community. In Leviticus 18 (see also Lev. 20:9ff), the stipulation against child sacrifice is listed among various sexual sins, e.g. incest (18:6ff), adultery (18:20), homosexual acts (18:22) and bestiality (18:23). It is not obvious from the immediate context of Leviticus 18 and 20 why child sacrifice is linked to various illicit sexual practices. It is probable, however, that the worship of Molech not only involved child sacrifice but the pagan custom of cultic prostitution.

In Isaiah 57:9, "Molech" (mlk in Hebrew. It must be remembered that vowel notation was a later addition by Masorete scholars to the received consonantal text) is mentioned. Earlier in the chapter "those sacrificing their children" (57:5b) is in parallel with "those burning with lust" (57:5a). They are also described in 57:3 as "offspring of the adulterer and the prostitute." The Hebrew word for adulterer is masculine while the prostitute is feminine, indicating that the children are the offspring of an adulterous father and a prostituting mother. But the phrase is not to be taken literally. Rather, the declared attributes of the parents are in fact used to characterize the offspring themselves.[25] The connection between child sacrifice and cultic prostitution is even clearer in Ezekiel where we read:

And you took your sons and your daughters whom you bore to me and sacrificed them as food to the idols. Was your prostitution not enough? You slaughtered my children and made them pass through (the fire) to the idols. (Ezekiel 16:20-21)

Thus the Old Testament scholar Moshe Weinfeld links cultic prostitution with child sacrifice in Isaiah and Ezekiel saying, "The children born of cultic prostitution associated with Molech were presumably delivered to the idolatrous priests, even as the offspring of a regular marriage may have been handed over to Molech."[26] Given that some of the children offered to Molech were conceived illegitimately during adulterous/prostituting affairs, it seems probable that child sacrifice offered a convenient way to dispose of the consequences of these aberrant sexual practices.

Another possible reason for grouping child sacrifice with illicit sexual practices is that they are all sins against the family. Of the sexual sins listed together in 20:10ff, the Old Testament scholar Walter Kaiser, Jr., says: "Every assault against an individual here is simultaneously an attack on the very existence of the family."[27] Kaiser sees these sexual sins all as sins against the family since they disrupt normal family relationships. It is possible then that child sacrifice, which was clearly an assault against the family, came to be associated with other stipulations that protected the family. Since the family was the foundation of Israelite society, any threat to the family was a threat to the community as well. Thus, the community was to be vigilant in guarding against the practice and was to take the severest community action against any offenders, i.e., stoning to death.

Despite the covenantal stipulations and warnings against child sacrifice, Scripture records that some Israelites did in fact practice child sacrifice. Of Ahaz, the 8th century B.C. king of Judah, we read:

He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel and even made his son pass through the fire, following the detestable ways of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites. (2 Kings 16:3)

Sadly Ahaz's grandson Manasseh followed in his footsteps (2 Kings 21:6). But these accounts of child sacrifice were not isolated as recorded by Jeremiah (see above). Being a prophet of God, it was Jeremiah's obligation to prosecute on behalf of God the covenant lawsuit against those who had broken the covenant. The evidence against the Israelites was incontestable for it was publicly visible to all. As the Lord's mouthpiece, Jeremiah testifies against Judah:

They have set up their detestable idols in the house that bears my Name and have defiled it. They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire, something I did not command nor did it enter my mind. (Jer. 7:30-31; see also 19:4-5)

Because of this offense for which Israel is corporately responsible, Jeremiah predicts disaster (7:32-34 and 19:1-3, 6-15). If only the people would repent, disaster could be thwarted (Jer. 18:5-11). But the Israelites were a "stiff-necked" people who would not listen to God's words (Jer. 9:15; see also 18:5-12). They had forsaken their God to serve other gods even to the extent that they would sacrifice their own children spilling "the blood of the innocent" (Jer. 19:4). Mannaseh's grandson Josiah had tried to bring about reformation among the Israelites. After renewing the covenant between God and His people (2 Kings 23:1-3), Josiah:

desecrated Topheth which was in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, so no one could use it to make his son or daughter pass through the fire to Molech. (2 Kings 23:10)

But Josiah's reformation was short-lived as evidenced by Jeremiah's prophetic witness (see above). God used Rome to judge Carthage in 146 B.C., bringing an end to child sacrifice there.[27b] Hundreds of years earlier God used Babylon to judge Israel when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem, leveling God's temple which signified God's just abandonment of His people, and leading Israel into captivity. While exiled in Babylon, Ezekiel reminded the two prostituting sisters Oholah (representing Samaria in Ezekiel 23:4) and Oholibah (representing Jerusalem) of the reason they had been exiled. In confronting the two with "their detestable practices" the Lord through Ezekiel said:

they have committed adultery and blood is on their hands. They committed adultery with their idols, they even made the children they bore to me pass through the fire as food for them (Ezekiel 23:36-37).

Idolatry had not disappeared by New Testament times, but took on a broader meaning. Commenting on the New Testament authors' understanding of idolatry, Herbert Schlossberg notes that "a man can place anyone or anything at the top of his pyramid of values, and that is ultimately what he serves. The ultimacy of that service profoundly affects the way he lives."[28] Physical idols were still common in New Testament times, e.g. I Corinthians 8:4-5. However, in Pauline theology idolatry is also recognized as any worshipping or serving the creature rather than the Creator which is equivalent to exchanging the truth of God for a lie (Rom. 1:23,25).[29] Placing anything above the Creator and His truth is idolatry, for in this idolatry the creature's erroneous value judgments are substituted for the Creator's correct ones. Sadly, people know the truth but suppress it (Rom. 1:18). For God has revealed His nature, power and laws both in the visible world and in the hearts and consciences of humanity (Rom. 1:19-20; 2:14-15). But mankind is on a downward spiral of depravity and destruction that begins with devaluing the Creator and His truth and ultimately leads to an outpouring of God's just wrath at the final judgment (Rom. 1:24-32, 2:5,8-9,12). Even now mankind is experiencing God's wrath as He gives men over to the consequences of their sin (Rom. 1:26-28). Apart from God's gracious intervention, all mankind faces the present and future revelation of God's just wrath. But as recipients of God's righteousness through faith in Christ Jesus, we have been justified (Rom. 1:17; 3:21-28). Having been justified by His grace, our lives must not be conformed to this world's idolatrous values but be transformed by the renewing of our minds to God's perfect will (Rom. 12:2).

Parallels of Child Sacrifice and Abortion

At the risk on the one hand of pointing out obvious parallels and on the other hand of suggesting parallels which some may say are forced, we compare the ancient practice of child sacrifice with the modern practice of abortion. However, before going any further it should be noted that the parallels between the two have been recognized for centuries. Tertullian, for example, commenting on the Roman practice of infanticide by comparing it to the Carthaginian practice of child sacrifice, admonishes:

there is no difference as to baby killing whether you do it as a sacred rite or just because you choose to do it.

In the same context Tertullian describes the Christian attitude towards both abortion and infanticide saying:

For us murder is once for all forbidden; so even the child in the womb, while yet the mother's blood is still being drawn on to form the human being, it is not lawful to destroy. To forbid birth is only quicker murder. It makes no difference whether one take away the life once born or destroy it as it comes to birth. He is a man, who is to be a man, the fruit is always present in the seed.[30]

The most obvious parallel between the rite of child sacrifice and the practice of abortion is the sober fact that the parents actually kill their own offspring. There are however many other parallels. At Carthage the main reason for sacrificing a child was to avert potential dangers in a crisis or to gain success through fulfilling a vow. Today many times when a woman faces an unwanted pregnancy, abortion seems to be the only way to resolve the crisis she finds herself in. The potential danger to reputation, education, career, etc., become overwhelming. To avert the seemingly terrifying consequences of carrying a pregnancy to term, the woman may turn to abortion as a means of escape. Another woman may experience much less of the anxiety and fear that accompany a crisis. She may simply see the pregnancy as an intrusion into her self-serving lifestyle and an obstacle in the way of the road to her success. Sadly this woman's offspring must be sacrificed so that she can continue uninterrupted with her plans for the future.[30b]

It is no secret that in American society extramarital sexual intercourse (fornication and adultery) is the cause of most pregnancies that end in abortion. Pregnancy is a risk many are willing to take knowing that any undesired consequences can be eliminated by abortion.[30c] The theologican Carl Henry recognizes this fact in calling abortion "the horrendous modern immolation of millions of fetuses on the alter of sex gratification."[31] As suggested earlier, child sacrifice in Canaan may have been a convenient way to dispose of the consequences of the illicit sexual practice of temple prostitution associated with the cult of Molech. If so, the modern practice of men irresponsibly engaging in sexual intercourse with women to whom they do not intend to commit themselves and provide for parallels the wayward Israelite man engaging in extramarital relations with a temple prostitute. In both cases the men leave the women to bear the consequences of their aberrant sexual practices. New England Christian Action Council executive director John Rankin rightly calls this irresponsible behavior of men towards women as "the ultimate male chauvinism."[32]

As noted earlier, child sacrifice may have been a means of population control at Carthage. At present around the world abortion is sanctioned, even encouraged, by some societies as a means of population control. In China, communist party agents actually impose great social and economic pressure on couples to abort their offspring if they already have one child. In this country, the sanctions are more subtle. Presumably, Medicaid funded abortions afford the poor equal access to medical care, but one wonders whether some wealthy policy makers hope to control population growth among the poor under the guise of good will. In this there is an intimation of a parallel to the Carthaginian practice of the wealthy buying the poor's offspring to sacrifice in place of their own children. Apart from state funding, occasionally both the rich and the poor will abort later pregnancies if they feel their families are large enough. As at Carthage, socioeconomic concerns often play a prominent role in the decision.

Sometimes the Carthaginians sacrificed defective children in exchange for healthy ones. It is now standard medical practice to do an amniocentesis at an early stage of pregnancy when congenital abnormalities are suspected. If an impairment is confirmed, the parents are advised to consider terminating the pregnancy. To carry to term and raise a defective child is not expected of the parents since they can exchange the frail one they now have for a healthy one in the future. In some states obstetricians who fail to advise their patients of the need for an amniocentesis can be successfully sued for malpractice on the legal grounds that the delivered infants are "wrongful life." [33]

Even the actual rite of child sacrifice has modem parallels in the medical techniques used to perform abortions. In the saline abortion the dying infant is chemically burned as it thrashes about for minutes to hours before finally succumbing. In the suction abortion the loud whir of the vacuum pump muffles the sound of the mother crying out in pain and sadness and the ripping and gushing sound of the infant being torn piecemeal from the womb.

Finally, the flourishing of abortion in modern America, like child sacrifice in ancient Carthage, at the height of its civilization is an unmistakable parallel. The words written by P. Mosca at the conclusion of his doctoral dissertation dealing with child sacrifice might well be written of abortion today:

. . . it is impossible to deal with this subject at any length without coming to terms with the human dimension: how could a culture so well developed morally, intellectually and materially tolerate so "abominable" a custom? How could a sophisticated people sanction what seems to be such a barbaric practice for so long a time? How at the most visceral and critical level could human parents bring about the destruction of their own child?"[34]

One religious truth emerges in comparing ancient child sacrifice to modem abortion, i.e., people become like the gods/God they worship. The Carthaginians worshipped Ba'al Hammon, equivalent to Kronos and Saturn. Not surprisingly they became like him, willing to sacrifice their children to avert potential danger and gain success in their self-serving endeavors. Modern autonomous man worships himself and is willing to abort his own offspring in order to resolve crises and achieve his own goals. In serving the idolatrous self, men become more and more like the self-serving idol they worship, i.e. sinful man. They are willing to disregard any of God's gracious laws in order to accomplish their own ends. In their self-idolatry men have set themselves on a downward spiral of depravity and destruction from which only God's gracious mercy can deliver them.

In contrast to those who worship themselves, those who worship the holy God become holy. God sets Himself before His people as thestandard of righteousness, "Be holy because I the Lord your God am holy" (Lev. 19:2). In serving this righteous God, men and women become more and more like Him in righteousness. Of course, even the holy people of God have faith not in their own righteousness, but in the saving work of their righteous Lord, Jesus Christ.

Conclusions

Since there are many parallels between ancient child sacrifice and modern abortion, it is reasonable to conclude that the attitude of our unchanging God towards abortion today is similar to His attitude towards child sacrifice in the past. What then can we rationally surmise is God's judgment regarding the practice of abortion both among Christians and those who are not His people?

Like child sacrifice in ancient Israel, the practice of abortion by Christians is spiritual prostitution to an idol, defiles God's sanctuary and profanes His holy name. God alone is the Author of life and it is not the creature's prerogative to question the Creator's wisdom in bringing to life a fellow human being at conception. Whenever men disregard their Creator's wise judgment by destroying His innocent creation, they are serving another god. They are, in fact, spiritually prostituting themselves to the idolatrous self whom they believe is wiser in its value judgments. Some values which are put forward to justify abortion are clearly idolatrous, e.g., the mother's right to choose, which is placed at the top of the pyramid of values by those who call themselves pro-choice. Other idolatrous values are more subtle, e.g., empathy for a mother's suffering in the midst of the crisis arising from an unwanted pregnancy or concern for the quality of life of a defective fetus. Both of these later values are good in themselves but become idolatrous when they abrogate the Creator's wise judgment in creating human life. It is not as though God fails to realize in creating some human beings that they may become a source of conflict in an unplanned conception or that a handicapped person will indeed face difficulties.

Whenever Christians disregard the Creator's true value judgments, they dethrone God and by their sin defile the temple in which He dwells, the temple of their own body (I Cor. 6:19). Dethroned and defiled by the idolatrous sin of abortion, God threatens to abandon the wayward Christian unless there is repentance. For God will not dwell in a temple in which another god is enthroned and a sanctuary polluted by sin. And the Christian who approves of or participates in the sin of abortion not only affects himself but he profanes God's holy name. People intuitively know that a man's attitude and behavior reflect his values. The Christian claims that God's authoritative Word determines his values. If a Christian then speaks or acts in away that is contrary to that Word, he brings dishonor to God's name. For to those who do not know God, the Christian is their chief witness to the Word of God. And the Christian who approves of or participates in the practice of abortion is testifying to the world that his God condones the practice. He is in reality bearing false witness, for by his attitude and behavior he infers that the Creator consents to His creatures destroying innocent fellow creatures. This false witness actually implies through his testimony that God is at odds with Himself. For in creating a human being God has clearly judged it to be of value. If God approved of abortion, He would be essentially saying that his value judgments are sometimes wrong.

Many Christians who accept or take part in the practice of abortion have not made a conscious decision to sin and bring dishonor to God by condoning idolatrous values. Regardless of the motive, however, these Christians are unacceptably serving God. Indeed God hates the detestable sin of abortion. For not only is abortion a sin against God and His innocent creation but it is a sin against the family and community as well. Scripture throughout teaches that children are a blessing from the Lord and that loving nurture is the godly response of parents toward their offspring. Abortion is the rejection of the God-given role to parent His creation. For an unmarried woman unable to cope with the doubly difficult role of single parenting, the child may be God's gift through her to a barren couple within the community. Whether God's blessing is received and lovingly nurtured by the biologic parents or given to adoptive parents, the birth of a child is a blessing to the family and community.

Often abortion is the evil solution to the consequences of a sexual sin. Whether a pregnancy results from fornication or adultery, where the mother is a guilty participant in the sin, or a pregnancy results from rape or incest, where the mother usually is the guiltless victim of another's sin, abortion is an ungodly solution. For the Sovereign Redeemer is able to bring about good where there was evil. A new creation resulting from a sexual sin is an extraordinary witness to this redemptive truth.

Sadly many Christians refuse to completely submit to the Lordship of the Creator and fail to appreciate the redemptive power of their God to save man from the full consequences of sin. The defective fetus is the victim of that original sin which resulted in the fall of all creation. A mother may be the victim of her own or another's sexual sin or the victim of corporate societal sin, e.g., unjust poverty. In all of these situations abortion has no redeeming character; for God never deals with sin or its consequences by countering it with sin but with righteousness. The unhealthy child should be loved and cared for more not less because of its weakness. The pregnant woman should be counseled to do what is right and given assistance in every possible way to support a godly decision to nurture in her body God's creation during its first nine months of life. Christians must always affirm, both by word and deed, the sovereignty of the Creator and recognize His power to righteously redeem mankind from the results of sin.

Up to this point we have been trying to discover God's attitude towards abortion among Christians, based on Scripture's testimony of His attitude towards child sacrifice among the Israelites. We now turn to God's judgment regarding abortion among those who are not Christians and the Christian response to the practice among them.

As previously noted in the theocratic nation of Israel, some non-Israelite customs were tolerated and some, like child sacrifice, were not. Today God's people in the United States do not live in a theocracy; rather, they live in a democratic state. As such, Christians must determine, based on the principles of God's law, when they should become actively involved in the democratic process to restrict the behavior of some individuals in the interest of other individuals and society-at-large and when they should tolerate different values and customs. Abortion is clearly a practice which is intolerable and must be restrained by the state. For abortion is the denial of the "inalienable God-given right to life"[35] of an innocent human being and it is an attack at the very foundation of our society, i.e., the family and community.

Even many of those who are not Christians acknowledge that abortion is wrong. For God's law is written on the hearts of men and women to which their conscience bears witness (see Romans 2:14). Others have suppressed God's truth by substituting their own self-serving idolatrous values. The truth of God's power and divinity have been revealed in creation (see Romans 1:18ff). But men and women have suppressed this truth and their rejection of this revelation of God is clearly evident in the sin of abortion. For scarcely is the power and divinity of God more clearly seen than in His creative power bringing to life each human being, everyone made in His own divine image (see Genesis 1:27). No man-made technology has the power to create life, much less a human life stamped with the divine imprimatur. Rather, through the medical technology of abortion mankind rebels against the creative power of the Almighty by destroying the divine image-bearers. No, abortion is not acceptable as practiceby Christians or non-Christians and must not be tolerated by this or any other society. Those individuals who fail to heed God's law by condoning abortion will surely face God's judgment if they remain impenitent. Even those who do not condone abortion but fail to take action against it will face judgment. For as noted previously in Leviticus both the Israelite who sacrificed his child to Molech and those who closed their eyes to the sin faced the judgment of God. And if a society as a whole persistently rejects God's laws it will surely corporately face God's judgment.The city of Carthage and the nation of Israel are but two of many historical testimonies to the outpouring of God's wrath against unrelenting corporate sin.[36]

Something is happening in this land which God did not command nor did it enter His mind -this place is being filled with the blood of the innocent. So beware, for blood is on our hands and God will set his face against us unless we repent and are cleansed by his merciful forgiveness.

This is what the Lord says:

Look I am preparing a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. So turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions. (Jeremiah 18:11)

Oh, that we might not respond like ancient Israel.

It is no use. We will continue with our own plans, each of us will follow the stubborness of his evil heart. (Jeremiah 18:12)

 

Endnotes:

1. Kline, M.G., "Lex Talionis and the Human Fetus," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 1977, p. 193.

2. Harden, D., The Phoenicians, 1962, p. 88.

3. For translation see Mosca P.G., Child Sacrifice in Caananite and Israelite Religion, Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1975, p. 22.

4. Stager, LE. and Wolff, S.R., "Child Sacrifice at Carthage -Religious Rite or Population Control?", Biblical Archaelogy Review, Jan./Feb. 1984, p. 45.

5. Siculus, Diodorus, The Library of History, Book XX:14, The Loeb Classical Library.

6. Ibid.

7. Plutarch, De superstitione 171, The Loeb Classical Library.

8. Mosca, P.G., op. cit., p. 27, Mosca translates Kleitarchos' paraphraser from Scholia to Plato's Republic as follows: "There stands in their midst a bronze statue of Kronos, its hands extended over a bronze brazier, the flames of which engulf the child. When the flames fall upon the body, the limbs contract and the open mouth seems almost to be laughing until the contracted body slips quietly into the brazier. Thus it is that the `grin' is known as `sardonic laughter,' since they die laughing."

9. de Vaux, R., Studies in Old Testament Sacrifices, 1964, p. 81. de Vaux says that slaughter preceding the cremation "has been well established by J. Guey in Melanges D'archeologic et D'histoire, 1937, pp. 94-99."

10. Stager, L.E. and Wolff, S.R., op. cit., pp. 45, 47, citing P.G. Mosca's epigraphic work documented in his Ph.D. dissertation op. cit.

11. Siculus, Diodorus, op. cit., See also Plutarch op. cited where he says "Those who had no children would buy some little ones from poor people and cut their throats as if they were so many lambs or young birds."

12. Kennedy, C., "Queries/Comments," Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 1984, p. 20, citing J. Feuvier's article "Une Sacrifice d'Enfant chez les Numides," Annuaire de l'Institut de Philogic et d'Histoire Orientales et Slave, 1953.

13. Siculus, Diodorus, op. cit.

14. Tertullian, Apologeticus IX: 4 The Loeb Classical Library.

15. Hamilton, E., Mythology, 1940, pp. 65, 66.

16. Stager, L.E. and Wolff, S.R., op. cit., pp. 50,51

17. Ibid., pp. 40-42. The archeological evidence to support their conclusion is the greater proportion of human remains to animal remains in the most recent burial urns.

18. Wenham, G.J., The New International Commentary on the Old Testament-The Book of Leviticus, 1979, p. 259. There are text critical problems with I Kings 11:7. It may be that Milcum should be substituted for Molech in this verse (see I Kings 11:5, 33 in Hebrew)

19. Some scholars suggest that some uses of Molech in the Old Testament may have originally been used to refer to the live sacrificial offerings like Punic mulk. e.g., Mosca, P.G., op. cit., for summary see conclusions of chapter two and three.

20. Some scholars unconvincingly suggest that the "passing throught to Molech" was a ritual "passing through" without active sacrifice. e.g., Snaith, N.H., "The Cult of Molech," Vetus Testamentum, 1966, vol. 16, pp. 123, 124. For the best refutation of this view see: Mosca, P.G., op. cit., esp. p. 152; also see the Jeremiah passages quoted in this article.

21. Smith, W.R., Lectures on the Religion of the Semites, 1901, p. 377. Note the reference to the fire pit of Topheth in Isaiah 30:33.

22. Wenham, G.J., op. cit., p. 249.

23. Kline, M.G., The Treaty of the Great King, 1963, pp. 79-83.

24. Wenham, G.J., op. cit., pp. 285, 286.

25. Whybray, R.N., Isaiah 40-66: New Century Bible, 1975, p. 202.

26. Weinfeld, M., Ugarit-Forschungen IV, 1972, p. 144. Translation by P. Mosca, p. 143.

27. Kaiser, W.C., Jr., Toward Old Testament Ethics, 1983, p. 124.

27b. ABR editorial note: It does seem quite natural to make the connection between Carthaginian child sacrifice and their civilization’s subsequent destruction by the Roman Empire. We know from the testimony of Scripture that God judged Israel through both the Assyrians and the Babylonians because of Israel’s idolatry, which included child sacrifice. We do not have such explicit testimony from Scripture concerning the Carthaginians, and so we must urge caution in interpreting God’s purposes in extra-biblical historical events not explained in Scripture. There are, however, many passages which warn nations not to engage in such evil and immoral practices. We can confidently affirm that, if a nation perpetually persists in defying the laws of God, God will eventually bring judgment in His way, and in His time. As Christians, we can urge our nation(s) to repent before such divine acts take place.

28. Schlossberg, H., Idols for Destruction, 1983, p. 6.

29. Romans 1:23 and 1:25b mutually inform each other as indicated by the identical Greek verb translated "exchange" and parallel sentence structure.

30. Tertullian, Apologeticus IX.- 6, 8.

30b. ABR editorial note: Perhaps the most egregious and morally repugnant example of this can be seen in so-called “twin reduction”. This sanitized term describes a practice whereby a woman (often with the approval of her male partner) chooses to eliminate one of her perfectly healthy twin babies in utero, primarily because of prospective financial hardship or interference with career ambitions. See this highly disturbing story online, The Two Minus One Pregnancy

30c. ABR editorial note: Estimates vary slightly amongst reporting agencies, but about 82 percent of the women having abortions are unmarried or separated. See http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/pdf/ss/ss6001.pdf.

31. Henry, C. in reviewing G. Jone's book Brave New People, 1985, see book cover.

32. Rankin, J.C., Contrabortion, June 1984, pg. 1.

33. Schmidt, S.M., "Wrongful Life," Journal of the American Medical Association, Oct. 28, 1983, Vol. 250, pp. 2209-10.

34. Mosca, P., op. cit., pp. 273, 274.

35. The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America, July 4, 1776.

36. See endnote 27b.

Acknowledgements

Credit is due to Gary Pratico, Ph.D., for his assistance in directing me to extrabiblical literary sources and archeological data regarding child sacrifice.

Credit is due to Gordon Hugenberger, Ph.D.(c), and Hilton Terrell, M.D., for grammatical and stylistic help.

This article was originally published in the Journal of Biblical Ethics in Medicine, Volume 1, Number 2. It has been reproduced here with permission, with slight editorial updates and notes by the ABR staff.

The Winter 2012 issue of Bible and Spade may be the most important issue we have ever produced. It is dedicated to the subject of child sacrifice in the ancient world and Israel, and modern day abortion. In conjunction with the release of this issue, ABR will also be posting online articles to supplement Bible and Spade. In addition, ABR is offering the '180' DVD, featuring Ray Comfort. This 33 minute video documents discussions with 8 individuals who are pro-abortion. With impeccable logic and grace, Mr. Comfort helps these folks change their minds about modern day child sacrifice taking place in abortion clinics all across our land. We pray that this DVD, Bible and Spade, and our online articles will help change hearts and minds on this critically important subject.

"The presence of Hittites in the narratives of Israelite beginnings is thus rhetorical and ideological rather than historical." -John Van Seters. The appearance of the term "Hittites" in English Bible translations has been an apologetic, archaeological and historical problem for quite some time. Many claim that references to the Hittites in the Old Testament are either errors or fictional anachronisms. In this important article, Dr. Bryant Wood proposes that the solution to this problem is a linguistic one. Based on a detailed assessment of the original Hebrew text, and an evaluation of the archaeological evidence pertaining to the Hittite and neo-Hittite kingdoms, Dr. Wood concludes our English translations require correction. Once this is accomplished, we once again find the Bible is accurate and trustworthy...

 

This article was originally published in the June 2011 issue (54.2) of the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society.

 

The name "Hittite(s)" appears forty-eight times in contemporary English Bibles,¹ stemming from the reformation Geneva Bible published in 1560. All English translations prior to the Geneva Bible had "Hethite(s)" rather than "Hittite(s)," based on the Latin Vulgate. The Roman Catholic Douay English translation of the OT is the only modern English version to retain "Hethite(s)" from the Vulgate.² Both names are Anglicized transliterations of the masculine singular gentilic חִתִּי (ḥittî) derived from חֵת (ḥēt). The two names also are used to represent the three additional gentilics of חֵת (ḥēt):

1. חִתִּית (ḥittît) (feminine singular)
2. חִתִּים (ḥittîm) (masculine plural), and
3. חתִּיֹּת (ḥittîyōt) (feminine plural)

Should it be "Hethite(s)," "Hittite(s)," or a combination of the two? We shall answer that question by examining the usage of the four gentilic forms of חֵת (ḥēt) in the Hebrew Bible.³

There was a time when historians scoffed at the name "Hittite(s)" in the OT since it was not known outside the Bible.⁴ Archaeological discoveries in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Turkey and Syria from the early nineteenth century on, however, have revealed an Indo-European group scholars have dubbed “Hittites” (as opposed to “Hethites”), who established an empire in Anatolia that became a major power in the ancient Near East. But a serious problem remains. The Biblical references to Hittites living in Canaan appear to be unhistorical since there is no evidence—linguistic, historical, or archaeological—for a Hittite presence in Canaan. Kempinsky attempted to establish an early twelfth-century migration of Hittites to Canaan, requiring Abraham to be placed in the thirteenth-twelfth century BC,⁵ but this scenario finds little support in the archaeological record. Singer recently reviewed the finds and concluded:

The archaeological evidence seems hardly sufficient to prove a presence of northern Hittites in Palestine. After a century of intensive excavations, all that has surfaced is a handful of Hittite seals and about a dozen pottery vessels that exhibit some northern artistic influences. The seals may have belonged to Hittite citizens who passed through Canaan, and the vessels may have filtered gradually into Palestine through various Syrian intermediaries. The paucity of tangible evidence becomes even more conspicuous in the face of the absence of two salient features of Hittite culture—the hieroglyphic script and the cremation burial—both of which seem to have extended only as far south as the region of Hama in central Syria.⁶

As for the Biblical use of the term "Hittite(s)" for residents of Canaan, Singer subscribes to an anachronistic explanation. He believes the name came from the Assyrian period when the term Ḫatti was used for Anatolia, Syria, and Israel.⁷

The difficulty, which Gelb said was “a historical enigma,”⁸ has been described succinctly by Ishida: “although the Hebrew Bible often mentions the Hittites among the original inhabitants of the Promised Land, we have had so far no definite evidence of a Hittite presence in Palestine in the second millennium B.C. Therefore recent studies are reluctant to regard biblical references to the Hittites in Palestine as historical.”⁹

The purposes of this paper are to clear up the confusion by sorting out the non-Hittites from the genuine Hittites, and offer a means to distinguish between the two.

I. Historical Background¹⁰

The origin of the Anatolian Indo-Europeans we call Hittites is unknown. They appeared in central Anatolia early in the second millennium BC and established a kingdom that lasted from the early seventeenth c. to the early twelfth c. BC. Their capital was at Ḫattusha, modern Boğazkale, in North central Turkey. Hittite history can be divided into two major periods, the Old Kingdom, ca. 1670–1400 BC, and the Empire, or New Kingdom, ca. 1400–1177 BC. When the empire disintegrated, its second most important city Carchemish, along with other city-states in southern Anatolia and northern Syria, survived to become the Neo-Hittite states, which continued until the late eighth century BC when they were absorbed by the Assyrian empire.

With the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs by Champollion in 1823, ancient Egyptian inscriptions began to disclose contacts with a northern country called Ḫ-tᵓ, Kheta, beginning in the reign of Tuthmosis III (ca. 1504–1450 BC). Egyptologists noted the similarity to חִתִּי, ḥittî, in the Hebrew Bible and so plucked the name Hittites from the KJV and applied it to the people of Ḫ-tᵓ.¹¹ Similarly, with the decipherment of cuneiform in the mid-nineteenth century, Assyrian texts spoke of a western area named Ḫatti, so Assyriologists followed their Egyptological counterparts and referred to the people of Ḫatti as Hittites.¹² Even before the discovery of contemporary Hittite texts in Anatolia, sufficient information was available in the Egyptian and Assyrian records that William Wright, an early pioneer in the discovery of Hittite inscriptions, was able to write a rudimentary history of the Hittites in 1884.¹³ This was soon followed by updated treatments by Sayce in 1888 and following,¹⁴ and Garstang in 1910.¹⁵ Beginning in 1906, the Hittites came into the full light of history when a royal archive of over 10,000 clay tablets was excavated at Ḫattusha. In the texts, the kingdom was referred to as “the land of Ḫatti” and the citizens as “the people of Ḫatti.”¹⁶

II. The Autochthonous Sons of Heth¹⁷

A number of scholars recognized the occurrences of Hittite(s) in the OT can be divided into two groups, those who were indigenous to Canaan and those from outside Canaan.¹⁸ Of the forty-eight references to Hittite(s) in the OT, forty-two are singular gentilics referring to the indigenous residents of Canaan. Of those forty-two, forty are masculine with a prefixed definite article, הַחִתִּי (haḥittî), and two are feminine without the prefixed definite article, חִתִּית (ḥittît). Nineteen of the forty masculine singular gentilics refer to individuals (Ephron, Zohar, Beeri, Elon Ahimelech, and Uriah), while the other twenty-one are used collectively in the lists of indigenous occupants of the land.¹⁹ The two fem. sing. gentilics were used pejoratively by Ezekiel concerning Jerusalem’s origins. We shall examine the contexts of these passages to determine what the OT has to say about the native “Hittites.”

1. Abraham buys a family sepulcher (ca. 2085–2029 BC).²⁰ The most instructive instance of חִתִּי (ḥittî) occurs in Gen 23:10, in the account of Abraham’s purchase of a cave in which to bury his recently deceased spouse Sarah.²¹ He approached the בְּנֵי־חֵת (benê ḥēt) to enter into negotiations for the cave (v. 3). Abraham presented himself as “an alien and a stranger” (v. 4), suggesting the בְּנֵי־חֵת (benê ḥēt) were established inhabitants. This is confirmed in verse 7 where the בְּנֵי־חֵת (benê ḥēt) are referred to as “people of the land.” The term בְּנֵי־חֵת (benê ḥēt) occurs eight times in Genesis 23, as well as in 25:10 and 49:32. It is clear the בְּנֵי־חֵת (benê ḥēt) were the descendants of חֵת (ḥēt), son of Canaan. But in verse 10 Ephron is called הַחִתִּי (haḥittî), unmistakably an equivalent term for בְּנֵי־חֵת (benê ḥēt). The same juxtaposition occurs in Gen 49:29, 30 and 32. The close association of חִתִּי (ḥittî) with בְּנֵי־חֵת (benê ḥēt) and חִתִּית (ḥittît) with בְּנוֹת־חֵת (benôt ḥēt) (see below) indicates the sing. gentilic forms חִתִּי (ḥittî) and חִתִּית (ḥittît) should be understood as ethnonyms, names applied to a group of people based on their ethnic identity or lineage. Throughout the OT, הַחִתִּי (ha ḥittî) were seen as one of the native people groups of Canaan, already present when Abraham entered the land (Gen 15:20). They were located in the hill country (Num 13:29; Josh 11:3), specifically in Hebron (Gen 23:19), and perhaps in Jerusalem (Ezek 16:3, 45), and they appear in the lists of aboriginal peoples of Canaan, along with other sons of Canaan listed in Gen 10:15–17 = 1 Chr 1:13–15 (Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites, and Hivites). Moreover, the two personal names of the בְּנֵי־חֵת (benê ḥēt) in Genesis 23, Ephron and Zohar, are Semitic, not Indo-European.²² Zohar occurs elsewhere in the OT as one of the sons of Simeon (Gen 46:10; Exod 6:15).

2. Esau marries Judith, Basemath, and Adah (ca. 1966 BC). When Esau was forty years old he grieved his parents Isaac and Rebekah by marrying Judith daughter of Beeri הַחִתִּי (haḥittî), and Basemath daughter of Elon הַחִתִּי (haḥittî) (Gen 26:34–35). Shortly thereafter, Rebekah expressed her displeasure to Isaac, calling these new wives ת־חֵתוֹנבְּ (benôt ḥēt), and “daughters of the land” (Gen 27:46). Again we see חִתִּי (ḥittî) equated with indigenous descendants of חֵת (ḥēt). In Esau’s genealogy a third wife is listed, Adah daughter of Elon הַחִתִּי (haḥittî), one of the “women of Canaan” (Gen 36:2). The personal names listed in these passages, Judith, Beeri, Basemath, Elon, and Adah, are Semitic.²³ Other instances of these names in the OT are: Beeri father of Amos (Hos 1:1); Elon, son of Zebulun (Gen 46:14; Num 26:26), a town (Josh 19:43), and a judge (Judg 12:11, 12); and Adah wife of Lamach (Gen 4:19, 20, 23).

3. David and Ahimelech and Uriah (ca. 1015–990 BC).²⁴ Among David’s band of 600 “who were in distress or in debt or discontented” (1 Sam 22:2) was one Ahimelech הַחִתִּי (haḥittî). When David prepared to enter Saul’s camp at the hill of Hakilah he asked Ahimelech הַחִתִּי (haḥittî) Abishai son of Zeruiah, Joab’s brother, “Who will go down into the camp with me to Saul?” (1 Sam 26:6). While Ahimelech הַחִתִּי (haḥittî) failed to respond, Abishai accepted the challenge and went into Saul’s camp with David. Other than this fleeting reference to Ahimelech הַחִתִּי (haḥittî) nothing further is recorded about him in the OT. A more famous Ahimelech was the priest of Nob (1 Samuel 21–22). Once again we see that a חִתִּי (ḥittî) bore a Semitic name.²⁵

The most famous חִתִּי (ḥittî) we encounter in the OT is Uriah, whose ethnonym is mentioned ten times.²⁶ In addition to being Bathsheba’s husband, he was one of David’s Mighty Men (2 Sam 23:39 = 1 Chr 11:41) and the only חִתִּי (ḥittî) to make it into the NT (Matt 1:6). Despite intense scrutiny, there is no clear evidence to suggest his name is Hittite.²⁷ The fact that there were two priests,²⁸ a prophet (Jer 26:20–23), and an official (Neh 8:4) bearing this name strongly indicates that Uriah, the consummate “Hittite,” had a Semitic Yahwistic name.

4. Solomon conscripts חִתִּי (ḥittî) (970–930 BC). In order to carry out his ambitious building projects, Solomon conscripted חִתִּי (ḥittî), along with other native groups, as slave labor (1 Kgs 9:20–21 = 2 Chr 8:7–8). He used them to build the temple (seven years), his royal palace (thirteen years), Jerusalem’s fortifications, Hazor, Megiddo, Gezer, Upper Beth Horon, Lower Beth Horon, Baalath, Tadmor, store cities in Hamath, and towns for chariots and horses (1 Kgs 9:10, 15–23 = 2 Chr 8:1–10).

5. Ezekiel chastises Jerusalem (ca. 593–571 BC). Yahweh commanded Ezekiel to deliver an allegory to Jerusalem concerning her unfaithfulness. It began with a reference to Jerusalem’s pre-Israelite origins: “Your ancestry and birth were in the land of the Canaanites: your father was an Amorite and your mother a חִתִּית (ḥittît)” (Ezek 16:3). Later in the message Yahweh continued, “Everyone who quotes proverbs will quote this proverb about you: ‘Like mother, like daughter.’ You are a true daughter of your mother, who despised her husband and her children; and you are a true sister of your sisters, who despised their husbands and their children. Your mother was a חִתִּית (ḥittît) and your father an Amorite” (Ezek 16:44–45). In these two statements that Jerusalem’s mother was a חִתִּית (ḥittît), we have the only instances of the fem. sing. gentilic of חִתִּי (ḥittî) in the OT. Here, the descendants of חֵת (ḥēt) are seen as pre-Israelite residents of Canaan who were part of the early settlement of Jerusalem, along with another branch of the Canaanites, the Amorites (Gen 10:16 = 1 Chr 1:14).

6. Summary of חִתִּי (ḥittî) and חִתִּית (ḥittît) in the OT. In this examination of the usage of the ethnonyms חִתִּי (ḥittî) and חִתִּית (ḥittît) in the OT it is readily apparent that they were autochthonous occupants of Canaan descended from חֵת (ḥēt), son of Canaan. There is no suggestion they came from outside Canaan. Their names were exclusively Semitic, including one Yahwistic name, and they were often associated with other sons of Canaan. No archaeological data has been found to suggest an enclave of Indo-European Anatolian Hittites resided in Canaan at any time in Hittite history. What is more, the Indo-European Anatolian Hittites did not exist as early as Abraham and Isaac.

III. Will the Real Hittites Please Stand Up!

Only six of the forty-eight occurrences of the name "Hittite(s)" in our English Bibles pertain to the Indo-European Anatolian-Syrian Hittites of the second-first millennia BC. In these instances, the masc. plural gentilic of חִתִּי (ḥittî) with prefixed definite article, הַחִתִּים (ha ḥittîm) (five times), and the feminine pl. gentilic of חִתִּי (ḥittî) without prefixed definite article, חִתִּיֹּת (ḥittîyōt) (one time), were employed. Of the five occurrences of the masc. pl., two of them relate to the period of the Hittite empire, referred to as אֶרֶץ הַחִתִּים ('ereṣ haḥittîm), “land of the Hittites.” The remaining three, מַלְכֵי הַחִתִּים (malḵê haḥittîm), “kings of the Hittites” (twice), and the fem. pl., denote the Neo-Hittite states. In addition, there are a number of instances where Neo-Hittite states were cited individually by name. These references indicate considerable contact between the United and Northern Kingdoms and the Neo-Hittite polities. We shall examine these references, plus one extra-Biblical source, to elucidate the relationship between ancient Israel and the real Hittites.

1. Tidal king of Goiim (ca. 2085 BC). A number of scholars have made a connection between Tidal in Gen 14:1, 9 and the Hittite royal name Tudḫaliya. Kitchen is firmly convinced of this link: “Tidʿal is universally recognized as an early form of Tudkhalia, well known from the Hittite world centered in Anatolia.”²⁹ But this proposal has a serious chronological difficulty. Although there were two or three Tudḫaliyas in the late fifteenth and early fourteenth century, and another in the late thirteenth century, it is questionable if there was an earlier king by that name.³⁰ After surveying the evidence, Singer is skeptical of the association: “The dispute over the existence of an Old Hittite king named Tudḫaliya will probably linger on until some binding evidence turns up (at Kültepe?), but its relevance to biblical Tidʿal is quite doubtful: needless to say, Tidʿal’s kingdom, Goiim, ‘Nations,’ has nothing to do with second-millennium Ḫatti.”³¹ Even if evidence is found for an Old Hittite king named Tudḫaliya prior to the late fifteenth century BC, it would be irrelevant to Genesis 14, since the Biblical date for that event is in the twenty-first century BC, long before the founding of the Hittite empire ca. 1670 BC.

2. Yahweh’s promise to Israel (1406 BC). In Josh 1:4 Yahweh promised Joshua Israel’s territory would extend to כֹּל אֶרֶץ הַחִתִּים (kol 'ereṣ haḥittîm), “all (the) land of the Hittites.” The region in view is north of Canaan since it included the area “from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates...to the Great Sea on the west.” Thus the land of the Hittites in this instance most certainly is the territory beyond northern Syria, i.e., Anatolia. Since we know from extra-Biblical texts the ancient name for Anatolia was Ḫatti, even before the Indo-Europeans arrived,³² the plural gentilic forms חִתִּים (ḥittîm) and חִתִּיֹּת (ḥittîyōt) should be understood as demonyms, names for a group of people based on the name of the region in which they lived. In the time of Joshua, the Hittite empire was in a transition from a decline in the sixteenth and fifteenth century, to a resurgence under Tudḫaliya I/II at the beginning of the Empire period.

3. The informer from Bethel (mid-fourteenth century BC). Judges 1 describes the period after the death of Joshua (v. 1) and prior to the oppressions, when the tribes were securing their allotments. Although it is not possible to be precise about the date of this period, it was most likely a span of about ten years in the mid-fourteenth century BC.³³ In the account of the house of Joseph taking Bethel (vv. 22–26) we are told of a man who came out of Bethel and revealed to Josephite spies the way into the city. Bethel was subsequently put to the sword, and the informer and his family spared. The man from Bethel then emigrated to the אֶרֶץ הַחִתִּים ('ereṣ haḥittîm) where he built a city which he named Luz (Judg 1:26), the old Amorite name for Bethel (Gen 28:19). Although no clues are given as to the location of אֶרֶץ הַחִתִּים ('ereṣ haḥittîm) in this verse, the expression is the same as in Josh 1:4, suggesting the area of Anatolia.³⁴ The mid-fourteenth century is about the time of the Hittite king Tudḫaliya III, when Ḫatti was being harried by attacks from the west and north.³⁵

4. David and Hamath (1010–970 BC). When David brought the ark to Jerusalem, he “assembled all the Israelites, from the Shihor River in Egypt to Lebo Hamath” to join in the celebration (1 Chr 13:5). Lebo (or “Entrance of”) Hamath was a geographical designation for Israel’s northern border.³⁶ The exact meaning and location of Lebo Hamath are unknown. Hamath, modern Hamāh ca. 180 km north-northeast of Damascus, was the southern-most of the Neo-Hittite city-states and is well attested from ancient texts and excavation.³⁷ David subdued Hadadezer king of the Aramean city of Zobah, located in the North Beqa Valley of Lebanon, as well as Damascus, and Hadadezer’s satellite towns Tebah and Berothai (2 Sam 8:3–8 = 1 Chr 18:3–8). When Toi, ruler of Hamath, heard of David’s victories he sent tribute to David by way of his son Joram (2 Sam 8:10)/Hadoram (1 Chr 18:10), possibly indicating Toi was subject to David.³⁸ Hamath was strategically important to David since it served as a buffer between Israel and the other Neo-Hittite states further north.

5. Solomon and the Neo-Hittites (970–930 BC). Solomon expanded the relations David established with Hamath to other Neo-Hittite kingdoms. Among Solomon’s many achievements listed in 1 Kgs 10 was a lively trade in horses and chariots between Egypt and the Neo-Hittite states: “Solomon’s horses were imported from Egypt and from Kue—the royal merchants purchased them from Kue. They imported a chariot from Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for a hundred and fifty. They also exported them to all מַלְכֵי הַחִתִּים (malḵê haḥittîm) and of the Arameans” (1 Kgs 10:28–29 = 2 Chr 1:16–17).³⁹ In this case multiple Hittite kings are specified in the Hebrew text, indicative of the Neo-Hittite period. Earlier translators had difficulty with the Hebrew name קֹוֶה/קֹוֵא (qowe), transliterated Kue in most modern translations. The translators of the Geneva Bible, and later the KJV, thought the word was a form of קַו (qaw), “line,” and thus translated קֹוֶה/קֹוֵא (qowe) as “linen yarn.” We now know קֹוֶה/קֹוֵא was a Neo-Hittite kingdom in Cilicia in southern Turkey named Que in the ancient texts.⁴⁰ In addition, Solomon made political alliances with his neighbors by marrying foreign women, including Pharaoh’s daughter, Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and חִתִּיֹּת (ḥittîyōt) (1 Kgs 11:1), obviously a reference to foreigners, not the בְּנוֹת־חֵת (benôt ḥēt). The Aramean state of Zobah, previously subdued by David, and the Neo-Hittite state of Hamath, likely subject to David, revolted at some point because Solomon had to recapture them midway through his reign (2 Chr 8:3). He then established trading centers in the region of Hamath (2 Chr 8:4).

6. Ahab and Irḫulēni at the battle of Qarqar (853 BC). In the sixth year of the reign of Shalmaneser III (858–824 BC) the Assyrian army marched west to engage a coalition of 12 kings at Qarqar, ca. 80 km north-northwest of Hamath. The coalition included Ahab king of Israel and Irḫulēni king of Hamath. The most detailed account of the event is recorded on the Kurkh Stele.⁴¹ Qarqar is described in the stele as one of Irḫulēni’s “royal cities” and is known through texts and archaeology.⁴² The sizes of the various forces involved in the battle are recorded on the stele.⁴³ The largest of the coalition forces was that of Aramean Hadad-ezer (Ben-Hadad II) king of Damascus who had 1,200 chariots, 1,200 cavalry and 20,000 troops. Irḫulēni of Hamath is credited with 700 chariots, 700 cavalry and 10,000 troops; and Ahab 2,000 chariots and 10,000 troops.⁴⁴ Since Ahab’s force appears to have been larger than Irḫulēni’s, it is plausible Irḫulēni was subject to Ahab and the two joined forces, along with other states in the region, to combat a common enemy at Qarqar. Shalmaneser boasted a great victory, but that is doubtful. The coalition apparently was able to forestall the Assyrian advance, given Shalmaneser was obliged to return to the area to fight the same coalition in his tenth, eleventh, and fourteenth years.⁴⁵ Since Ahab died in 853 BC, it would have been his son Joram (852–841 BC) who participated in these later engagements.

7. Siege of Samaria during the reign of Joram (852–841 BC). Samaria came under siege by Ben-Hadad II (ca. 860–841 BC) during the reign of Joram. The siege was so severe the populace was reduced to cannibalism (2 Kgs 6:28–29). Relief finally came through an act of Yahweh: “the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots and horses and a great army, so that they said to one another, ‘Look, the king of Israel has hired מַלְכֵי הַחִתִּים (malḵê haḥittîm) and Egyptian kings to attack us!’ So they got up and fled in the dusk and abandoned their tents and their horses and donkeys. They left the camp and fled for their lives” (2 Kgs 7:6–7). The phrase מַלְכֵי הַחִתִּים (malḵê haḥittîm) again denotes the Neo-Hittite states, which most times were at war with the Arameans.

8. Amos’s woe against Zion and Mount Samaria (ca. 760–750 BC). Amos told those “who are complacent in Zion” and “who feel secure on Mount Samaria” (Amos 6:1) to “Go to Calneh and look at it; go from there to great Hamath...Are they better off than your two kingdoms? Is their land larger than yours?” (Amos 6:2). Calneh is Kunulua, capital of the Neo-Hittite kingdom of Patina (Unqi in Assyrian texts), identified as Tell Taϲyinat in the Plain of Antioch in southern Turkey. It is evidenced by texts and excavation.⁴⁶ Hamath, formerly a Neo-Hittite state, was taken over by Arameans in 796 BC.⁴⁷

9. The fall of the Neo-Hittites. With the rise of the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III (744–727 BC), the political landscape in the Levant radically changed. He began a process of annexing the Neo-Hittite and Aramean states as Assyrian provinces, which was complete by the reign of Sennacherib (704–681 BC). As was their policy, the Assyrians removed the upper echelons of society and replaced them with captives from other areas. This brought an end to the Hittite civilization and culture, which was lost to history except for the few brief references preserved in the Hebrew Bible, including an echo of the fall of the Neo-Hittite states in Isaiah. In Yahweh's condemnation of Jerusalem (ca. 700 BC), he alluded to “the Assyrian, the rod of my anger” (Isa 10:5a) who bragged about the nations he had recently conquered, including two Neo-Hittite states:

I send him [the Assyrian] against a godless nation, I dispatch him against a people who anger me...‘Are not my commanders all kings?’ he [the Assyrian] says. ‘Has not Calno fared like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad, and Samaria like Damascus? As my hand seized the kingdoms of the idols, kingdoms whose images excelled those of Jerusalem and Samaria—shall I not deal with Jerusalem and her images as I dealt with Samaria and her idols?’” (Isa 10:6a, 8–11).

Calno (= Calneh in Amos 6:2), Kunulua in the ancient texts, was capital of the Neo-Hittite kingdom of Patina and annexed to the Assyrian empire by Tiglath-pileser III in 738 BC.⁴⁸ Carchemish, just inside the southern border of Turkey ca. 225 km north-northeast of Hamath, was the most important of the Neo-Hittite states. It is well known from texts and excavation.⁴⁹ Carchemish fell to Sargon II in 717 BC.⁵⁰ The Aramean states of Hamath, Arpad and Damascus were annexed by the Assyrians as well.

10. Summary of חִתִּים (ḥittîm) and חִתִּיֹּת (ḥittîyōt) in the OT. The demonyms חִתִּים (ḥittîm) and חִתִּיֹּת (ḥittîyōt) were used in the context of foreigners from the Anatolia-northern Syria region, unquestionably the people known from ancient texts scholars have labeled “Hittites.” The Biblical usage is historically accurate and consistent with recovered evidence. The descriptive construct אֶרֶץ הַחִתִּים ('ereṣ haḥittîm) was used for the Hittite empire at the beginning of the conquest in 1406 BC and in the early judges period in the mid-fourteenth century BC. A different construct, מַלְכֵ הַחִתִּים (malḵê haḥittîm), was used for the Neo-Hittite states in historical contexts of the mid-tenth and mid-ninth century BC.⁵¹ The fall of the Neo-Hittite states to the Assyrians in the late eighth century BC was alluded to ca. 700 BC.

From the brief references in the OT and several extra-Biblical documents, we learn Israel had considerable contact with the Neo-Hittites. Around 1000 BC, David received gifts from the king of Neo-Hittite Hamath, indicating Hamath was a vassal state, or, at the very least, on friendly terms with Israel. In the early tenth century Solomon seized Hamath, made alliances by marrying Neo-Hittite women, and carried on trade with Neo-Hittite states. In the ninth century Ahab, and later his son Joram, joined forces with Hamath and ten other kingdoms to temporarily halt the Assyrian advance into the region.

IV. The Conclusion of the Matter

We have seen that the singular gentilics חִתִּי (ḥittî) and חִתִּית (ḥittît) were used in the OT exclusively for the descendants of the eponymous ancestor חֵת (ḥēt), who were indigenous residents of Canaan from pre-Abrahamic times. The plural gentilics חִתִּים (ḥittîm) and חִתִּיֹּת (ḥittîyōt), on the other hand, were used in the OT exclusively for the Indo-Europeans who resided in Anatolia and northern Syria ca. 1670–717 BC.⁵² That two different groups were in view also is seen by the use of two different terms in the same chronological-historical context in the books of Joshua, Judges and 1 Kings/2 Chronicles.⁵³ Early translators failed to distinguish between the two groups and rendered both the singular and plural gentilics by the same anglicized transliteration "Hethite(s)" or "Hittite(s)."

When references to the people of Ḫatti were encountered in Egyptian texts in the first half of the nineteenth century and Assyrian texts in the mid-nineteenth century, the KJV name "Hittites" was applied to them. As a result, researchers have been misled by English translations and have assumed the Bible writers had the Indo-Europeans in mind for both the indigenous descendants of חֵת (ḥēt) and the citizens of Ḫatti. This has resulted in a great deal of confusion and misconceptions in the scholarly literature. What to do about this conundrum and etymological morass?

McMahon hit upon the key to the solution, but failed to prosecute his observation to its logical conclusion. He wrote:

These five references to the Hittites which on the basis of context may be understood as the Hittites of north Syria, that is, Neo-Hittites,⁵⁴ are also the only five occurrences of the plural form ḥittîm in the OT. This may mean nothing, but it could be some indication of a distinction made in the text between the Hittites of Palestine, descendants of Heth, and the Hittites of Anatolia and north Syria, the men of Ḫatti.⁵⁵

The problem is one of semantics and terminology. As the term Hittites for the Indo-Europeans of Anatolia and north Syria is firmly embedded in the scholarly and popular literature, that name cannot be changed.⁵⁶ Because the Bible writers distinguished between the two groups, this should be reflected in our English translations. I suggest an ecumenical solution to the problem. Since the demonyms חִתִּים (ḥittîm) and חִתִּיֹּת (ḥittîyōt) refer to the Indo-Europeans of Anatolia and northern Syria, I propose retaining the Protestant term "Hittites" for those entities. For the ethnonyms חִתִּי (ḥittî) and חִתִּית (ḥittît), on the other hand, the Roman Catholic term "Hethite(s)" is the correct choice, since חִתִּי (ḥittî) is synonymous with בְּנֵי־חֵת (benê ḥēt) and חִתִּית (haḥittît) is synonymous with בְּנוֹת־חֵת (benôt ḥēt). If these changes were incorporated into future translations of our English Bibles, it would clearly distinguish the indigenous descendants of חֵת (ḥēt) from the people of Ḫatti and alleviate present misunderstandings.

The occurrences of the names related to חֵת (ḥēt) and Ḫatti, along with recommended translations, are summarized in Table 1 below.

Table 1. Proposed Translations for Hebrew Ethnonyms and Demonyms Currently Translated “Hittite(s)”

 

Endnotes

 Endnotes-Hittites-and-Hethites.pdf

The Historical Argument Against Mt. Ararat

Previously, we looked in Part One at the general validity of testimony in establishing facts. Next, Part Two examined ways to reconcile the Ararat testimonies with general scientific concerns. Part Three considered ways geological data, in particular, can coexist with the Ararat testimonies. Finally, we turn now to address a matter of history.

I dealt in detail with ways to resolve the major historical problems with Mt. Ararat being the Ark's landing-place in an earlier paper, "An Armenian Perspective on the Search for Noah's Ark," so I will not repeat it all here. At this time I wish to take a closer look at just one historical aspect where new information has come to light recently—Roman historian Flavius Josephus's mention of a detail reported by Nicholas of Damascus (whose name is often rendered Nicolaus).

Some preliminary background about why Nicholas's information is important must be given first. Crouse and Franz went into great detail in a recent issue of Bible and Spade magazine (vol. 19, no. 4 [Fall 2006]: 99-111) about how historical records indicate Mt. Ararat was never known as the mountain of the Ark until after the 10th century AD, bolstering their case for Mt. Cudi. The online Encyclopedia Iranica agrees with them:

Ararat is the same word as Urartu, the ancient kingdom on one of whose mountains Noah's ark was said to come ashore (Gen. 8:4). It is the name given to the volcanic massif by the Europeans, who reasoned that the region's highest mountain ought logically to be the ark's landing place. This notion, however, is quite recent. Early Armenian tradition (up to the 10th century A.D.) and Islamic tradition (based on Koran 11:46) set the ark's landfall on Mount Judi, which after the Arab conquest was generally identified with a range only 2,100 m high in the Jazira (southeast of Siirt in what is now Turkish territory: 37° 24' north latitude 42° 32' east longitude), though the earliest Arab authors placed it in Arabia (in Mohammad's lifetime this term had probably denoted the whole West-Arabian mountain system). The names given by the Arab geographers to Great and Little Ararat are Jabal al-Haret (The Ploughman's Mountain) and Jabal al-Howayret (the same in the diminutive form) (https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ararat-mount-pers).

The assertion that the earliest historical traditions, from the time of Berossus (late fourth century BC) up to the 10th century AD, overwhelmingly point to the Ark's landing place being Mt Cudi, seems to be a compelling one. Nevertheless, there has long been a weak point in how they supported their case: the identity of "Baris." To this we now turn our attention.

The Baris Question

Nicholas of Damascus, the first-century BC friend and biographer of Herod the Great, also gained repute as the author of a "General History" of the world spanning at least 80 books, probably 144 (cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_of_Damascus). Roman historian Flavius Josephus preserved some excerpts from those writings, most of which have been lost. Here is the pertinent quote from Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews 1:95; LCL 4:47):

There is above the country of Minyas in Armenia a great mountain called Baris, where, as the story goes, many refugees found safety at the time of the flood, and one man, transported upon an ark, grounded upon the summit, and relics of the timber were for long preserved; this might well be the same man of whom Moses, the Jewish legislator, wrote.

The exact identity of "Baris" has been an ambiguity for some time. My friends Bill Crouse and Gordon Franz, stalwart champions of Mt. Cudi as the site of the landing of Noah's Ark, have done their best to understand every trace of historical information in favor of this site. Yet they could only write the following about Nicholas: "The name Nicholas gives this mountain, Baris, however, is a mystery. According to Lloyd Bailey (Noah: The Person and the Story in History and Tradition, 1989, p. 216, footnote 19), the Greek word baris means 'height' or 'tower,' and even 'boat'! Others identify Baris with Lubar, as mentioned earlier." This brief analysis of Nicholas's information does little or nothing to advance the Mt. Cudi case, so I think it was included in the Crouse/Franz study simply because it was in Josephus, whose history they needed to cite for other points, even though they considered this bit of unhelpful information "a mystery."

Solving a Mystery

Perhaps we should start unraveling this mystery by first reviewing geographical clues given by Josephus. Nicholas identifies his mountain of the Ark, Baris, as being in Armenia. The land of Urartu (another name for the land of Ararat, or Armenia) is, as Nicholas described it, "above" the land of Minni, that is, generally north of it. Mt. Ararat fits this description, as seen on the following map, but Mt. Cudi lies well to the west, making it tough to reconcile with Nicholas's description:

Apparently with this geographical information in mind, Columbia University cartographer William R. Shepherd did not hesitate to identify Baris with Mount Ararat in his 1923 Historical Atlas (p. 20):

If Shepherd's identification is correct, then the Baris of Nicholas of Damascus is the same as Mt. Ararat. However, since this is not a conclusion fitting the thesis of Crouse and Franz, they quickly set it aside as a "mystery" and skip over it with no detail in their otherwise detailed historical overview. Is there any additional information that can help settle the question of where Baris is, and whether William Shepherd based his map on something more than an assumption?

The Cuneiform Clue

I believe the answer to this question is yes. I recently was fortunate to receive a copy of a work done by Armenian scholar Artak Movsisyan, The Sacred Highlands: Armenia in the Spiritual Geography of the Ancient Near East. Published under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia, Institute of Oriental Studies, by Yerevan University Publishers in 2004, it was translated into English by the Spurk-Diaspora Organization of Los Angeles. The intent of this small 76-page book is explained on pages 3-4 of the introduction:

This book is the first attempt to compile these ancient passages describing Armenia, as preserved in one of the cradles of world civilization, the Near East. The citations are presented here with meticulous care, strictly without any additions or omissions...At the same time, this being the first attempt at such an undertaking, we have no pretensions of being the last word on this topic and expect that in the future these findings will be augmented with new information.

One may read the entire monograph with profit, but for our purposes we are only interested in gaining insight on the Baris question. Beginning on page 62, Movsisyan addresses exactly that issue in depth in an appendix headed, "THE ARMENIAN TRADITION CONCERNING THE UNIVERSAL FLOOD AND THE EARLIEST REFERENCES TO THE MOUNTAIN NAMED MASIS." He writes:

It is significant that no mountain in the Armenian Highlands has been known by the name of Baris. Such a significant mountain name would not have been forgotten completely, therefore it is logical to assume that it was corrupted before the time of Nicholas of Damascus. When and how could such a corruption take place (if in fact it did)?

The fact that location of the mountain of salvation is described with reference to Minias means that the source on which Nicholas of Damascus draws was written no later than the beginning of the sixth century BC. The Minias (Minni/Manna) kingdom ceased to exist and were [sic] off the historical scene and referred to at the latest in the beginning of the 6th century BC (Jer. 51:27). That means that the original source was probably cuneiform from the Near East. [This also supports the hypothesis that the original Near Eastern Flood accounts were also recorded in cuneiform].

Movsisyan presents the following chart to show the cuneiform options for rendering "Baris" and "Masis." These options follow from the fact that cuneiform is a syllabic rather than an alphabetic language:

He continues,

How could it have been written in accordance with the rules of cuneiform writing? Possible alternatives are Bar-is, Ba-ri-is, Ba-ar-is and other variants (pic. 12), of which the most appropriate, efficient (shortest), non-duplicative and simplest to write is Bar-is in a two syllable form (see pic. 12a). Based on this it becomes evident how a corruption could have taken place. In cuneiform syllabary there was a good deal of ambiguity and the symbol for the syllable bar could also be read mas, maš, par.

A cuneiform reference cited by Movsisyan at this point in his text, R. Labat's Manuel d'epigraphie akkadienne, substantiates this analysis:

Movsisyan goes on to explain the likelihood that, since cuneiform had begun fading from use by the time of Nicholas and its interpretation was complicated by the virtually identical forms for "bar" and "mas," it was a misreading of the cuneiform that gave rise to the Baris name in Nicholas:

Indeed, for this reason to this day is it not clear whether name the wife of Haldi, chief god of the Kingdom of Van, whose name in Assyrian sources should be pronounced Bag-bar-tu, Bag-mas/š-tu, or Bag-par-tu, or whether the name of one of the constituent units of Uruatri is Bar-gun, Par-gun, Maš-gun, or Mas-gun. In translating the cuneiform into Greek, if the scribe did not know the exact name of the mountain, it could have been misread, as a result of which the Greek translation of the mountain's name appeared in different variants. On the one hand, Nicholas of Damascus refers to a great mountain where the ark came to rest above the land of Minias, that is, north of the Lake Urmia basin (which corresponds to Masis), and on the other the same cuneiform symbols could be read Bar-is or Mas-is (see pic. 12a & 13a). From another perspective, the Armenian tradition that the mountain where the ark came to rest was Masis supports the hypothesis that in the primary source the original cuneiform name of the mountain was Mas-is.¹⁶⁸ This means that the Armenian tradition about the Flood pre-dates the 6th century BC, was known outside of Armenia, and was written down in one of the ancient centers of cuneiform writing.¹⁶⁹

The last two sentences above include these endnotes to back up his conclusions:

¹⁶⁸ Of all the possible ways the name could be written, Mas-is is the most suitable of the options (see pic. 13).

¹⁶⁹ We consider this the earlier reference to the mountain by the name Mas-is, since the references to Masis in the Alexander Romance (written in 240 BC) and to the Mašu Mountains in Gilgameš point not to Masis (Greater Ararat), but to the Masius/Masion Mountains on the southern border of Armenia (see fn. 26).

Returning to Movsisyan's text, he persuasively reasons that:

Later, probably in the Hellenistic period, this tradition was translated into Greek, at which time the ambiguous cuneiform symbols Masis were interpreted to be Baris. In the sources used by Nicholas of Damascus the name of the mountain must already have been corrupted and found its way into the 'General History' in that form.

Movsisyan then closes his seminal work with the following conclusion, which I cannot improve upon:

In summary, the name that Nicholas of Damascus used in his 'General History' to refer the mountain where the ark landed is corrupted and a closer look at the cuneiform text permits a recovery of the correct original form Masis. Based on this, it is clear that the Armenian tradition that Masis is the place where the ark rested did not emerge in Armenia as a result of the spread of Christianity, but was known for centuries before this and spread beyond Armenia's borders and was written down in a center of cuneiform writing sometime before the 6th century BC. Later there was a mistake in the transliteration of the cuneiform into Greek which found its way into the 'General History' of Nicholas of Damascus and reached us through the 'Jewish Antiquities' of Josephus Flavius [sic]. In Christian Armenia the pre-Christian native Armenian tradition and Biblical accounts merged and was embellished with episodes from local folklore, giving rise to a colorful new tradition. The comprehensive study of this tradition (especially its chronological layers) is a topic for future research.

Closing Remarks

This has turned into a quite long research paper, so I thank those who have stayed with it to the end. I have come away from the research personally convinced—for biblical, testimonial, geological and historical reasons—that there are no insurmountable barriers why Noah's Ark should not be sought in the snows of Turkey's Mt. Ararat.

Scripture firmly upholds the legitimacy of using testimony to establish the existence of a fact, subject to the "two or three" principle that began with Moses under God's direction, which Jesus Himself never set aside, and the Apostle Paul applied to diverse situations. The modern Mt. Ararat testimonies are largely known to have been given by people we have no cause to be unduly suspicious of, and the repeated mentions in their stories of the same or very similar details, by people widely separated in time and place, would be more than enough to establish their factuality in a courtroom. We accept information from "historical" sources like Josephus and Berossus readily enough, so it appears that the veracity of the modern testimonies is being judged by a much higher, and unjustified, standard of proof.

The criticisms leveled at Mt. Ararat as the landing-place of the Ark for ostensibly scientific reasons, when closely examined, reveal they are based more on assumptions about unknown starting conditions than upon empirical science. All of the geological data which the Ararat critics rely on, in the final analysis, is based on models and assumptions that no actual field research has validated—and flying in the face of field research which HAS been performed.

Lastly, the historical case against Mt. Ararat is founded upon the assumption that valid historical data going against the Mt. Cudi case prior to the 10th century AD does not exist. I trust it has been shown by Movsisyan that there are compelling reasons why we should heed the Armenian traditions that have survived, because they point back to cuneiform originals that pre-date Berossus, the Chaldean astrologer/priest whose ostensibly historical information cannot be separated from its roots in Babylonian mythology (see the Berossus section of my earlier paper, "An Armenian Perspective on the Search for Noah's Ark," for the reasons).

And ultimately, the validity of the geological and historical criticisms against Mt. Ararat involves a blanket rejection of testimony as a valid input into the picture. I cannot help but wonder what Jesus would think of this approach, which makes a modern-day skeptical scientism overrule God's own standards for acceping testimony.

Further research still remains to be done. The remains of the Ark still need to be found, but current research using satellite remote sensing and ground penetrating radar, supplemented by new insights into the testimonies that resolve some of their apparent contradictions, encourages us to be optimistic that they WILL be found very shortly, if it pleases God.

 

This article remains the sole property of the Associates for Biblical Research and Richard Lanser. Any reproduction, republication or other use without express permission from Associates for Biblical Research is strictly prohibited.

 

Bibliography

Bailey, Lloyd R. 1989. Noah: The Person and the Story in History and Tradition. Studies on Personalities of the Old Testament. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.

Crouse, Bill, and Gordon Franz. 2006. "Mount Cudi—The True Mountain of Noah's Ark." Bible and Spade 19, no. 4 (Fall): 99–111.

Encyclopaedia Iranica. "Ararat." Last updated August 10, 2011. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ararat-mount-pers.

Josephus. 1961. Josephus: In Nine Volumes. Vol. 4, Jewish Antiquities, Books I–IV. Trans. H. St. J. Thackeray. The Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Labat, René. 1995. Manuel d'épigraphie Akkadienne: Signes, syllabaire, idéogrammes. Revised and expnaded by Florence Malbran-Labat. 6th ed. Geuthner Manuels. Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner.

Lanser, Rick. 2008. "An Armenian Perspective on the Search for Noah's Ark." Associates for Biblical Research. February 23. https://biblearchaeology.org/research/chronological-categories/flood-of-noah/3380.

Movsisyan, Artak. 2004. The Sacred Highlands: Armenia in the Spiritual Geography of the Ancient Near East. Yerevan, Armenia: Yerevan State University.

Shepherd, William R. 1923. Historical Atlas. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

Geological Studies: A Definitive Criterion of Truth?

In Part One of this study we looked at issues relating to the general validity of testimony as a tool for evaluating truth-claims, and in Part Two discussed ways to accommodate these testimonies in the search for Noah's Ark without throwing science out on its ear, just exercising care to use it with minimal assumptions about unknown initial conditions. Since geology is supposedly an objective science rather than one that assumes unknowable initial conditions, in Part Three we now look at the claim that geological studies have proven that Mt. Ararat is a young volcanic peak that could not have existed at the time of the Flood.

Does any geological information exist that can legitimately be interpreted in favor of Mt. Ararat being the landing-place of the Ark, as the “two or three” principle for testimonies apparently requires? Or is there a way to view geological data in a way that does not proscribe Ararat as being the mountain of the Ark? Some say no:

In support of casting the net more widely for the Ark, some geologists argue that the volcanic Mount Ararat did not erupt until after the Flood and therefore the Ark could not have landed there. (Habermehl 2008)

Obviously, if Mt. Ararat did not yet exist at the time Noah was floating on the Flood waters, it could not have been the Ark’s landing place, and we must look elsewhere. But we must ask, does geology conclusively prove Mt. Ararat is too young?

The first formal studies of Ararat geology were performed by Hermann Abich (1845) and M.M. Blumenthal.¹ A recent summary of the secular scientific consensus about Ararat geology is the following:

The volcanic massif from which the cones of Great and Little Ararat rise covers approximately 1,200 km² and towers on the southeastern side above a Paleozoic basement slit by the trenches filled with recent deposits which form the Araxes and Doğu Bayazıt plains. The two principal cones are for the most part composed of recent (Upper Pliocene and Quaternary) andesitic lavas, but have a complex morphological history as there are several satellite cones and some lateral flows of more recently erupted basalt.²

The claimed Upper Pliocene and Quaternary dating of the majority of the extruded lavas makes them much too recent for their layers to have supported the Ark after the Flood (although one must note the hedging words above, “for the most part,” which acknowledge the real possibility that lower, earlier layers may have been much older). This dating has raised doubts in the minds of scientifically-sensitive Christians over the validity of all the testimonial data. Dr. John Baumgardner of Los Alamos National Laboratory, relying on a paper by Mehmet Keskin (2005), in a personal communication to Anne Habermehl (quoted on page 491 of her 2008 International Creation Conference paper), pointed out that

the oldest radioisotope age for the volcanic rocks from which Mt. Ararat constructed is 1.7 million years. If we apply the results of the RATE research that strongly indicates accelerated nuclear decay during (and also immediately after) the Flood, a radioisotope age of 1.7 million years falls during the Ice Age and therefore during the interval of a few centuries after the Flood. I consider this to be a solidly defensible piece of evidence that the onset of the massive volcanic eruption which produced Mt. Ararat occurred after the Flood by at least a hundred years. The maps in this paper [Keskin, "Domal Uplift and Volcanism in a Collision Zone without a Mantle Plume: Evidence from Eastern Anatolia"] also indicate that the volcanic eruptions associated with those that formed Mt. Ararat cover the Eastern Anatolia Accretionary Complex (EAAC) rocks and, apart from local alluvium, are the most recent geological features in the area. Moreover, they are subareal [sic, subaerial], which means these eruptions occurred after the area had been uplifted above sea level. All these lines of evidence support the conclusion that Mt. Ararat is a volcanic mountain that formed in its entirety after the Flood had ended.³

For our purposes we do not need to know how the RATE (Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth) studies correlate to Keskin’s date to lead to the conclusion Mt. Ararat arose during the Ice Age. Nor need we question the general methodology used in radioisotope dating volcanic rocks. But it is important to observe that in coming to these conclusions, Dr. Baumgardner is implicitly trusting the validity of the Keskin data—a confidence which may or may not be justified. He goes further to say that Keskin’s date marks “the onset of the massive volcanic eruption which produced Mt. Ararat,” rather than more accurately claiming it was the date yielded by the specific rocks which were sampled. The question must be asked, what volcanic rocks were tested, and are the results reliable?

Which Rocks Were Dated?

The reason this must be looked at is because it is known there are different types of rocks on Mt. Ararat, with different compositions and yielding different dating results. Most of the volcanics on Mt. Ararat are extruded andesites and basalts, very common all over the mountain. These are presumably the ones sampled by those who did the dating for Keskin. However, there are some much rarer rock outcrops known as the Lower Red Tuffs. Their locations are noted on the Blumenthal map (“Fig 2”) below:

A paper by Richard St. John Lambert et al (Journal of Geology 82 [1974]: 419–38) entitled, “Chemical Petrology of a Suite of Calc-Alkaline Lavas from Mount Ararat, Turkey,” presented a study of these rocks. The Introduction of that paper summarized its findings thus:

Blumenthal gave a general map, delimiting areas of Lower Red Tuffs, Andesites, Later Basalts, Volcanics not of Ararat, and the surrounding Carboniferous to Recent sediments (fig. 2). Collection of in situ specimens and the stratigraphy of the volcano is hindered by absence of bedrock exposure on Ararat, except in localised areas, such as the gorge of Gehenna (or Ahora) between the summit of Great Ararat and the village of Ahora (or Aguri), the Kirmiz Tepeler (Red Hills) which lie SW of the summit and Mihtepe, SE of the summit. Of these areas, the two former expose red haematitised lavas, of greater age than the “andesites” of the main structure (Blumenthal, 1958) and which form a petrographically and chemically distinct suite, the Lower Red Tuffs, believed to be co-extensive with the low-Y series of this paper. The fresh Later Basalts can be clearly distinguished as black, soil-free flows on the flanks of the mountain, erupted from fissures in postglacial time (emphasis added).

Besides taking special note that the Lower Red Tuffs are older than the dominant structural rocks, observe also these words: “Collection of in situ specimens and the stratigraphy of the volcano is hindered by absence of bedrock exposure on Ararat.” This is the root of my concern about the validity of the Keskin dating. The Blumenthal map shows that nearly all of the Lower Red Tuffs are exposed only in the Ahora (Cehenna) Gorge, with rare isolated other exposures in the region. Lambert’s Lower Red Tuffs samples numbered 096–098 were taken from the Gorge. Of these Lower Red Tuffs the report concludes that the low-Y [yttrium, a rare-earth mineral] rocks of this type were “generated under more hydrous conditions than prevailed during the evolution of the later high-Y series” (emphasis added). Although secular scientists will not consider it an option, these words should immediately alert us to look at this as a possible indication of extrusion of the oldest lavas through Flood waters. But these, presumably the oldest volcanic rocks on Ararat, are rarely exposed and hard to get at, and I have not found reason to trust that it was these old rocks—perhaps not even the oldest, since I am not aware that any actual cores have ever been performed into the heart of the mountain—were the ones dated by Keskin.

Here is a sampling of a few comments from the Lambert paper:

• On the basis of Blumenthal's map (fig. 2) the low-Y series are not extensively exposed on the volcanic pile. (In other words, they are scarce.)
• Their [the low-Y series rocks] mineralogy and chemistry suggest a different process of differentiation to that affecting the high-Y series. (Therefore, a possible mid- or even pre-Flood origin should be on the table.)
• The Ararat rocks resemble calc-alkaline rather than oceanic volcanics in their strontium isotope results. (A geochemical quality to note when we examine the Keskin data in detail.)
• The model that emerges from this is of an intermediate parental magma (Si0₂ near 60%) crystalliz­ing at different times under different physical controls, which we believe were most probably dominated by variations in P_H20. (In other words, water content was a key difference in the rocks, and the external conditions under which they were extruded could have been quite different.)

From this it should be clear that if only the andesites that extensively litter most of Mt. Ararat or the Late Basalts were tested—or even if the Lower Red Tuffs were tested, and they are not, in fact, the oldest rocks at the heart of Mt. Ararat—we cannot depend on the Keskin data to tell us when the mountain first began rising. Without knowing more about the specific rocks that were dated, no evidentiary basis exists for claiming the entire Ararat volcano arose during the Ice Age. All we can confidently say is that the rocks which were dated were from an Ice Age eruption—assuming, again, that Keskin’s dating and the RATE date interpolation made from it are both correct. Caution in drawing firm dating conclusions from the data in the literature is justified because it conflicts with following the “two or three” principle concerning the testimonies that place the Ark on Mt. Ararat.

Overview of the Keskin Data

With the Lambert data fresh in our minds, let us examine some things that Keskin reported; the sheer volume of that research and its derived interpretations permit us to barely skim the surface. Following is Keskin’s Figure 7, giving the radiometric dates of his samples. The “1.7” near the right border designates the initiation age of volcanism at or near Mt. Ararat in terms of millions of years ago (Ma):

The caption with the above figure reads, “Figure 7. Distribution of the oldest radiometric ages of the volcanic units. Ages are from Pearce et al. [1990], Ercan et al. [1990] and Keskin et al. [1998]. Initiation ages of the volcanism are contoured in 1-Myr intervals. PS: Pontide suture, BPS: Bitlis-Poturge suture, CS: inferred cryptic suture between the EAAC and BPS. Figure from Keskin [2003].”

To date I have been unable to confirm from Keskin’s voluminous work whether the specimens he used for Mt. Ararat dating were obtained from the Lower Red Tuffs or from other rocks. Until this is confirmed, Keskin’s 1.7 Ma date for the onset of Ararat volcanism must be accepted provisionally, not definitively. Reason to suspect the dated samples may not have been taken from the Lower Red Tuffs arises from that fact that Lambert said his specimens from Ararat were clearly “calc-alkaline lavas,” which a chart from Keskin⁴ indicates is the typical geochemical profile of the very oldest volcanics found especially in the Erzurum-Kars plateau, where they were dated as high as 11 million years ago. Keskin’s Fig. 8 is reproduced below for ready reference in this discussion:

This chart shows that the calc-alkaline lavas, characteristic of the Erzurum-Kars Plateau that Mt. Ararat is a part of (see below), are consistently the oldest ones. This is inconsistent with the conclusion that Mt. Ararat is only an Ice Age volcano. In view of the importance of giving proper place to the testimonial data as part of the “big picture,” it is fair to say that researchers are not presently in a position to definitively date the entire Ararat massif to the Ice Age. All we may assert is that the Ice Age saw a massive eruption episode on Mt. Ararat.

Miscellaneous Observations on Keskin

There are other problems with relying on Keskin’s data, even inconsistencies within it. A friend who wishes to remain anonymous read the Keskin paper in detail and shared several pertinent observations, including the following:

• Keskin made the point that the Eastern Anatolia region shows “volcano-sedimentary successions.” Sediment, in the professional geological literature, is safely understood as water-deposited materials, such as sandstones, shales and limestone. If sediment superposes over a volcanic layer, it indicates at least some of the Ararat volcanism is mid-Flood, not post-Flood. (Crouse—see below—objected to Burdick’s characterizing the interbedded sediments he observed as water-borne, but Keskin’s comments appear to vindicate Burdick.)
• If one wants to follow Keskin's discussion of tectonic history modeling, one has to identify which plate fragment region Ararat belongs to. But Keskin seems to say two things on that. In his listing of the five plate fragments in Eastern Anatolia, he clearly states Ararat belongs to the Northwest Iranian Fragment (NIF): “Five different tectonic blocks are recognised in North-Eastern Anatolia (Fig. 5): ...II. The Northwest Iranian Fragment. The eastern part of the Erzurum-Kars Plateau (i.e. Horasan, Aladag, Kagizman, Kars areas and Mt. Ararat) overlies this tectonic block (Keskin et al., 1998).” To follow this description, here is Keskin’s Fig. 5, where the gray area is the NIF, and the pink areas within it are exposures of the Erzurum-Kars Plateau (EKP):

However, looking at Keskin’s Fig. 4, Mt. Ararat (“Ag”) is labeled as “Collision-related volcanic units underlain by the Pontides and EAAC” (East Anatolian Accretionary Complex, plate fragment III in Fig. 5):

The Pontide fragment is Fragment I some 100 miles to the west or northwest of Ararat. His Fig. 5 with the plate boundaries shows Ararat about 20 miles away from the EAAC and within the NIF. So, is Mt. Ararat within the NIF, the EAAC, or the Pontide Fragment region?

• The general region has a dome uplift (anticline), in which the center has the oldest rocks and the exposed rocks due to erosion shearing off of the anticline dome are progressively younger as one travels away from the center (the “anticline” has to have this progressive young age with distance factor otherwise it is called an “antiform”). Keskin shows that pattern in his Fig. 7. But this applies to the general plateau around Ararat. The question is how much of Ararat itself is stratovolcano (or other volcano) accumulation, and how much is due to a violent upthrust of sedimentary and maybe granitic rock layers (which could only have occurred during, not after, the Flood).
• Finally, it appears Dr. Baumgardner has mistakenly read Keskin's maps and put Ararat within the EAAC tectonic plate fragment, when Keskin's Fig. 5 and text put Ararat within the NIF. Maybe he mistakenly thought the city of “Agri” was Ararat (which is actually about 70 miles to the east of Agri). The city of Agri is indeed within the EAAC. I noticed some confusion on Keskin's part, too. If Baumgardner mistakenly thought Ararat was in the EAAC instead of NIF (and if Ararat in fact belongs in NIF), it may invalidate his whole analysis.

In short, Keskin’s paper appears problematic on multiple fronts, making it inadvisable to rely on him for dating Mt. Ararat to the Ice Age until these confusing, apparently conflicting details are resolved.

Although it is unsubstantiated at this point, in passing I mention that Turkish geologist Dr. Salih Bayraktutan, a native of the Ararat region, has insisted for years (personal communications) that he has samples from within the Ahora Gorge that prove Mt. Ararat was in existence at the time of the Flood. We await his finishing and publishing that research before we can rely on it, but it sounds intriguing.

The Stratovolcano Form of Mt. Ararat Cannot be Reconciled with Noah’s Ark

The overwhelming majority of geologists and volcanologists agree that Mt. Ararat bears the form of a typical stratovolcano—one built up of alternating layers of relatively thick magma, resulting in the typical steep cone shape typified by Japan’s Mt. Fuji. Another type, known as a shield volcano and characteristic of the Hawaiian Islands, is comprised of a much more fluid magma that resists being “stacked up,” yielding a relatively low dome shape. For these reasons, those who have claimed Mt. Ararat is a shield volcano—notably Creation Research Society geologist Clifford Burdick—are viewed with derision by researchers, who assume that anyone making such an egregious error could not get anything else right!

I accept that the evidence points to Mt. Ararat being a stratovolcano. However, some would add a corollary to this I do not agree with—that the stratovolcano form requires it to have been built up subaerially (under air, rather than under water). It is often assumed that the steep-sided form of a stratovolcano is a function of being built up under air. However, this is NOT a requirement. The Dictionary of Geological Terms, published by the American Geological Institute, gives the authoritative definition of a stratovolcano thus: “A volcano that is constructed of alternating layers of lava and pyroclastic deposits, along with abundant dikes and sills. Viscous, acidic lava may flow from fissures radiating from a central vent, from which pyroclastics are ejected.” That is the entire definition given in the book, and it says nothing about subaerial formation being a requirement.

Australian geologist Max Hunter has argued that Mt. Ararat may have arisen during the Flood event (see: "Was Mount Ararat a Submarine Stratovolcano?"). The Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program online entry for the Zealandia Bank depicts a submarine stratovolcano with no obvious differences in external form from one formed subaerially, which would support Hunter’s claim:

Compare the Zealandia Bank picture with the next one of Mt. Ararat.⁵ The overall morphological similarities are apparent:

Some have explained Zealandia Bank as a subaerial stratovolcano that was submerged when the Ice Age glaciers melted, resulting in a worldwide rise in sea level. But that claim conflicts with generally accepted information. According to the depth color coding, the base of Zealandia Bank begins about 1,200 meters (roughly 3,950 feet) below sea level. However, the greatest sea level drop during the last glacial maximum was only about 120–135 meters (roughly 400 feet). “During the last glacial maximum, when the last ice age was in full swing and continental ice masses variously reached their greatest extents, considered to be the millennia centered about 21,000 calendar years ago, sea level reached 120 meters (~400 feet) lower than recent eustatic mean sea level.”⁶ This means Zealandia Bank had its genesis some 3,550 feet below the ocean surface at its most shallow point, making it doubtful it could have begun formation subaerially.

I sent an e-mail to Dr. David Pyle, an Oxford University (UK) volcanologist, in March 2011 and asked him, “Is it possible for a stratovolcano to form completely subaqueously, yet display a morphology essentially the same as one formed subaerially?” He kindly replied back, “Yes—there are many submarine volcanoes, which to a first-order may have the same sorts of gross morphological features as subaerial volcanoes. Of course, the products of submarine volcanism are quite different from the products of sub-aerial volcanism, and they can be quite readily distinguished on the basis of the nature of their deposits.” This professional opinion was echoed in comments by another PhD geologist (personal communication, name withheld at his request):

The style of eruption is related to the nature of the magma basalt/andesite/rhyolite, its gas content and degree of interaction with water (esp. ground water). Many volcanic edifices/region show a mix of flow compositions related to different magma batches that have erupted from the edifice/region during the eruptive history of the area.

There are multiple examples of underwater stratovolcanoes—yes they have some differences but many similarities i.e. made up of pyroclastics (yes you can have submarine pyroclastic flows and rainout), lavas, debris flows and that classical shape.

Interestingly there are stratovolcanoes buried by 100's to 1000's of meters of sediment (also overlaying sediment)—these can be clearly seen on seismic (with their classical shape) and in some cases have been drilled (and cored) as part of oil exploration activity. The Kora complex is an example. These volcanoes have to be formed during the flood to have so much sediment deposited over and under them, so must have formed in a submarine environment.

From these observations, we can confidently assert that an undersea stratovolcano with a form like that of Mt. Ararat can certainly exist. But why does pointing this out matter? It helps explain the chemistry of the low-Y Lower Red Tuffs on Mt. Ararat and their “more hydrous” origin, different from that of the high-Y Later Basalts. Understanding Mt. Ararat began its life as an underwater magma-extruding fissure resulting from the breakup of the “fountains of the great deep” (Gn 7:11) fits with the geochemical analysis of the Lower Red Tuffs, giving reason to doubt Ararat was erected due to the action of colliding crustal plates years after the Flood. The initial eruption was probably underwater, and over the course of the year that the Flood lasted, the Ararat volcano continued to rise, from a combination of both crustal uplift and magma extrusion, until it was high enough for a cooler part of the mountain to snag the Ark.

One more factoid encouraging us to entertain the idea that Keskin’s hypothesis may not apply to Mt. Ararat is that, at least in the case of the Hawaiian volcanoes, the source of magma is thought to be the upper asthenosphere, not friction from plate collisions. This may offer another explanation for the difference in geochemistry between the “more hydrous” Lower Red Tuffs and the more recent andesites and Later Basalts: the Lower Red Tuffs had a hot-spot origin and tapped into magma directly from the asthenosphere before and/or during the Flood, while the more recent volcanics were extruded by a process more in accord with Keskin’s plate collision model. This idea requires further research, but is an attractive explanation for the known differences in geochemistry of the volcanic rocks of Mt. Ararat.

Attacking Reputations Rather than Data: Burdick

Now, let us turn to consider the Ararat research of Clifford Burdick, first published in the Creation Research Society Quarterly, 1967, pp. 9–10. “Throwing the baby out with the bathwater” is an aphorism applicable to this research, because once people learn he goofed by calling Ararat a shield volcano and, moreover, did not receive his doctoral degree from a properly accredited university, they tend to disregard all of Burdick’s field observations on Mt. Ararat as tainted. The comments of Habermehl (490) are typical: “all of Burdick’s claimed academic degrees were bogus.” For this reason they see no need to examine his actual field research on its own merits. This is a mistake, because those field observations were undergirded by a considerable background in geology, and were corroborated by other later researchers with PhDs. The validity of those observations is a matter independent from how he obtained his degrees and his probable mislabeling of Ararat as a shield volcano. Who among us has never made an error in print, and is entitled to cast the first stone?

Burdick’s field data is not inconsistent with what later researchers such as Lambert et al have reported, and offers evidence that fits with the testimonies that the Ark was seen on Mt. Ararat. One suspects this support for Mt. Ararat is an underlying reason he is attacked so vigorously. Despite this, Dr. Jerry Bergman’s investigations of Burdick in the Creation Research Society newsletter (Creation Matters 15-4 and 15-5, 2010) upheld his educational preparedness to perform reliable field geology:

In 1917 he earned a BA in chem­istry from Milton College, Milton, Wis­consin, with excellent grades: all A's and B's except three classes including freshman English. He had difficulty with writing his entire life and may have been dyslexic...Burdick then completed all graduate work required for an MS in geology at the University of Wisconsin. Although he earned a total of 34 semester hours in geol­ogy, botany, and genetics, all with good grades, he was denied his degree. Burdick claimed that his rejection of Darwinism was openly the reason...Burdick was later accepted into the geology Ph.D. program at the University of Arizona. He then completed all of the re­quirements (a total of 88 semester graduate hours in geology, paleontology, paleobotany, petrology, and stratigraphic geology), again all with above-average grades. He thus earned a total of 330 semester hours, most in science. Although Arizona never did grant him a degree, Milton College, in rec­ognition of the work he had accomplished toward a Ph.D., granted him an honorary doctorate of science in 1973.

From these two carefully researched articles by Bergman, it is clear that Burdick had considerable training in geology. Let us now take a look at some of the things he reported.

The Significance of Interbedded Sediments

Dr. Andrew Snelling, widely regarded as an authority in Flood geology, in a personal communication quoted by Habermehl (491), stated that “there is agreement among the leading creation geologists that it (Ararat) is a post-Flood mountain that sits on late Flood/post-Flood limestone.” (Who those “leading creation geologists” are is not stated.) In a personal communication to me (8/11/2008), David Vonderheide of the United States Geological Survey echoed Snelling’s understanding, but went further:

One thing is certain...Ararat itself sits atop sediments that are clearly Flood-deposited, and that in itself dates the volcano at the very earliest to the late Flood. The sediments are sandstones, shales and limestones, both folded and flat-lying. The volcano sits within a highly faulted area that appears to have been pulled apart, forming a graben or graben-like structure. There is indeed an older series of flows and ash layers, a large mound that the cone of Ararat is built up on. Those bottom flows may have formed in the closing days of the Flood, followed by eruptions of ash as well as lava in the post-Flood period.

To date, Dr. Snelling has not explained how he knows, without the shadow of a doubt, from actual field research, that the entire Ararat massif sits atop Flood-deposited limestone. Lacking cores into the heart of Mt. Ararat to see exactly what is in there, his statement, “Ararat sits on late Flood/post-Flood limestone,” should best be understood to mean that the most apparent, externally observable volcanic layers overlie regionally observable sedimentary layers. Those sedimentary layers are then extrapolated, presumably on the basis of Keskin’s plate collision model rather than actual cores into the root of the mountain, to have existed long before the volcanic fissure that gave birth to Mt. Ararat broke through the earth’s crust. Such an extrapolation, however, is no basis for making absolute claims with explicit scientific warrant; only field research and cores can provide that degree of certainty. This is especially important when making a claim that goes against the biblical “two or three” principle for dealing with testimony.

Consider this alternative scenario, which takes the testimonies into account. We have a pre-Flood or mid-Flood volcano that had its beginning over a hot spot, a thin area of the crust where the hot asthenosphere is near the surface, as is supposedly the case under Yellowstone Park and the Hawaiian Islands (and as Keskin’s Fig. 8 cross-section diagram indicates is the case under Mt. Ararat, too). The Flood would have dumped sediment on top of Mt. Ararat, such as in the case of the Kora complex (mentioned above). But this sediment dump would not have put out the internal fires. As the Flood progressed, low-Y lava would have continued trying to force its way to the surface. Furthermore, Keskin and Burdick have both stated there was “doming uplift” of the region, which would have uplifted the primordial Ararat and contribute to causing the loose, unconsolidated sediments from the early stages of the Flood on its slopes to slough off. This would increase the likelihood that the original Mt. Ararat would have poked through its sediment blanket and continued to episodically build itself higher, resulting in some alternating sediment and lava layers. Retreating water during the latter stages of the Flood would have tended to erode loose sediments from its slopes, keeping Ararat from being completely buried. The continued doming uplift of the region—which I suspect was related to isostatic rebound as the Flood waters went into “valleys” in the sea floor, deepening them in the process—would have allowed Mt. Ararat, built up from the Lower Red Tuffs that first broke through the basement granites, to provide a landing-place for Noah’s Ark on its slopes.

I submit that the above scenario makes perfect logical sense, finds a place for the Lambert and Keskin data (but not all of their secular interpretations of it), and cannot be disproved except by field research, including cores into the heart of Mt. Ararat. We do not have such cores, but we DO have some field research. Does that done by Burdick support or undermine this model?

First, recall a point mentioned earlier about Keskin’s data, that he reported that the Eastern Anatolia region shows “volcano-sedimentary successions.” Burdick likewise reported sedimentation in his 1966 report, originally in CRSQ and quoted on page 203 of the PDF at http://noahsarksearch.com/The_Explorers_Of_Ararat_1945-1974_Clifford_Burdick.pdf (Corbin, chap. 7) (I have bolded statements which seem most significant below):

There were several eras of volcanic events. Professor Nazmi Oruc of Atatürk University at Erzurum told me that his soil sample study from well drillings in the Aras valley showed at least three periods of volcanism, the layers of lava being interbedded with sediments.

West-southwest of Ararat and west of Diyadin occurs a thick bed of basalt overlaid with limestone, apparently conformable. A river flows through the limestone, and the latter has been folded into an anticline, which has fractured along the axis. This fracture has permitted ground water to penetrate down to the limestone-lava contact.

The lava was apparently not very cool when the limestone was laid down, for it heated the water to the boiling paint, and the steam pressure has forced steady geysers to shoot from the surface. This water flows down the sides of the geyserite or tufa and is caught in pools similar to the hot water pools in Yellowstone Park....

The orogeny of the hot springs bespeaks fast tectonic activity, cataclysmic action, and does not fit long-ages geology. Seemingly, basaltic extrusion was quickly followed by deposition of limestone before the hot lava cooled.

Note well those words, “interbedded with sediments.” It was a Turkish professor making this claim, not Burdick, so those who feel Burdick’s geology is suspect cannot use that distrust as a reason to disregard this information. Furthermore, the drillings revealing the interbedding were in the Aras valley, the river valley immediately below Mt. Ararat on its east side, so the observations made there would be expected to reflect Ararat activity. As creationists who attribute virtually all sedimentary rocks to the Flood, we expect sediment deposition to have taken place continuously from the time the Flood began until its waters began to subside, and even for some time thereafter as the decreased turbulence of the water allowed minerals to precipitate out of solution. If lavas were erupted episodically from Mt. Ararat while sedimentation was ongoing, we would get interbedding results like those reported by the Turkish geologist Oruc. By the principle of superposition, layers of rock beneath another layer are regarded, in the absence of compelling evidence to the contrary (i.e., thrust faults), as having been laid down at an earlier time. This means any volcanic rocks beneath sedimentary rocks had to have been laid down earlier than the sediments.

We should also appreciate some things about limestone, which Burdick and others (see below) have reported around Mt. Ararat. It is a typical sedimentary rock, quite recognizable even by amateur rockhounds, and not likely to be misidentified. It is known to form either by direct precipitation out of water, presumably because something in the localized water chemistry instigated a supersaturated state of calcium carbonate, or else from massive deposits of tiny shellfish. Therefore, it is never laid down subaerially, but always subaqueously (under water). This means that if the plentiful limestone layers around Mt. Ararat were laid down during the Flood, any volcanics found beneath them were likewise laid down during the Flood, or possibly even before it.

These considerations about limestone and interbedding in the area around Mt. Ararat undercut the force of a criticism raised by Bill Crouse. On page 5 of his paper, "Geological and Historical Reasons Why Noah’s Ark Did Not Land on Mt. Ararat in Turkey," he makes the following statement: “Geologists are in general agreement that Mt. Ararat, a complex volcano, arose fairly recently in earth’s history. There is a total lack of evidence that the upper part of the volcanic cone was ever under water.” An endnote reference is inserted here: “The scientist and early Ark searcher, Clifford Burdick, claimed to have found pillow lava on the mountain as well as sedimentation. Neither claim could be substantiated. The sedimentation he found was instead laid down by volcanic action and not by water” (emphasis added).

It is troubling that Crouse points out that the pillow lava and sedimentation claims of Burdick are not substantiated, and then states volcanic action was responsible for the sedimentation seen—yet leaves THIS claim unsubstantiated, without even a footnote. This demand for substantiation plays both ways. Since Keskin wrote of “volcano-sedimentary successions,” I think this is a second witness backing up Burdick’s research, giving it more credibility. Geologist Vonderheide, cited above, also stated “the sediments are sandstones, shales and limestones.” These are categorically NOT laid down by volcanic action. In this quote we have a third witness to the accuracy of Burdick’s field observations concerning sediments.

Another quotation from the Burdick report (Corbin 205):

The central highlands of Turkey consist in large part of a whitish limestone interspersed with volcanic rocks. The eastern part of the country is mainly volcanic, interspersed with limestone. Many of the faults cutting through the mountain of Ararat have been filled with a red intrusive rock that resembles a sandstone, but strangely enough is of essentially the same composition as the black and gray basalt and andesite, the difference being that the black magnetite has been oxidized to a red geothite. Following is a typical mineralogical composition:

Sample No. 1

• augite 3% rimmed with geothite
• hypersthene 5% rimed with geothite
• andesine (55) 52%
• glass 40% partly devitrified
• magnetite trace

The augite is a triclinic pyroxene, while hypersthene is orthorhombic in crystal structure. These pyroxenes are more typical of basalt than andesite, but the plagioclase is andesine, from which the rock andesite gets its name. The high percentage of glass indicates that the rock was quickly “frozen” or cooled, so that solidification took place quickly, too fast for crystals to form.

The “red intrusive rock that resembles a sandstone” Burdick reported above is probably the low-Y Lower Red Tuffs described by Lambert et al. Vonderheide (personal communication, 3/11) upheld this report in large part, while faulting Burdick's characterization of the red rock as being intrusive:

Tuff is not an intrusive rock, but results from pyroclastic flows, which classify it as volcanic. Burdick mentioned that it resembles a sandstone, which lends credence to the idea that it was laid down; he also said that there is glass within it, again a good indicator of the rock being a tuff. And, the composition of the rock shows it is related to the lavas, another good indicator of its volcanic, not plutonic origin. Burdick thought that the red rock looked as if it was “frozen,” which sounds an awful lot like a welded tuff (a.k.a. ignimbrite) which is often referred to sometimes in textbooks as “instant rock.”

Basalt interbedded/interlayered with the limestone sounds like, as you said, a Flood occurrence. These basalts may not have anything to do with the formation of Ararat, which came later. If they are intrusive bodies, there would be contact-metamorphism evident in the limestone immediately adjacent to the intrusion. The altered limestone is called skarn and has a very distinctive suite of minerals. It sounds like Burdick found no evidence of skarn, and that his interpretation that the limestones were deposited on top of the basalt is likely correct.

We should thus cut Burdick some slack as a field geologist, and accept his report as essentially accurate in the absence of clear indications to the contrary. His report deals in pure field geology and chemical analysis of samples; no expertise in volcanology was required to make them. It is therefore illegitimate to dismiss the entire report on the basis of Burdick's apparently erroneous labeling of Mt. Ararat as a shield volcano. We must consider Burdick's field data on its own merits. Since the 1974 Lambert et al report of the Lower Red Tuffs validates Burdick’s report about the presence of “red intrusive rocks that resemble a sandstone,” the other geological conclusions made by Burdick should be provisionally accepted as accurate as well. This includes his reports that Flood-deposited sedimentary rocks were found interbedded with volcanic layers, and that limestone that appeared to have been deposited over hot volcanic rocks was found in the area.

Let Burdick be held innocent until proven guilty. After all, the “two or three” principle is on his side. And let it not be said that the science of geology, or any science, can justify ignoring otherwise acceptable testimonies that appear to conflict with received scientific wisdom. Rather, we should regard testimonial data that conflicts with our science as a goad to further study, searching out ways to reconcile our science with the testimonial data.

Part Four will conclude this paper with a look at a new historical reason for accepting the validity of the testimonies which overwhelmingly place the Ark's landing-place on Mt. Ararat.

 

This article remains the sole property of the Associates for Biblical Research and Richard Lanser. Any reproduction, republication or other use without express permission from Associates for Biblical Research is strictly prohibited.

 

Endnotes

¹ "Der Vulkan Ararat und die Berge seiner Sedimentumrandung," İstanbul Üniversitesi Fen Fakultesi Mecmuası, Seri B: Tabii İlimler, 23, 3–4, 1959, pp. 177–327.

² https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ararat-mount-pers.

³ https://www.harpanddragon.com/ICC6-41.pdf.

⁴ https://www.mantleplumes.org/Anatolia.html, fig. 8.

⁵ From https://www.pbase.com/bmcmorrow/image/34205613.

⁶ Found at https://www.answers.com/natural-sciences/What_happens_to_oceans_levels_during_an_ice_age, and further substantiated by https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/archive/2007_gornitz_09/: "Global sea level has fluctuated widely in the recent geologic past. It stood 4-6 meters above the present during the last interglacial period, 125,000 years ago, but was 120 m lower at the peak of the last ice age, around 20,000 years ago."

 

Bibliography

Bates, Robert L., and Julia A. Jackson, eds. 1984. Dictionary of Geological Terms. 3rd ed. Prepared under the direction of the American Geological Institute. New York: Anchor Books.

Bergman, Jerry. 2010. "Clifford Burdick: Unjustly Expelled Twice." Pts. 1 and 2. Creation Matters (Creation Research Society) 15, no. 4 (July/August): 1, 3–5; no. 5 (September/October): 1–5.

Blumenthal, M.M. 1959. "Der Vulkan Ararat und die Berge seiner Sedimentumrandung." İstanbul Üniversitesi Fen Fakultesi Mecmuası, Seri B: Tabii İlimler, 23, 3–4, pp. 177–327.

Burdick, Clifford L. 1967. "Ararat—The Mother of Mountains." Creation Research Society Quarterly 4, no. 1 (June): 5–12.

Corbin, B. J. 1999. The Explorers of Ararat and the Search for Noah’s Ark. 2nd ed. Long Beach, CA: Great Commission Illustrated Books.

Crouse, Bill. N.d. "Geological and Historical Reasons Why Noah's Ark Did Not Land on Mt. Ararat in Turkey." https://noahsarksearch.com/NoahsArkPaper.pdf.

Encyclopaedia Iranica. "Ararat." Last updated August 10, 2011. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ararat-mount-pers.

Gornitz, Vivien. 2007. "Sea Level Rise, After the Ice Melted and Today." National Aeronautics and Space Administration; Goddard Institute for Space Studies. January 2007. https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/archive/2007_gornitz_09/.

Habermehl, Anne. 2008. "A Review of the Search for Noah's Ark." Pp. 485–502 in Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Creationism, Held August 3–7, 2008, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, ed. Andrew A. Snelling. Pittsburgh: Creation Science Fellowship; Dallas: Institute for Creation Research.

Hunter, Max. 2003. "Was Mount Ararat a Submarine Stratovolcano?" Letter to the editor, TJ (now Journal of Creation) 17, no. 1 (April): 62–63. https://dl0.creation.com/articles/p026/c02614/j17_1_62-63.pdf.

Keskin, Mehmet. 2005. "Domal Uplift and Volcanism in a Collision Zone without a Mantle Plume: Evidence from Eastern Anatolia." April 2005. https://www.mantleplumes.org/Anatolia.html.

Lambert, Richard St. John, James G. Holland, and Peter F. Owen. 1974. "Chemical Petrology of a Suite of Calc-Alkaline Lavas from Mount Ararat, Turkey." Journal of Geology 82, no. 4 (July): 419–38.

Resolving a Few Other Ararat Testimony Issues

There are a number of issues that frequently are raised as reasons for disregarding the body of testimony asserting Noah’s Ark has not only survived on Mt. Ararat, but has been seen by numerous eyewitnesses. We now turn to a consideration of several of these issues.

The Ark Has Never Been Found, Despite Many Searches

This matter is raised by Ararat skeptics as a form of the “phantom Ark” problem, under the assumption that what was reportedly seen from the air was always a misleading rock formation seen at a distance, and for this reason close-up ground searches were unsuccessful. But it must be kept in mind that the only time of year air sightings are claimed (when we know a time was specified) is during the summer, when glacial melting is at a maximum. During most of the year, the Ark would have been hidden in snow and ice, making both air and ground sightings impossible (except in the case of a really unusual drought/heat wave, as appears to have been the case in Hagopian’s time). Planes do not normally get close to the mountain during summer, due to updrafts that are strongest where the Ahora Gorge on the northeast side funnels hot air rising from the plains below (Corbin 221). Of this, US Air Force serviceman Vince Will remarked in his testimony: “the updraft pushed the plane up so high...” (Corbin 407). This helps explain why detailed air sightings are not common—the planes keep a safe distance back from the mountain. Those air-based testimonies we have, such as those of George Greene (Corbin 417–420), the “U-2 pilot” (Corbin 411) and Will, happened because they purposely made an unusually close approach to the mountain. This implies most claimed aircraft sightings of the Ark from aircraft were due to the dumb luck of a close approach combined with good melting, or to a conscious attempt to locate it.

Conversely, ground search failures may be attributed not only to their not being undertaken at a time of maximum meltback, but also to the difficulty in reaching the proper location; as anyone who has undertaken it will attest, climbing Mt. Ararat is not for the fainthearted. An additional factor is that the testimonies persuasively indicate that the Ark lies in deep shadow during the first half of day. George Greene claimed he saw the Ark “in the slanting rays of the western sun” (Richard Bright, Quest for Discovery, p. 89), and similarly Vince Will said his sighting was around 4 pm in the afternoon (Corbin 407). The hot air rising off the plains in the afternoon also frequently results in violent thunderstorms and blizzard conditions on top, persuading ground-based searchers that it is the better part of wisdom to descend from the high elevations by early afternoon. By this early pull-back to lower elevations, ground-based searchers miss being able to see clearly into higher areas best illuminated by the western sun.

As for the allegation that ground searches have “never” found the Ark, this is untrue. We already have testimonies that pass the “two or three” test that were ground-based and claimed to have found the Ark, including those of Hagopian, the 1917 Russian expedition, and Ed Davis. Those who say that ground searches have “never” found the Ark really mean, they don’t accept that kind of evidence! By their unwillingness to admit this data into consideration, these skeptics have set the bar of proof against testimony higher than the courts do—and in defiance of the “two or three” principle given in the Bible.

The Ark was “Seen” in Different Locations

This phenomenon is said to prove that the eyewitnesses can’t get their stories straight and are just making them up or, more charitably, are just seeing “phantom Arks.” From my study of this matter, I have concluded this is a case like that described in the well-known poem, “The Blind Men and the Elephant” by American poet John Godfrey Saxe (1816–1887):

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!”

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, “Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 'tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!”

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a snake!”

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
“What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” quoth he;
" 'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!”

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: “E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!”

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a rope!”

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

Moral:

So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

We smile...but there is a core of truth in this doggerel. Applying it to the case at hand, the answer to whether the Ark is on a ledge or at the base of a rock wall, the two most common options, is probably—both! Several testimonies claim the one, and several claim the other. The differences are not as clear as they could be in the Eyewitnesses chart, but are apparent in the details given in Corbin’s and Bright’s books. Both types of details pass the “two or three” test, because each is supported by multiple testimonies. They can be reconciled by appreciating the fact that several testimonies report the Ark now exists in a broken state, in several discrete sections. The Eyewitnesses chart indicates this breakup did not take place until after 1917, when the White Russian expedition related by Col. Alexander Koor (Corbin 375–383) could still report an essentially intact Ark. This was the expedition apparently featured in the silent newsreel that Ray Lubeck claimed to have seen in 1942—see Corbin 391–392. Using the New American Standard Bible estimate of a cubit at 18 inches, this indicates the intact Ark, at 300 cubits long (Gn. 6:18), would have been about 450 feet in length. A 1916 report from Turkish soldiers (Corbin 374) alleged that the Ark was "150 paces long"; if we take an average man's pace to span about 30 inches (as the Army does), this is just about an exact match with the Bible. This also essentially matches what Koor told Violet M. Cummings (Noah's Ark: Fact or Fable?, 1973, pp. 57–58, quoted in Corbin 379–380), that the Ark was supposedly 500 feet long. So once again, we have enough independent witnesses of an intact Ark before 1917 to meet the "two or three" rule. Hagopian's testimony of seeing an unbroken Ark in the early 1900s joins smoothly with their voices.

The testimony of Ed Davis—covered in Corbin 105–110 and 393–406, but most fully reported in the book by Don Shockey, Agri-Dagh: The Painful Mountain—may be the clearest statement regarding the broken state of the Ark in his day and thereafter. He claimed that the native Kurds who took him there, out of appreciation for a favor he performed for their village, told him that the Ark had broken into at least two large pieces (see also Corbin 181). Davis was interviewed by Elfred Lee in 1986, and Lee, an accomplished artist, drew what Davis described—the Ark in two broken sections in a small cove or canyon, one piece against a rock wall. The photo below was taken by Dr. John Morris of Ed Davis holding Lee’s completed sketch in 1986: (For more pictures, see the John Morris photo album at http://noahsarksearch.com/MorrisJohn/MorrisJohn.htm.)

Tying this in with the other testimonies which report different topographical details of the Ark’s location, we may conclude that at various times one part was seen, at other times the other, allowing both forms of the story to stand up to the “two or three” test. The testimony of Roy Tibbetts described the WW II sighting by his friend “Aussie” Taylor as being at the foot of a rocky ridge (Corbin 389–390). This matches the claim by the U-2 pilot, that his object was seen up against a rock wall (Corbin 411). In contrast, Vince Will said the Ark was overhanging a ledge and is covered with ice and snow most of the time. US Navy Lieutenant Al Shappell, in 1974, reported both: “There is another ledge with an icepack 30 to 50 feet below the main structure with a littering of debris underneath the main structure. The end of the upper structure had broken off and I could see the broken off piece in the snow pack at the bottom of the ledge” (Corbin 451). These stories indicate at least two separate parts of the Ark are being discussed, and we should not jump to the conclusion that differences in the stories means someone is lying. They just reflect different observational conditions.

It should be mentioned that Ararat skeptics have long taken issue with whether Davis was actually on Mt. Ararat, alleging he may have been on another mountain because his testimony includes ambiguities. Among the reasons they give is a picture given on page 55 in Shockey’s book. It is reproduced here:

Of this photograph, Corbin (403) observes:

Another concern about Davis is that the photo given by Abas-Abas to Davis shown in The Painful Mountain that illustrated the difficulty of climbing Mount Ararat in wintertime does not appear to be a picture of Mount Ararat. The photo caption in the book does not make it clear that Abas-Abas or Davis believed the photo was actually of Ararat but it definitely does not look like Ararat. Rather, it appears to be a valley in a mountain range.

I decided to make a special study of this photograph to see if it could be reconciled with Mt. Ararat, even though my initial assessment was to agree with the above statement. I spent several hours going through my library of satellite photos, and finally was pleasantly surprised to find one which tied every single detail of this photo explicitly to Mt. Ararat. One can match up the features between that satellite photo and the Abas photograph as below, and figure out from it pretty closely where the photo was taken from:

This matching up of features—originally done at a much higher magnification of the satellite photo than space permits here—makes me quite confident that the Abas photo is indeed of Mt. Ararat, and was given to Davis because it had special meaning to him: it was taken at a location along the “back door” route (Corbin 397, Shockey 6) by which Abas led Davis to an overlook from which he could see the Ark. This, as well as the notation in Davis’ Bible that it was Ararat he climbed (photo of the handwritten note on Shockey 51), provides a powerful reason to trust Davis’ testimony and apply it to Mt. Ararat.

The Ark Could Not Have Survived on Mt. Ararat

This complaint has its source largely in people’s preconceptions of the destructive power of volcanoes and glaciers, and the natural tendency to extrapolate those preconceptions back to the unknown initial conditions the Ark was in. It is basically a problem of getting one’s head around the idea that the Ark could be buried in a glacier on a known volcanic mountain, and yet, seemingly at odds with these facts, survive for thousands of years. For many, this apparent yet unsubstantiated improbability mandates that the testimonies to the contrary be rejected, for one reason or another. Yet, these problems also can be resolved by a little creative thinking.

I propose the following as a reasonable scenario. To set the stage, it is generally accepted by Creationists that the environment immediately following the Flood would have been warm and humid. Plant life would have flourished. The conditions would have been optimal for the spread of man and animals throughout the world. The Ice Age was yet future, so the Ark would not have been entombed in snow and ice for some time after Noah and the animals left it. So, we need not concern ourselves with destruction by ice in the immediate years after the Flood, and can begin this discussion with a focus on the volcano itself.

The Volcano Problem

If the Ark did land on Mt. Ararat, volcanism would have been a factor to reckon with almost from the time the Ark was vacated. We know that lava flows are remarkably destructive, yet at the same time, ash deposits can preserve. Most of us know about how buildings, objects, and the outlines of decomposed bodies were preserved in the copious ashfalls from Mt. Vesuvius at Pompeii (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompeii to refresh your memory). The bodies buried in the ash did not simply burn up on contact, or else they would not have left behind lifelike casts. We thus have a precedent for believing that if the Ark was covered in a short time by a bed of ash after the Flood ended, it could have been largely preserved, just like the buildings of Pompeii. Such layers of mineral-rich volcanic ejecta would, as the years passed and rainfall and/or overlying melting snow trickled down through it, would have saturated the wood of the Ark in these minerals. This would have led to partial permineralization and replacement of the cellulose with minerals, turning it into petrified wood. The National Computational Science Educational Consortium website states this plainly: “Wood must first be covered with such agents as volcanic ash, volcanic lava flow, volcanic mud-flows, sediments in lakes and swamps or material washed in by violent floods—by any means which would exclude oxygen and thus prevent decay” (emphasis added).

That such a process took place is strongly implied by an apparently useless “throw-in” detail George Hagopian included in his testimony. Its uselessness as a factor in bolstering his testimony’s believability is one of the strongest reasons to think it is true—he would have had no reason to include it if he was just trying to tell a persuasive story, but its inclusion makes sense if he was relating something that actually happened to him. What is this detail? From Lee’s recorded interview with Hagopian (Corbin 371): “I remember, my uncle took his gun and shot into the side of the ark, but the bullet wouldn’t penetrate.” Noorbergen (167) goes further in his direct quote from Hagopian: “My uncle took his gun and shot into the side of the ark but the bullet wouldn’t penetrate. It just dropped when it hit the side. The whole ark was petrified, turned to rock.” Hagopian reiterated his opinion later in Noorbergen’s interview (170): “Listen, son, I don’t believe that wood [recovered by Fernand Navarra in 1955 and the SEARCH expedition of 1969] is part of Noah’s ark. The ark I saw was made of wood, petrified wood [Hagopian’s emphasis], not wood that can be cut.” Well, we don’t know whether Hagopian’s revered object was actually petrified or merely built from a very hard, dense wood, but if petrification DID take place, burial in a mineral-rich bed of volcanic ash is a scientifically viable means by which it could have occurred.

In passing, I am well aware that the Bible says the Ark was covered with pitch inside and out (Gn 6:14), and the idea that if this covering was undisturbed over the ages, perhaps would have prevented petrification. If fact, for several years I thought this way myself. But being subjected to repeated cycles of freezing and thawing for thousands of years would have taken a toll on the integrity of the sealant. Further, the article “Life expectancy of home components,” using data adapted from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Residential Rehabilitation Inspection Guide (2000), sets the expected lifespan of a bituminous coating for foundation waterproofing at only 10 years. When you combine that lifespan limitation—for a coating that remains underground, protected from the sun’s rays—with the Ark’s high location that would have exposed a pitch coating to the degrading effects of a higher intensity of UV rays, as well as powerful storms and strong winds, we have no reason for confidence the Ark’s pitch coating would have prevented water infiltration for centuries.

The above scenario, of course, depends on the Ark not having been destroyed by lava flows on volcanic Ararat. Is that conceivable? I think we can answer this affirmatively. For one thing, most volcanic eruptions begin not with magma flows but with ash ejection, which would have protected a buried Ark from lava damage. The succeeding ages of freeze/thaw cycles and storms would have eroded away the lava and ash cover. For another, we have no clear evidence the Ark's reputedly high location before 1917 could even have been touched by lava flows. Studies of the large, level Western Plateau area using the Japanese PALSAR radar satellite by Dr. Edmond Holroyd (personal communication), as well as limited GPR studies by the Garbe team in 1988 (Corbin 174), indicate the main caldera of Ararat probably lies beneath it. The Japanese PALSAR (Phased Array L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite can penetrate to some degree beneath snow and ice, and indicates that the Western Plateau is the location of a deep basin that was likely the main caldera of Mt. Ararat.

This is well away from the north side area above the Ahora Gorge where many Ark sightings are claimed (cf. the Eyewitnesses chart in Part One). In addition, the Western Plateau is at an elevation of about 15,200 feet (Corbin 189), about 1,700 feet lower than the 16,945 foot summit. If this caldera was the main point from which Ararat extruded lava, as seems likely, then all of its flow would have been below the Ark, placing it out of the path of danger. Since there is no known central vent at the highest point, the elevations above the caldera appear to have been upwardly deformed by internal pressure rather than built up by layers of lava. There is a possible but unproven small caldera under the Eastern Plateau, perhaps 700 feet in diameter, on the far eastern side at about 16,500 feet (Corbin 189). If this was the highest point on Ararat from which lava issued, we have adequate reason to believe that if the Ark was sited high on the northeast side of the mountain, it would have always remained outside the areas affected by lava flow. Additionally, there are many parasite cones on the lower flanks of Ararat that would have released internal pressure of the magma before it could ever rise to the highest levels. The cone of nearby Little Ararat would likewise have provided an escape outlet for pressure from a shared reservoir of underground lava, as well as a source of volcanic ash that could have been deposited on top of the Ark.

The Glacier Problem

Now, let us turn to consider the glacier problem. It is usually assumed that if the Ark was ever on Mt. Ararat, it would eventually have been buried in a glacier, at least by the time of the Ice Age. This would presumably have eventually crushed the Ark under the weight of the ice, or pulverized it from being caught in a glacier’s inexorable grinding motion.

But at the risk of sounding like a broken record, it must be pointed out, once again, that we do NOT know assuredly what the specific conditions were on top of Mt. Ararat during the Ice Age, or at any time but our own. We can be reasonably sure, based on the fact there is a permanent snow line right now at about 14,000 feet, that there was a more extensive snow blanket during the Ice Age. What we do NOT know for a fact is how deeply the Ark might have been buried in it, or whether the Ark had been built so strongly that it not only resisted the onslaught of the Flood, but could also stand the abuse of entombment under several hundred feet (?) of ice near the top of Ararat.

Actually, we do not even know if the idea of several hundred feet of snow and ice on top of the Ark matches up with reality. Heat from the smoldering volcano may well have continually melted it off before it could reach crushing pressures. (To this day there is a small spot at the top of Mt. Ararat, in the Eastern Plateau area, that generally is either clear of snow or very shallowly covered all year long, indicating subterranean heat is still at work; it can be seen on Google Earth at 39 42 11.10 N, 44 18 13.70 E.) The steep slopes near the top also would reasonably result in periodic avalanches, so the upper slopes would not have retained as much continuous snow cover as less steep areas at a lower elevation. The onset of the Medieval Warm Period, which spanned the ninth to thirteenth centuries and may have coincided with the time the volcano’s active period began to wind down, would also have dramatically melted off the snow and ice. In short, there exists a whole bunch of “what if” possibilities that allow for the Ark to have been near the top of Mt. Ararat during the Ice Age and not be destroyed by the pressure of crushing ice. Besides, a World War II P-38 fighter plane was discovered in Greenland under 250 feet of ice (see "The Lost Squadron"), yet was sufficiently intact that they were able to restore it! So it is quite plausible for the heavy-duty Ark to have survived under dozens of feet of ice for a very long time without being crushed.

What about the issue of pulverizing glacier motion, a distinct matter from crushing ice pressure? Haji Yearam, for one, said the Ark rested “in” a glacier (Corbin 359), but since his testimony places his sighting (about 1856) before the apparent breakup of the Ark, he may have been referring only to a mostly stationary, fairly level snow field. Others, such as Ed Davis, indicated broken sections of the Ark were seen protruding out of ice, but this does not tell us if it was the ice of a moving glacier or of a sheltered hollow. A significant portion of the testimonies summarized in the Eyewitnesses chart—certainly enough to pass the “two or three” test—indicate the Ark was seen in a small valley or depression, detailed further in some reports as having the shape of a horseshoe. Since such a valley was reported, it was probably not continuously filled with a moving glacier, or else it would not have been visible. For these reasons we have cause to doubt that the “moving glacier would crush the Ark” complaint has any objective basis, as far as the Ark’s specific location is concerned. It may have general validity, but generalizations often do not jive with specific realities.

The later reports, at least from the time of Ed Davis onwards, indicate a consensus that the Ark was no longer intact at that time but broken up into multiple sections. These also need to be reconciled with the “moving glacier” problem. My suggestion is that heaving of the ice around the Ark’s original, relatively protected high location caused it to gradually get pushed forwards via frost heave to the edge of its protecting basin over the ages. Up to the time of the Russian expedition it stayed intact, but eventually moved into an unstable position where part of it wound up hanging over empty space during the time of maximum melting, and broke off from the main section. This is what Davis said the Kurdish natives he befriended told him; “Abas-Abas told me that a piece of the back section had broken off, but when he was a youngster [i.e., around the time of Hagopian’s boyhood] it was more or less a complete boat, in one piece” (Shockey 5).

Now, picture this. The Ark is almost universally described as having a flat-bottomed, barge-like shape (see the chart). The top of Ararat is covered with permanent snow and ice, in some areas fairly steep. The ice is very slippery; explorer John McIntosh came dangerously close to sliding off the mountain in an accident in 2005 (pictures are at http://noahsarksearch.com/McIntoshJohn/McIntoshJohn2005.html), when a sitting glissade attempt (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glissade_(climbing)) was brought to an abrupt halt by a rock. Similarly, if a piece of the Ark broke off the main structure, the most likely thing that would happen is not that it would stay up there on the surface where it dropped, to get buried in subsequent snows and eventually get ground to bits in the glacier. Rather, it would make like McIntosh, or rather a toboggan—it would start sliding down the smooth, ice-covered surface of the mountain, not to stop until it collided with something or got lodged in a crevasse. The testimonial evidence indicates the former happened; it kept going downhill on the surface of the glacier, traveling a fair distance rather rapidly, driven by gravity and its own considerable inertia rather than glacial motion. It finally came to rest by encountering stretches of soft snow at lower levels that it sank into, or else bare, exposed rock, both of which would have put the brakes on its downhill plunge. It ended up stopping on a ledge within a small canyon, with another section later breaking off and falling to a lower level. This presents us with the picture described by Davis and others.

To conclude this discussion, the facts that Mt. Ararat is a volcano and that it is covered with glaciers are not insurmountable difficulties. One must begin, however, with a commitment to the “two or three” principle in order to see this. Discarding this biblical principle in favor of a strict scientism in Ark research tends to stifle creativity in searching for answers.

A Scavenger Hunt?

Finally, what about the claim of scavenging? This goes back to Josephus, who reported (Antiquities 1.3.6 [Whiston 38–39]):

Now all the writers of barbarian histories make mention of this flood and of this ark; among whom is Berosus the Chaldean; for when he is describing the circumstances of the flood, he goes on thus:—“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.”

Of course, scavenging little pieces of bitumen hardly amounts to anything for a memento-seeker. Bitumen is found naturally in the Middle East. Why not instead grab your own piece of Ark wood, something substantial to pass on to your family? Some say this probably happened, that the Ark was probably dismantled and the wood used for other purposes, and for that reason has not been found. It is obvious that those making this claim have chosen to utterly disregard all of the testimonies that the Ark has indeed survived; they have chosen their favored story and are sticking to it, multiplied testimonial evidence to the contrary be hanged. Some “dismantlers” propose that Noah and his family would have pulled his big boat apart to reuse the wood. Old Earth Creationist Greg Neyman is one, stating (https://www.oldearth.org/ark1.htm):

The ark will probably never be found, and here’s why. It probably no longer exists! When Noah got off the ark, he and his family, and their descendants, probably realized that the ark was an excellent source of wood for rebuilding their society. God said He would never again flood the earth, so Noah knew he would never need the ark again. Therefore, the ark was most likely dismantled for building materials within the first hundred years after the flood.

Anyone who has witnessed a flood knows that in its aftermath there is plenty of wood debris lying around from fallen trees, trees that floated and were left on the surface of the ground when the water retreated. With so much wood free for the taking on the plains below Ararat in the aftermath of the Flood, can we reasonably expect the small band of survivors to have undertaken the laborious efforts of dismantling the carefully placed and sturdily fastened heavy wood beams at the high elevations of the volcanic peak and hauling them down, beams that probably needed heavy-duty scaffolding to install? Common sense says “no.” After all, the necessary freshwater supplies would all have been down on the plains, not on the barren heights, so the people would have quickly left the mountain and followed the water, essential for life. Most of the animals would have gone down to the plains as well—the herbivores to find pasture, the carnivores to stay near the game. The people would also have wanted to stay near the animals for their milk, meat and skins.

Though caves probably existed and would have been an option for shelter, if the climate was as mild right after the Flood as most models indicate, it is more likely a semi-permanent village arrangement of relatively fragile tent-like structures was the rule initially. The Ark survivors had been told to fill the Earth, something which could not be done by staying close to the Ark, so they would have been likely to frequently pull up camp and see what was over the next hill. Besides, volcanoes are dangerous things. Does it make sense that, as the years passed and trees again multiplied over the Earth, Noah and his descendants would have preferred the difficult, hazardous trek up the peak with pack animals and tools to dismantle the huge beams for projects in the lowlands, rather than cut down and work with what was close by? I think that suggesting this is a triumph of commitment to a model over common sense.

In passing, it is worth pointing out that the Hagopian testimony indicates that, rather than scavenging efforts, conservation efforts were actually done by Christians of earlier years. Summarizing this detail, Lee stated (Corbin 67), “There was a green moss growing on it, and at the far end was a set of stairs coming down to within about ten feet of the ground. It looked like the stairs had been attached by someone else. He [Hagopian] said Noah didn’t put them there and they were not a part of the original construction. Incidentally, Rene Noorbergen found a report in the Jerusalem library that told of early Christians going on pilgrimages up there and doing repairs on the Ark.”

A Summary About Testimony

I cannot emphasize too strongly that in laying out possible scenarios above, I am NOT in any way claiming they definitely took place. I cannot. I was not there. I do not have complete knowledge of the initial conditions existing when the Ark landed (nor do those who embrace a form of scientism to arrogantly claim that science alone can settle the issue of the survival of Noah’s Ark). Yet, because I embrace the biblical “two or three” principle, I feel a responsibility to not throw out testimony as an input, but rather seek out ways to accommodate it. That is what I have tried to do here: not prove that things took place in a certain way, but to show that it is possible, even plausible, that they happened. And in suggesting possibilities, I am also trying to accommodate known science that applies to the details, such as the lifespan of bituminous waterproofing material.

My hope is that from this discussion, the open-minded reader will see that apparent discrepancies between different testimonies, and/or perceived difficulties in envisioning a scientific explanation for how something could happen as reported, are not adequate reasons to discard testimony as a tool to find out the truth of the Ark’s whereabouts. Different people saw different things at different times, and emphasized different details in their stories. Comprehensive present knowledge cannot be assumed. Once the “two or three” principle is firmly embraced and supplemented with hard work, prayer and some creative thinking, the barriers to making sense of the Noah’s Ark mystery gradually fall away.

The next section, Part Three—“Geological Studies: A Definitive Criterion of Truth?”—will look at a few geological reasons given to doubt the existence of Noah’s Ark on Mt. Ararat. I trust it will again demonstrate that, by holding firmly to the scriptural “two or three” principle with the testimonies and rejecting scientism, satisfying answers present themselves for reconciling the testimonies with science, properly used.

 

This article remains the sole property of the Associates for Biblical Research and Richard Lanser. Any reproduction, republication or other use without express permission from Associates for Biblical Research is strictly prohibited.

 

Bibliography

Bright, Richard Carl. 2001. Quest for Discovery: The Remarkable Search for Noah's Ark. Green Forest, AR: New Leaf Press.

Corbin, B. J. 1999. The Explorers of Ararat and the Search for Noah’s Ark. 2nd ed. Long Beach, CA: Great Commission Illustrated Books.

Cummings, Violet M. 1972. Noah's Ark: Fact or Fable? San Diego: Creation-Science Research Center.

———. 1973. Noah's Ark: Fable or Fact? San Diego: Creation-Science Research Center.

EducationDynamics. "How to Use Pace Count to Measure Ground Distance." Army Study Guide. Accessed November 23, 2024. https://www.armystudyguide.com/content/army_board_study_guide_topics/land_navigation_map_reading/how-to-use-pace-count-to-.shtml.

Neyman, Greg. "Noah’s Ark Would Not Prove Young Earth Creation Science." Old Earth Ministries. First published October 17, 2003. https://www.oldearth.org/ark1.htm.

Noorbergen, Rene. 1955. The Ark File. Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Association.

Shockey, Don. 1986. Agri-Dagh (Mount Ararat): The Painful Mountain. Fresno, CA: Pioneer Publishing Company.

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Residential Rehabilitation Inspection Guide. Prepared by the National Institute of Building Sciences, Washington, D.C. February 2000. https://www.huduser.gov/publications/pdf/rehabinspect.pdf.

Whiston, William, trans. 1998. Josephus: The Complete Works. Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

Wieland, Carl. 2016. "The Lost Squadron: Deeply Buried Missing Planes Challenge ‘Slow and Gradual’ Preconceptions." Creation Ministries International. Last updated May 25, 2016. https://creation.com/the-lost-squadron.

Introduction

The lack of success in finding Noah's Ark on Turkey's Mt. Ararat has prompted various researchers to search for the Ark elsewhere. Since the biblical "mountains of Ararat" cannot be exegetically equated with the single mountain known today as Mt. Ararat (Agri Dagh, "the painful mountain," in Turkish), we cannot use Scripture to prove Mt. Ararat was where the Ark landed, nor that it was even in existence as the Flood waters were abating. This ambiguity has opened the door for suggestions that other peaks could have been the site of the Ark's landing-place.

For example, Robert Cornuke has looked at several different locations, most recently at Takht-e Suleiman (see Cornuke’s website and my response, "Noah's Ark in Iran?"). Other sites mentioned as possibilities at various times, by different researchers, include Mt. Cudi in southeastern Turkey, Mt. Damavand and Mt. Sabalon in Iran, and the mudflow at Durupinar near Mt. Ararat.

Given that there exists a known body of testimony alleging that Noah’s Ark has been seen on Mt. Ararat, to seriously consider any non-Ararat locations as the landing-place of Noah’s Ark requires one to either disregard or argue around those testimonies. Ararat skeptics justify doing exactly that by making several major claims:

• Allowing the use of testimonial data has no place in what should be a strictly “scientific” endeavor.
• Seemingly conflicting details found in the testimonies means they cannot be trusted.
• Many years of searching, both on the ground and by air or satellite, have not found definitive evidence of the Ark on Mt. Ararat, so it is probably not there and the “eyewitnesses” were all either mistaken or telling a fiction to gain notoriety.
• Even if the Ark was once on Ararat, by now it would have been destroyed by volcanic action, or pulverized by the grinding action of glaciers, or scavenged for its timbers, so that for one reason or another it no longer exists there, and the testimonies cannot possibly be right.
• Geology supposedly proves Mt. Ararat is a young volcanic peak that did not exist at the time of the Flood, again invalidating all testimonies that the Ark was ever on Mt. Ararat.
• A clear historical trail exists in the Western tradition, going back as early as the writings of Berossus in the third century BC, indicating the Ark was believed to be on Mt. Cudi; conversely, there was no such tradition for Mt. Ararat until much later, after the tenth century AD, meaning it was invented by the Armenians and never factual.

In view of these perceived problems with locating the Ark on Mt. Ararat, they must first be addressed before one can evaluate the considerable body of testimonial data without undue bias against it. They are superficially persuasive, and throw up a stumbling block preventing some people from objectively evaluating the testimonies. It is my conviction that simply tossing them out as irrelevant is an illegitimate way to do research—an easy way out of the hard job of searching for ways to resolve those apparent difficulties. The goal of this article is to biblically justify the use of testimonial data as a way of getting at truth; suggest how certain troubling details in the testimonies can be resolved; and demonstrate that the most oft-cited geological and historical claims against Mt. Ararat, pitting them squarely against details common to multiple testimonies, are based on incomplete data that is misleading when researchers consider it comprehensive. Some little-known geological and historical information will be presented that casts doubt on the position that this type of information precludes the Ark from ever being on Mt. Ararat.

Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey. David Padfield / BiblePlaces.com.

Preface: The Danger of Scientism

Some individuals reject testimony as a valid way of evaluating truth, and will only consider what they think is “real science.” When closely examined, however, “real science” often turns out to consist only of studies used to justify certain firmly-held positions or preconceptions. Their appeal to science is a smokescreen anchored in an attempt to vindicate already-held opinions, not impartially evaluate all factors via a multi-disciplinary approach. It is not the scientific method that they place on a pedestal, but a particular application of it that yields particular results.

Science indeed is a good truth—or rather, fact—determiner, but only when properly used. Strictly speaking, science can only accurately deal with repeatably measureable data, as in a lab, where all the initial conditions can be specified—e.g., amounts of chemicals, pressures, temperatures, etc. Our knowledge that the physical properties of materials can be relied on to remain constant allows us to accurately predict that when such-and-such is done, such-and-such will be the outcome, as surely as night follows day. Knowing these factors allows cause-and-effect relationships to be precisely determined. That is science in the classic, empirical sense. It is an endeavor to find out factual evidence about the world we live in and how it works.

Unfortunately, such initial conditions are the very factors which can be neither comprehensively known nor controlled when one deals with one-time events that took place in the past. Geological disasters, for example, are individually one-time events where we are never able to know all of the initial conditions, but are only in a position to suggest what MIGHT have happened based on partial knowledge from other comparable events. And for the young-Earth creationist (YEC) who accepts that virtually the entire geological column was laid down by the world-wide Flood of Noah’s day, geology is an examination of the end result of one great, unrepeatable disaster! There is nothing else in the history of the world to compare it to. It may be possible to use deductive reasoning to gauge the likelihood that some process was involved in the Great Flood and its end results, but this is a far cry from the precision and predictable outcomes of laboratory science. Recognizing this is embracing common sense—accepting that the scientific method has its limitations.¹

Yet, there are individuals who embrace a more strict view of science that does not allow for such a common sense approach. They instead take a rigid, simplistic view called “scientism” that assumes the scientific method can do no wrong, that it is universally applicable to understanding all events in the world (past ones included). The PBS.org website offers the following, generally applicable definition of scientism:

Unlike the use of the scientific method as only one mode of reaching knowledge, scientism claims that science alone can render truth about the world and reality. Scientism's single-minded adherence to only the empirical, or testable, makes it a strictly scientific worldview, in much the same way that a Protestant fundamentalism that rejects science can be seen as a strictly religious worldview. Scientism sees it necessary to do away with most, if not all, metaphysical, philosophical, and religious claims, as the truths they proclaim cannot be apprehended by the scientific method. In essence, scientism sees science as the absolute and only justifiable access to the truth.²

One form of scientism sometimes seen in educated Christian circles is the assumption certain disciplines provide virtually infallible information about their special focus, whether that discipline is geology, astronomy, or some other field—even when addressing unrepeatable past events. That favored discipline is regarded as always leading to valid conclusions, even when the initial conditions are only hinted at in the pages of the Bible and the conclusions depend entirely on the appearance of the end product. Scientists who are Christians are not immune to some form of scientism. I have personally experienced it in some discussions with others concerning research into both Noah’s Flood and the search for remains of his Ark.

I personally find it hard to see how scientism can be embraced by any who claim to want to pursue Truth; I think it should be sought by whatever means, not just certain means—by a multi-disciplinary approach, not exclusive reliance on just one as the filter for all other data. This conviction is the wellspring of this paper. (For those who want to investigate scientism further, there is a thoughtful essay, "Blinded by Scientism.") With that said, let us take a look at reasons to accept testimonial data as a valid help in determining the truth about something generally, and about the landing-place of Noah’s Ark specifically.

Is Testimony a Valid Means for Finding Truth?

A General Defense of Testimony—The Exodus

Those who have followed the work of ABR know that, when it comes to reconciling the Bible with the findings of archaeology, absence of evidence does NOT equate with evidence of absence.³ If trustworthy historical/testimonial data about a non-repeatable event exists, as it does in the pages of the Bible, then the lack of hard scientific evidence an event happened only allows us to conclude the evidence has not yet been found. We have no basis for saying anything more; certainly none for saying that the event never occurred.

Such is the case, for example, with the Exodus wanderings of the Israelites. We have a long and reliable textual record upholding the historicity of the Exodus, as well as continuing traditions that independently point back to that time, such as the feasts of the Jews and their arcane dietary laws that are still followed to this day. These traditions must have begun somewhere, and it makes far more sense that they arose from a real historical event than via fictions imposed on the people from above—and by presumably God-reverencing priests serving the Lord who declared in Lev 19:11, “You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another.” The Exodus record is thus based on an experience shared by a great many people over a long period of time, yet at the same time was recorded for posterity in the written testimony of just a single historian—Moses. Since the longstanding Jewish feasts and archaeological remains of the places the Jews conquered immediately following the Exodus exist,⁴ not to mention the Jewish people themselves, we have excellent objective reasons to accept the testimony of Moses in the Torah about historical events, even though conclusive archaeological evidence of the Exodus he reported has not yet been found.⁵

The “Two or Three” Principle

It should also be observed that Moses sets forth, with God’s authority undergirding his words, the following principle: agreement of the testimonies of two or three witnesses is sufficient to establish the factuality of an event. This applied in cases of capital punishment: “On the evidence of two witnesses or three witnesses, he who is to die shall be put to death; he shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness” (Dt 17:6). (All Scripture citations are from the NASB.) It also applied to civil disputes generally: “A single witness shall not rise up against a man on account of any iniquity or any sin which he has committed; on the evidence of two or three witnesses a matter shall be confirmed” (Dt 19:15).

Lest one protest that this principle only applied to Old Testament law which was superseded by different New Testament principles, examine the following New Testament quotes:

• Mt 18:16: “But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that BY THE MOUTH OF TWO OR THREE WITNESSES EVERY FACT MAY BE CONFIRMED.” This is a quote from Jesus Himself, indicating corroborating testimony was accepted by Christ as an adequate basis for establishing the factuality of something. And if it was good enough for Jesus, it should be good enough for us.
• 1 Cor 14:29: “Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others pass judgment.”
• 2 Cor 13:1: “This is the third time I am coming to you. EVERY FACT IS TO BE CONFIRMED BY THE TESTIMONY OF TWO OR THREE WITNESSES.”
• 1Tm 5:19: “Do not receive an accusation against an elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses.”
• Heb 10:28: “Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.”

Can anyone read all of these verses and have any doubt that the “two or three” principle is God’s standard for using testimony as a determinant of truth, and has wide application to many situations? Since all human beings have been sinners with a penchant toward lying, or at least stretching the truth, since the Garden, it is not as if human nature has gotten fundamentally worse with time, giving us cause to say the “two or three” principle no longer applies in our day because fewer honest men can be found! The problem of lying witnesses was recognized not only by Moses (Dt 19:18–19), but also Solomon in multiple Proverbs, e.g. 14:5, “A trustworthy witness will not lie, but a false witness utters lies,” and 19:5, “A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who tells lies will not escape.” This did not dissuade Christ and the apostles from affirming the continuing validity of the use of testimony for finding out factual truth, and it must not prevent us from affirming it either.

Nor are we in any position to simplistically claim that the rise of modern science has rendered the old, tried-and-true testimony standards passé. Scientism is incompatible with the scriptural teaching on the proper use of testimony. It is clearly impossible, biblically speaking, for science to be the sole arbiter of what is or is not true. And speaking practically, scientific “proof” can only be had, as mentioned earlier, for repeatable events where the initial conditions are known, an impossibility when dealing with non-repeatable historical events. This should be self-evident, but there are many people, Noah’s Ark researchers included, with a personality akin to that of Doubting Thomas. He adamantly refused to believe testimony, even from others he knew well. Let us read once more the familiar passage in John 20:24–29:

But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples were saying to him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.”

After eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then He said to Thomas, “Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing.” Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.”

Therefore, on the basis of the words of Christ Himself, if there is no obvious reason to distrust what someone says—the person’s character is known to be reliable, and others testify to the same or very similar things—then it is more blessed to have the believing attitude of a child than a fundamental distrusting skepticism of everything one cannot personally prove. So, let us bring that kind of attitude to the testimonies of the Ark’s survival on Mt. Ararat, without at the same time being naïve. We are told to be innocent as doves, yet also as wise as serpents (Mt 10:16).

Applying This to the Search for the Ark

At the risk of sounding too strong, if we claim to follow the Bible as our guide to life, these principles should obligate us to accept testimony as a valid basis for evaluating truth claims, including those concerning the possible survival and location of Noah’s Ark. To reject them as not applying to the search for the Ark is to reject what God has revealed as a lasting principle for men and women to follow. God nowhere hints that the “two or three” principle has been set aside in our day in favor of science, or was ever to be restricted only to a certain time or only to “religious” matters; rather, it has wide application to determining truth in civil disputes and diverse other issues. Corroborating testimony, after all, underlies the whole foundation of our modern system of jurisprudence: the principle that repeated, believable testimony from multiple eyewitnesses, supplemented by objective factual data when possible, provides an adequate reason to say that something really happened.

Now, applying all of this to the search for Noah’s Ark, the very first step is to determine if there are obvious reasons not to believe a testimony—to see if the claims are being made by people out to make a buck or for other personal reasons. It is true that there have been a number of frauds and deceivers in the history of Noah’s Ark research. George Jammal in the early 1990s pulled a fast one that duped a number of people, and 2011 has seen the ongoing saga of “Parasut” Ahmet Ertugrul and the Chinese Ark research team. But in both cases, it took just a little investigation by unbiased researchers to uncover the fact that things looked less than kosher.⁶

This is not true of the bulk of the recorded eyewitness testimonies concerning sightings of Noah’s Ark on Mt. Ararat. Many were made by well-disciplined military men with no apparent motive for lying, such as White Russian Army Col. Alexander Koor, US Army Sgt. Ed Davis, and several US Navy and Air Force servicemen. Their military training, plus advanced equipment at their disposal in some cases, made them careful observers. In the cases of George Hagopian and Ed Davis, not only were interviews with those who knew them performed as a character check, such things as financial records and obscure details in their stories were closely examined to check on their trustworthiness. As if that was not enough, they were also subjected to lie-detector tests (Corbin 79, 81, 108–109) that they passed. This constitutes far more than adequate character investigation. On this basis we can accept provisionally that these diverse individuals were reporting something they actually saw, although this does not itself rule out the possibility that they misinterpreted their sightings.

But that is beside the point. The crucial thing to note is that each of these “alleged” eyewitnesses was deemed reliable by those in a position to draw such a conclusion, with no known evidence to disqualify their testimony. Each acceptable testimony provides a data point for evaluation. On the authority of Scripture, we must accept their data as valid input in the efforts to find Noah’s Ark. After all the obviously shaky witnesses are removed from the table, we are obligated to look at all the rest and see if we can find the “two or three”—or more—that agree. We must not refuse to do this, if we are looking for truth and not merely self-vindication of a firmly-held opinion.

Do the “Ark on Ararat” Testimonies Pass the Test?

It is time to get an overview of the testimonies recorded in the book by B.J. Corbin, The Explorers of Ararat and the Search for Noah’s Ark (second edition, 1999), and ask if they can pass the “two or three” test. A summary chart of the testimonies can be found at http://noahsarksearch.com/Eyewitnesses.htm. Following is an abbreviated version of it:

One immediately notices the many repetitions of the very same features—the general location being on Mt. Ararat, at least partly in ice, having a box/barge shape, in a valley/depression, being near a ledge, cliff or both, and being either unbroken before about 1917 or broken thereafter. All of these factors pass the “two or three” test. It may be significant that the only two testimonies saying the sighting was NOT in ice were also two (of only four) which stated the Ark was NOT broken, so these factors may be related. Although not made clear on the chart, in the text of the George Hagopian testimony in Corbin (66–69, 368–374) it is clear that Hagopian considered the Ark to be unbroken and mostly ice-free in the early 1900s as well.

A Close Look at One Testimony—George Hagopian

Let us now examine the Hagopian testimony in some detail, for it has unique features that make it stand out from most others. A native Armenian, he claimed to have twice climbed Mt. Ararat as a young boy in the early 1900s and to have actually climbed on top of the Ark (Corbin 370). His testimony has been closely scrutinized by many researchers, and has stood up remarkably well. Below is a photo of him with researcher Elfred Lee.

The first thing to note is that, unlike in the case of Ed Davis, there is absolutely no ambiguity that the mountain he claimed to climb was Mt. Ararat. Hagopian demonstrated this certainty in many ways, including his use of the native Armenian name for Mt. Ararat, Masis (sometimes spelled “Massis”), and his intimate knowledge of things in the area of Lake Van. From journalist Rene Noorbergen’s interview with Hagopian (The Ark File, Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1955), we glean the following:

I first went there when I was about ten years old. It must have been around 1902. My grandfather was the minister of the big Armenian Orthodox Church in Van, and he always told me stories about the holy ship on the holy mountain. And then one day my uncle said, “Georgie, I’m going to take you to the holy mountain,” and he took me with him, packed his supplies on his donkey, and together we started our trek toward Mount Ararat. “Uncle, that’s the holy mountain,” I said, pointing to what seemed to be our destination up ahead of us. “That’s right, Georgie,” he said. “Massis is the holy mountain” (165).

We can therefore immediately rule out the idea that he placed his Ark discovery on any mountain other than Ararat. I also believe we can trust Noorbergen’s reporting, as he was a professional journalist, foreign correspondent and photographer who handled magazine and newspaper assignments in more than 80 countries over a period of at least 22 years (ibid., dust jacket back flap). Researcher Elfred Lee likewise recorded some of Hagopian’s testimony, delivered in a thick Armenian accent which can be hard to understand. Here is a brief transcript (Corbin 370, cf. Noorbergen 166 ff):

And then we got to the ark..My uncle dropped his pack, and together we began to haul stones to the side of the ship. Within a short time we had stacked a high pile of rocks against the side of the ship. “Georgie, come here,” he said, grabbing me by the arm. “You are going on top of the holy ark.”...I stood up straight and looked all over the ship. It was long. The height was about forty feet. “Look inside the ark,” my uncle called up to me. “Look for the holes. Look for the big one. Look inside and tell me what you see.”...Yes, there was the hole, big and gaping. I peeked into the blackness of the hole, but saw nothing. Then I knelt down and kissed the holy ark...The top of the ark was covered with a very thin coat of fresh fallen snow. But when I brushed some of it away I could see a green moss growing right on top. When I pulled a piece off...it was made of wood. The grain was right there.

By claiming he actually climbed onto the Ark, his story leaves no room for any misidentification of the Ark itself. This might be claimed against sightings from the air or photos taken from a distance, where rocks and shadows can play tricks on the eyes and yield that bane of researchers, a “phantom Ark,” but is not a factor here. Below are a few such “phantom Arks” which got researchers briefly excited in the past:

Hagopian’s story was also consistent; he did not vary his story in retelling it. This greatly impressed Ararat skeptic Bill Crouse (Ararat Report 32, May 1993), who observed,

Hagopian’s story is difficult to falsify. As he told and retold his story he never deviated from his original account.

Not only this, Hagopian was eminently credible. In an interview about his experiences working with Hagopian and tape-recording his testimony, Elfred Lee noted:

He was not one who would fabricate or lie. We checked him out as well. He had a very good reputation in town. We verified his bank accounts and income to make sure he was not making anything off of his statement. We also went to Lake Van in Turkey and specific sites he discussed to verify his authenticity (Corbin 69).

Lee added,

As to his integrity, he [Hagopian] had a PSE test, the lie detector test...and he passed the test. Also, his personal life, his reputation, his friends, and business acquaintances bore witness that he was an honest man who would not lie or fabricate. And he was not looking for any personal gain from it (Corbin 79).

Taking all of the above into account, one gets the impression that here we have someone worth listening to regarding Noah’s Ark. Bill Crouse admitted:

His knowledge of the Ararat area as he describes it is accurate and detailed. Other aspects of his story given to researchers seem to substantiate his credibility (1993).

We conclude that the story is quite believable in every way—EXCEPT for the subject matter! For the Ararat skeptics in particular, it seems to cry out for SOME reasons to fault it. Bill Crouse gave it his best shot:

The fact that he [Hagopian] is no longer with us makes it difficult to render any kind of judgement....The story itself is interesting, but it still provides no empirical evidence, and even if credible, is not helpful in the critical subject of location. Some things that trouble me are the fact that the testimony itself is secondhand...The George Hagopian story remains an interesting, but unverifiable story (ibid.).

Crouse’s comments merit discussion, because they go to a core issue: how we evaluate the trustworthiness of historical sources and eyewitness testimony. Why should Hagopian’s death make rendering a judgment about his testimony more difficult than when we evaluate historical documents we accept as valid? Since interviews with Hagopian were tape-recorded by both Elfred Lee and Rene Noorbergen, we are much closer to having firsthand testimony with him than with anything we have from ancient historians, such as Berossus, on whom the Mt. Cudi believers rely. The transcribed interviews of Noorbergen and Lee confirm that Hagopian did not vary his story for different hearers. Thus, I am convinced that the real issue is not so much about VERIFYING the Hagopian story, but simply BELIEVING it. This is very hard to do, particularly for those who have staked out a contrary position on the issue in their writings. But honesty demands it.

We face the predicament of being unable to completely verify a story, and thus having to exercise a certain measure of faith that it is true, with the writings of every dead historian of the ages. Yet, we don’t let the fact they are long dead stop us from using their information. We just try to make sound judgments about the sources, based largely on three factors: (1) their “reputation”; (2) their internal consistency; and (3) their external coherence with other known facts. The only essential difference between historical documents and eyewitness reports is the patina of antiquity possessed by the former. But that should have no bearing whatsoever on the trustworthiness of a source. What Berossus and Josephus wrote should not be given more weight than the firsthand testimony of George Hagopian. Since it also passes the “two or three” test in terms of its broad details—a mostly exposed, barge-shaped, unbroken Ark before about 1917, cf. the Eywitnesses chart—it demands to be taken into consideration by any truly honest researcher.

With these foundational matters out of the way, we end Part 1 of this study. Part 2 will build upon it, and address a few important issues critics have focused on as reasons for refusing to deal with the Mt. Ararat testimonies.

 

This article remains the sole property of the Associates for Biblical Research and Richard Lanser. Any reproduction, republication or other use without express permission from Associates for Biblical Research is strictly prohibited.

 

Endnotes

¹ For more on this important issue, see Greg Bahnsen, "Revelation, Speculation and Science," Bible and Spade 24, no. 4 (Fall 2011).

² Found offsite at https://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/gengloss/sciism-body.html. The reader should observe that this definition refers to “scientism,” and has nothing to do with the relationship between true science and faith, which are quite compatible.

³ For more on this pervasive problem, see Brian Janeway, "Relearning Old Lessons: Archaeologists Fail to Use Sound Reasoning," Associates for Biblical Research, August 23, 2006.

⁴ For more on the historicity of the Conquest, see https://biblearchaeology.org/research/chronological-categories/conquest-of-canaan.

⁵ For more on the historicity of the Exodus, please visit https://biblearchaeology.org/research/chronological-categories/exodus-era.

⁶ See https://creation.com/noahs-ark-or-what for more information on this apparent hoax.

 

Bibliography

Bahnsen, Greg. 2011. "Revelation, Speculation and Science," Bible and Spade 24, no. 4 (Fall).

Corbin, B. J. 1999. The Explorers of Ararat and the Search for Noah’s Ark. 2nd ed. Long Beach, CA: Great Commission Illustrated Books.

Cornuke, Robert. "Noah's Ark." Bible Archaeology, Search & Exploration Institute. https://baseinstitute.org/pages/noahs-ark.

Crouse, Bill. 1993. "Figment or Fact? The Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark." Ararat Report 32 (May 1993). Text accessible at https://web.archive.org/web/20071013001441/https://fishnet.us/cim/reports/ar32.txt.

Feser, Edward. 2010. "Blinded by Scientism." The Witherspoon Institute. Public Discourse, March 9. https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2010/03/1174/.

Janeway, Brian. 2006. “Relearning Old Lessons: Archaeologists Fail to Use Sound Reasoning.” Associates for Biblical Research, August 23. https://biblearchaeology.org/research/topics/general-apologetics/3523.

Lanser, Rick. 2006. "Noah's Ark in Iran?" Associates for Biblical Research. July 19. https://biblearchaeology.org/research/contemporary-issues/2848.

Noorbergen, Rene. 1955. The Ark File. Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Association.

Wieland, Carl. 2011. "Noah's Ark, or ... What?" Creation Ministries International. Last updated August 16, 2011. https://creation.com/noahs-ark-or-what.

Several friends have sent me the eight pictures and map that have been circulating on the Internet, especially among Christians, of three or four giant human skeletons that were allegedly found in an archaeological excavation a few kilometers to the east of Mycenae in the Peloponnese of Greece.