Evidence shows Noah story really happened

Thursday, January 10, 2002

By GREGORY RUMMO

Several years ago, when my older son, John, was 6, we went out for a stroll on the beach one summer evening.

As we looked out at the vast Atlantic Ocean, my son asked: "Dad, where did all the water in the oceans come from?" Leave it to a 6-year-old to ask a question biblical in its magnitude.

"Noah's flood," I said.

"Really?" he replied. "Wow!"

I explained that vast underground springs had broken open and that it had rained for 40 days and 40 nights.

"The entire earth was covered with water," I said. "What we are looking at is a silent testimony to the truth of that Bible story."

Noah's flood is mentioned throughout the Old and New Testaments. Psalm 104 and Job 22 refer to the great deluge as does Jesus in the Gospels. The apostle Peter also mentions Noah's flood in both of his epistles. But the event first appears in Genesis chapters 6 through 9, where it is described in detail.

"The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the Lord said, I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth -- men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air -- for I am grieved that I have made them. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord" (Genesis 6:5-8).

God told Noah exactly how to build the ark and gave him 120 years to complete the task. Along with his sons and quite possibly, plenty of hired help (although the Bible doesn't specifically mention this), Noah built a huge cargo ship out of gopherwood and pitch.

When the rains came, Noah, his wife, their three sons, and their wives went into the ark. Along with them, they brought two of almost every kind of animal and bird. (Noah was instructed to take seven pairs of every animal and bird considered clean for sacrificial purposes.)

Imagine the stories that spread through the region about that "crazy old man building the big boat." People possibly traveled for miles to see this sight -- because it had never rained. The Bible describes the conditions on the antediluvian Earth as vastly different from our present-day weather patterns (Genesis 2:6).

During the many years that the ark was under construction, anyone could have been spared by believing in Noah's preaching. The Bible says that he warned his neighbors of God's impending judgment. "God did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others" (2 Peter 2:5).

When the ark was completed, it stood laden with cargo on dry ground for seven days. God left the door open -- anyone could have walked in and been saved. But aside from Noah's family, no one else entered. At the end of the week, the Lord shut the door and the disaster began. The rain started and the underground springs burst open.

The vast extent to which the Earth's surface is covered with water is only one of many proofs for a massive flood. Other evidence abounds. Fossil graveyards, containing many different types of remains, have been found; these collections suggest that herds of animals massed together to escape a catastrophe or that their carcasses were deposited in low-lying areas and then buried under tons of water-borne sediment. Marine fossils have been discovered on top of mountains rimming the Mediterranean Sea. And horizontal sedimentary layering in the Grand Canyon and other places points to a global deluge.

In the fall of 2000, an issue of U.S. News and World Report reported "an amazing archaeological discovery beneath the surface of the Black Sea." Robert Ballard (who found the Titanic) led an archaeological team that discovered "a large wooden building 12 miles offshore at a depth of more than 300 feet." Ballard said, "Apparently there is an ancient coastline some 550 feet below the present sea level.

"It was a find beyond our wildest imaginations," he said.

In August, scientists claimed they have new photographic evidence that may be the remains of Noah's Ark. MSNBC's Web site reported: "Military and private satellite snapshots of Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey reveal an anomaly that researchers say might be the remains of Noah's Ark."

The first pictures of what has come to be known as the Ararat Anomaly date back to 1949. U.S. intelligence officials analyzed aircraft imagery of Mount Ararat taken in June of that year. The photos show a unique feature at 15,500 feet on the northwestern plateau.

Porcher Taylor, an assistant professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia and an expert in satellite imaging, has gathered evidence on the Ararat Anomaly since 1993. He estimates the anomaly to be approximately 600 feet long.

Another expert, a naval engineer and architect, has examined the photographs and believes that the structure shows "prongs" or "ribs" similar to what one would expect to find on the keel of an ancient marine vessel. The most recent satellite evidence comes from Space Imaging's Ikonos 2, which can resolve images as small as one meter across. From October 1999 through the summer of 2000, the mountain was photographed.

The MSNBC article reports: "A seven-person team of independent scientists and analysts scrutinized the batch of images. While the photos clearly show some type of feature, the team was divided in their interpretation. While some felt the anomaly could be human-made, others voted for rock or deferred to inconclusive data."

This new evidence is interesting, but it should come as no surprise to evangelical Christians. We expect archaeological discoveries to support the Bible's accounts of historical events on the Earth, but we don't depend on science to bolster our beliefs. Christianity is, after all, a journey of faith -- the kind of faith that a 6-year-old embraces as he walks along the beach with his father.

Gregory Rummo is a business executive who belongs to Madison Avenue Baptist Church in Paterson, where he also serves as choir director. You may e-mail him at GregoryJRummo@aol.com

You can e-mail his editor, Lisa Haddock at Haddock@northjersey.com
You can also send a letter to the editor at LettersToTheEditor@northjersey.com