Headlines blare that Noah's Ark has been found, and on the slopes of Mount Ararat no less. But wait, there's more: the wonderfully preserved boat was found by a bunch of "evangelicals."Land sakes, you don't say!
Here at Otagosh however we can reveal exclusively that the claim is false.
The Ark isn't Noah's. It belonged to Utnapishtim.
Yes, this is the long-awaited proof of the divine origin of The Epic of Gilgamesh. Skeptics repent! Even now we're rushing to register the First Church of Uruk with the charities commission. We anticipate all donations will be tax deductable.
Forget Yahweh, or any of the other pale imitators. It's Adad and Nergal, Shullat and Hanish, Ninurta and Enlil all you infidels should be really worried about! If I was in your shoes at the moment, I'd be particularly cautious around Ennugi and Ea as well.
It's all there to read in Book 11 of the Epic, written long before the Israelites fiddled with it.
Expect a revival of the true faith, temples springing up bursting with hymns of praise and sacred prostitutes. A sign has been delivered to a faithless generation, Gilgamesh is lord of our hearts, and moreover (and this is very important)...
(Normal service will be resumed in due course.)
I was wondering if you would mention the recent "discovery". There is still the possibility that the entire thing is an elaborate hoax.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, the Noatian Flood has often been used as reason to discount the Bible's authenticity as an historical record. The reason is simple. There is not enough water on the planet to inundate the entire globe. This is just a matter of physics.
However, that does not eliminate the possibility that the story is true. The "known world" (at that time) most certainly could have been completely submerged by a tsunami generated by a comet impact in the Indian Ocean, and there is evidence that just such an impact DID take place east of Madagascar perhaps around 5000 years ago. Such a cataclysm would have been recorded by all civilizations that survived. It quite likely would have also caused rainfall for weeks and geological upheavals.
Could it have floated a large wooden boat up a mountain and left it there? Actually, yes.
A book called Ark Fever by Robert Cornuke suggests that Mount Masis (the Armenian name for Agri Dagi , or Mount Ararat) in modern Turkey might not be the right place to be looking for Noah's ark.
ReplyDeletePart of his reasoning was that the original Hebrew just had the consonants rrt. Rather than talking about Mount Ararat in Turkey, it was actually talking about the mountains (plural) of Urartu, which were anciently located in the area of modern Iran.
"The "known world" (at that time) most certainly could have been completely submerged by a tsunami generated by a comet impact in the Indian Ocean, and there is evidence that just such an impact DID take place east of Madagascar perhaps around 5000 years ago."
ReplyDeleteSure, I'll buy that. Where you and I part ways, Larry, is that I no longer take the automatic stance "Goddidit", as Christians are wont to.
(I also much prefer Gilgamesh to the Old Testament, but that's just me.)