God
tells Noah in the Bible before the time of Jesus Christ to build an Ark
and save the world from a flood - this Ark may have been found along
with the graves of Noah and other Biblical characters.
OK...so there's the story of Noah's Ark, which is kind of wonderful and fun. And then there's the state of actually believing in the story of Noah's Ark, which for many ratchets the fun of the story up a few notches. And then there are recent reports and documentaries which, according to those who accept or reference them, prove that the story is grounded in verifiable truth; and this is still more fun. And then to bring this subject of Noah's Ark full circle, we have experts and authorities and truth seekers and reporters debunking reports of the actual existence of the real ark so that the story can be set straight and the world rendered safe from fanciful thinking once again. And for some, I suppose, this is the most fun of all that is to be had through a YouTube fueled immersion in the phenomenon of Noah's Ark, a subject that, through the medium of YouTube, has emerged as a focus of worthwhile consideration and reflection even in our age of web-driven information and opinion overload.
So let's have a look at a few entries in this area of intellectual something-er-other...
By the way, such documentaries ("crock-umentaries"?) aren't really all that new. There was a flurry of documentary style TV shows in the late '70s of the 'Strange and Amazing, but True' genre that garnered high TV viewer ratings (and I'm sure I contributed to those ratings myself significantly, I absolutely love that stuff), Leonard Nemoy's In Search Of show probably being the most emblematic of the genre. In fact, and amazingly conveniently, as I was just writing this, it occurred to me to go to the YouTube search engine to see if it would turn up an episode on Noah's Ark, and Lo.... in a matter of 2 or 3 seconds... here we have it (see inset below)...
Damn, that Leonard Nemoy had one hell of a great voice-over narrator's voice... I could listen to him talk about this sort of stuff all day! But I digress... At just 27 seconds into this video he states "A century ago, scholars dismissed it as just a quaint old legend. Then, evidence of its authenticity began to appear"... and off we go, kids... By the way, after what, no doubt, were several commercials, the show resumes with more opening credits and with another, far less distinctive announcer informing the viewer (as if the viewer could possibly care) that "This series presents information, in part based on theory and conjecture. The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanation, but not necessarily the only one to the mysteries we will examine." OK, fair enough... thank you very much for keeping this 'examination' to high standards of intellectual inquiry... now bring on Noah's Ark, baby!And the video does...
Bill Nye Destroys Noah's Ark
Bill Nye debunks the Bible's mythical story of Noah's Ark during a debate with Creationist Ken Ham at the Creation Museum in n Kentucky.
So, does Bill Nye really destroy Noah's Ark?
Yeah... drag... it takes Bill just 4 minutes and 39 seconds to lay any notion of truth to this wonderful story to waste. Thoroughly! He begins by stating that "Mr. Ham and his followers have this remarkable view of a worldwide flood that somehow influenced everything that we observe in nature, a 500 foot wooden boat, 8 zookeepers for 14,000 individual animals, every land plant under water... for a full year!' And concludes his easy to follow and very convincing little talk by saying "To me it's just not reasonable." By the way the text below the video states that it was published on Feb 7, 2014 and had pulled 2,716,269 views by the time I found my way to it. Excellent work, Bill!
Still... some video posting "Noah's Ark is the Real Deal!" fans remain undeterred. And we see gems like the following posted on YouTube well after Bill's did his magic there...
Noah's Ark Found in Turkey? Revealing God's Treasure Documentary
This one opens saying "Before the Great Flood, the
world had become filled with wicked men. So much so that The Lord decided to
destroy the face of the Earth..."And the first 2 minutes of this video
retell the biblical story of Noah and his ark and the god who flooded the Earth
and why, replete with illustrations that look like they could have been lifted
from bible study text books printed in the 1950's. That leads up to the
narrator (who has a nice voice, but not nearly as nice as Leonard Nemoy's)
reading us the Bible quote "The ark... rested upon the mountains of
Ararat" Genesis 8:14 And then we are informed that the name Ararat, as it
appears in the Bible, is Hebrew for Urantu, an ancient country of Southwest
Asia, which was mentioned in Assyrian sources of the 13th Century BC. All that,
according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, this video spares no scholarship,
mind you. And the narrator goes on to explain that we are talking about Turkey,
if you haven't heard this a gazillion times already. And on and on and on, with
grainy Black & White photos lifted from decades old editions of Time
magazine, and simple maps of some area that we are told is in Turkey that also look
like they were lifted from high school Geography text books printed in the
1950's. And then some nice travelog footage of Turkey. And
then.......................................... lots of old photos of a
"boat shaped formation" and we are informed that "looking at it
from the stern, or rear, one can see the boat-shape outline of the ark; it has
a a rounded stern and pointed bow, or front. It's symmetrical shape indicates
that it is a man-made structure..."
And there you have it, according to the video's claims much of the footage is of what the Turkish government refers to officially as Noah's Ark National Park.
By the way, the footage shot in the park's museum show's us its glass case
protected displays of petrified wood and fossilized marine life; the very types
of things that Bill Nye explained above couldn't possibly prove the
authenticity of Noah's Ark. This goes on and on and on and there are photos of
the things that some excavating researchers pulled from deep within the buried
wreck of the ark in the 1960s, including (and I shit you not) petrified animal
dung and cat hair. What more proof could you want?
Still, I have to admit that I was beyond bored with all this by the time I'd
slogged through the first third of this video. Enough! If this is important to
you, go look for yourself!
One more, though...
And for sheer, click-drawing chutzpah, you can't top the title
of the video below."Inside Noah's Ark!! Suppressed Footage!!" And
hey, if "They" suppressed this footage then it must show us something
important that "They" don't want us to see... right?
Alas, this one ends up not being all that different from the one above, although this one is blessedly short. It actually starts out with same quote from Genesis and then gives us some nice color photography of the Turkish mountains. And if footage of "The Chinese Team" crawling through ice tunnels and pulling at bits of wood and stuff are what you want... well, this video delivers! What does it all mean? Check out the comments that this video elicited! (below)
Amazing ... God is swift and just in His judgement . Amen
I am but a humble sinner on my knees praying for all the lost and deceived souls of modren man .
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