An 1883 Turkish expedition found Noah's Ark (Talk.Origins)

Response ArticleThis article (An 1883 Turkish expedition found Noah's Ark (Talk.Origins)) is a response to a rebuttal of a creationist claim published by Talk.Origins Archive under the title Index to Creationist Claims.

Index

Claim CH505.2:

In 1883, a Turkish commission surveying Ararat for possible avalanche conditions found part of the ark protruding twenty or thirty feet from the foot of a glacier, according to the British newspaper Prophetic Messenger.

Source: LaHaye, Tim and John Morris, 1976. The Ark on Ararat, Nashville: Thomas Nelson Inc. and Creation Life Publishers, pp. 56-58.

CreationWiki response: (Talk.Origins quotes in blue)

1. The story has several inconsistencies (Bailey 1989, 85):

• The report mentions the expedition going through a dense forest and wading waist-deep through a stream, contrary to many other detailed descriptions of the mountain.
• The visitors recognized the wood as gopherwood, despite the fact that the wood was ancient and apparently painted, and despite the fact that nobody knows what gopherwood is.
• The original news release cited by the Prophetic Messenger has never been found.

The story is probably fictional.

The account is from over 100 years ago. There has been plenty of time for extraneous noise to get into to the account even if it is true.

It is also interesting that TalkOrigins is admitting that the Noah's Ark stories are generally consistent.