Noah's ark... really?

A friend of ours recently shared one of those Facebook posts you often see about Noah's Ark having been discovered.  I may have been a bit overzealous in my dismissal of such a thing (I believe my words were "a soaking-wet-when-put-in-drydock gopherwood cruise ship").  But here's why such things set me off.  I think it is wonderful to send and share inspirational messages and declarations of faith on FB- BUUUT.... we are told in Paul's letters to know what we are talking about so that we have a ready defense.  Too many atheists are out there waiting to jump on Christians, and too many people on the fence drift away when they dig into things like this and find ot the truth.

Step one: Let us use logic here.   As you can see in the "article", the date is June, 1987.  If a secular Muslim government was going to announce the discovery of Noah's Ark- 23 years ago- don't you think that by now it would be THE major tourist site of all time?  The Turkish government did declare a national park around it- as they do with most archaelogical sites- to protect it.  They attempted to do the same thing with UNESCO aproval around another "site" found in 2011. Plus, Turkey being a Muslim nation isn't likely to promote a Judeo-Christian version of the Ark when according to the Quran surah 54:13 it was just a "thing of wood and nails"- in other words, just a regular boat.

Step two: A little research here.  Ronald Wyatt was a nurse-anesthetist with no archaeological background when he saw a picture in Life magazine and a quick way to make a buck.  He was quickly dismissed by credible scientists as well as his own denomination (Seventh-Day Adventist), and his own partner in the discovery- and book that followed- called it the "biggest long-running hoax in history".  He has gone on to "discover" many other things, and write books on them as well.

Step three:  Logic again.  If you believe the literal account of the Bible, virtually everything on Earth was destroyed in the flood.  Ergo, building material, firewood, and rotting wood-type food for fungi had one source for the next fifty years or so.  Really think much of it survived?

Step four: The religious end of things.  Anything of a nature like the Ark, man would go overboard making idols of.  Maybe not idols like carvings of Marduk, but consider the following.  Around AD 328, the mother of Constantine the Great claimed to have discovered the True Cross that Christ hung on.  Even if the cross had been hidden for three hundred years- and the Romans hadn't just tore it down for campfires or used it on someone else- there began to be such a proliferation of fragments that John Calvin said:

"There is no abbey so poor as not to have a specimen. In some places there are large fragments, as at the Holy Chapel in Paris, at Poitiers, and at Rome, where a good-sized crucifix is said to have been made of it. In brief, if all the pieces that could be found were collected together, they would make a big ship-load. Yet the Gospel testifies that a single man was able to carry it."

Altogether, there are ten pieces extant that can be reasonable proved to have passed through the hands of the Byzantine throne (mind you, not in the Blood of Christ, just that they MIGHT be part of what Helen found), along with thousands of other churches that claim to have a bit, and a church in Ethiopia that claims to have the entire right wing of the cross buried beneath it.
The moral being, if it had existed, it would have likely long since been farmed out for parts.  Second moral- in the Bible, only one such man made object is claimed to have survived- The Ark of the Covenant (which Wyatt also claimed to find), which according to Revelations 11:19 is very clearly IN HEAVEN.  God's not a hoarder, and it's likely not His purpose to save things that only make His people lose focus on what's important.

Step five: simple science.  A few years back, archaeologists in our own back yard stumbled onto the old Gronauer Locks of the Wabash and Erie Canal, buried in the 1840s when it was rendered obsolete by the railroads.  To perserve them once unburied, they had to be immersed in water immediately, lest exposure to air cause them to rot and crumble.  As it's not likely the remains were immersed on the side of the mountain, show of hands of those who think Noah and Sons, Inc., spent the next decade or so, shovels in hand?

Step six: Comparative mythologies.  And here is where the atheists will nail you.  At least fourteen major cultures had versions of the flood myth.  How does it prove (unless you find"Noah and Sons, Inc., " carved into the bow) that it was Noah's ship and not that of Gilgamesh, Deucalion, or Quetzalcoatl?  Much like the recent Church for Jesus' tomb, or the discovery of "John the Baptist's ossuary".  You can prove a historical figure, not His divinity.  For that, there is no archaeological replacement for faith.

Step seven: Geography.  Man has tried to find things for centuries based on the Bible stories, but discounting two big things.  First, that a big flood of Biblical size rearranges EVERYTHING.  People have been trying for ages to find the Garden of Eden (Also in heaven per Revelations) based on the Tigris and Euphrates being two of the four rivers of the Garden.  But how in the world could they be the SAME rivers we have now? (Not to mention, if you did find it, there'd be a rather large Angel with a flaming sword to keep you out!)  The second- and the part that everyone misses- is in Genesis ch. 10 and 11.  Six generations from Noah you find Peleg, so named because "in his day the earth was divided."  Some people pass this off as a reference to the dispersion after the Tower of Babel incident (Oh, and Wyatt claimed to find that, too).  But the word is translated Earth and not "people"; I think that the division of the continents we call "continental drift" is what the Bible is referring to, and that would create even more geological chaos.  You can research that on your own if you care to, and make your own conclusions.  Suffice it to say, "Ararat" then might not be Ararat now.

Finally, let's look at the big picture.  The big picture is salvation, and it doesn't come from any pile of wood.  It comes from Christ, what He did and what He does.  And Noah's ark is a nativity scene is a Chick-fil-A sandwich.  It might make you feel good, or make you think about something, but in the end only distracts you from what's important- your soul, and the soul of the guy next to you.  If My FB comments offended, I am sorry.  But I feel my job is to say, "Keep your focus, people".