Biblical Mysteries

By Jonathan Sarfati

Hardly anything in the Bible has been attacked as much as God’s cataclysmic judgment of Noah’s Flood. This started with a Scottish physician called James Hutton (1726–97), who decreed in 1785, before examining the evidence: ‘the past history of our globe must be explained by what can be seen to be happening now … No powers are to be employed that are not natural to the globe, no action to be admitted except those of which we know the principle’ (emphasis added). This was not a refutation of biblical teaching of Creation and the Flood, but a dogmatic refusal to consider them as even possible explanations—just like the scoffers Peter predicted in 2 Peter 3.However, disbelief in the Flood has become so entrenched that even many ostensibly Christian colleges don’t teach it. However, Jesus taught the Flood was real history, as real as His future second coming: ‘Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the Ark. Then the Flood came and destroyed them all.’ (Luke 17:26–27) In this passage, Jesus straightforwardly talks about Noah as a real person (who was His ancestor—Luke 3:36), the Ark as a real vessel, and the Flood as a real event. So those of a broadly conservative theological disposition will not deny the Flood completely, but will claim that it was merely a local event, usually in Mesopotamia (ancient Iraq). However, the liberals, who care nothing for Jesus’s words, go even further. A very common view is that the biblical story of Noah’s Flood was not historical at all, and was borrowed from flood legends in Mesopotamia.

The Gilgamesh Epic: In 1853, the archaeologist Austen Henry Layard and his team were excavating the palace library of the ancient Assyrian capital Nineveh. Among their finds were a series of 12 tablets of a great epic. The tablets dated from about 650 BC, but the poem was much older ...

New discoveries and excavations may have provided the key to solving the mystery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.It is now believed that the scrolls could be "the great treasure from the Jerusalem Temple" which held the Ark of the Covenant. The recent decoding of a cryptic cup, theexcavation of ancient Jerusalem tunnels, and other archaeological detective work may help solve one of the great biblical mysteries: Who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?

View: Full article | Source: NationalGeographic.

A former member of the expedition who recently claimed to have found Noah"s Ark in Turkey has stated that it was a hoax.Randall Price has claimed that in 2008 the wooden beams and planks from an old structure by the Black Sea were transported up to Mount Ararat in Turkey by Kurdish laborers. Further doubt has been cast by the presence of cobwebs in the corners of awooden compartment photographed at the site of the alleged discovery.

It took nearly 5,000 years to unearth Noah"s Ark -- and just three days for a serious challenge to the legitimacy of the find to emerge. A former member of the expedition whose sponsors this week claimed to have found the legendary biblical boat buried beneath the snows of Turkey"s Mount Ararat says the "discovery" was probably a hoax.

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Fundamentalist Christian explorers believe they"ve found the remains of Noah"s Ark on Mount Ararat.Wood samples taken from the site allegedly date back to 2800BC, the find is said to be a wooden structure made from beams and planks and is buried beneath ice and snow high up on the Turkishmountain.

They said wood taken from the site, which is more than 13,000ft above sea level, dates to 2,800BC. If it is the ark, the discovery would be the greatest in the history of archaeology and bear out one of the most famous stories in the Bible.

View: Full article | Source: DailyMail