Claim CH505.1:

In 1952, Harold Williams wrote a story told by Haji Yearam, an Armenian Seventh-Day Adventist, in 1916. According to the story, Yearam as a boy helped guide three English scientists to the ark in 1856. Upon finding the ark sticking out of a glacier near the summit, the scientists, "vile men who did not believe in the Bible," flew into a rage and tried futilely to destroy it. Then they took an oath to keep the discovery a secret and murder anyone who revealed it. About 1918, Williams saw a newspaper article giving a scientist's deathbed confession, which corroborated Yearam's story.

Source:

LaHaye, Tim and John Morris, 1976. The Ark on Ararat, Nashville: Thomas Nelson Inc. and Creation Life Publishers, pp. 43-48.

Response:

  1. The story has several questionable elements (Bailey 1989, 83-84).
    • Why did Williams wait until 1952 to relate such a story?
    • There is no record of such an expedition leaving England. (A five-man English expedition did explore Ararat that year, but they used Kurdish guides, and they were not interested in the ark.)
    • Why would the scientists try to find the ark if they did not believe its existence and did not want it found?
    • Why would they threaten their guides not to reveal the ark's location if the location of the ark was apparently common knowledge to the local Armenians?
    • Yearam died in 1920 at the age of 82. The scientist, who was reputedly much older than Yearam, died around 1918. His age must have been 100 or more.
    • The newspaper story has never been found, despite diligent search.

    According to the account, Yearam's father thought God wanted people to know the ark was still there. That combined with the vilification of unbelievers suggests that the story was created as religious propaganda.

References:

  1. Bailey, Lloyd, 1989. Noah: The Person and the Story in History and Tradition. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.
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created 2003-5-7