Claim CH505.5:
In 1916, a story by Vladimir Roskovitsky told how he and other Russian aviators sighted the ark, nearly intact, grounded on the shore of a lake on Ararat. An expedition reached the ark about a month later. Photographs and plans were sent to the czar, but the Bolsheviks overthrew the czar a few days later, and the evidence was lost.Later testimony revealed that that account -- even the name Roskovitsky -- was 95 percent fiction, but other Russian soldiers have told of hearing of an expedition mounted in 1917 to discover Noah's ark, based on something in a lake spotted from the air.
Source:
LaHaye, Tim and John Morris, 1976. The Ark on Ararat, Nashville: Thomas
Nelson Inc. and Creation Life Publishers, pp. 76-87.
Response:
- The original story is admittedly untrue. However, the supposed historical nucleus of the story does not withstand scrutiny, either. The expedition was reportedly prevented from reaching the ark by a swamp full of snakes, but the only swamps are at the base of Ararat (Bailey 1989, 87).
References:
- Bailey, Lloyd, 1989. Noah: The Person and the Story in History and Tradition. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.
created 2003-5-7