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
