Noah's Ark and the Ararat Adventure/Noah's Ark and the Lost World
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Noah's Ark and the Ararat Adventure/Noah's Ark and the Lost World are 2 creationist publications that are written by John Morris and published by Master Books in 1988 and was rehashed and published again in 1994.
Rebuttal
It is not known where did Henry Morris got the idea of Noah's ark to be a long rectangular box with a long row of windows on each side of the narrow deck at the very top center of the roof, but it is known that this may not be the right image of what the ark may have looked like when it was used 7,500 years ago during the great flood, which took place near the Black Sea. This version of Noah's ark is entirely all made up by the YECs (Young Earth Charlatans) who also dredged up the myth about man living with dinosaurs in a world that was created at the time of the Egyptian Predynastic Period along with other events occurring in c4000 BCE/BC. Perhaps they have this idea of Noah's ark when looking at a certain warehouse or they just made it up out of the blue. Either way, this is all made up. No one knows for sure what the ark is like. Still it is better to regard Noah's ark to be massive boat with a house like structure on top with Noah, his wife, his sons and their wives and all sorts of modern animals inside the boat than what the YECs think the ark was in one's opinion.
Henry Morris, who was, as they say, the father of the modern YEC movement (and as absent-minded as he was old.), who was also a disciple of George Macready Price, a follower of Seventh Day Adventism, had a son name John who wrote and published Noah's ark and the Lost World (NALW) in 1988 then rehashed it into Noah's Ark and the Ararat Adventure (NAAA) years later in 1994 putting in more and more hoaxes and also have taken photographs of certain sites out of text and twists them to fit his own YE views.
This rebuttal will only be made to NAAA since it is exactly the same as NALW. The only difference between the 2 is the illustrations different than what is seen in NALW and an extra chapter involving archaeology found only in NAAA.
First off, the cover of the book shows some discoverers observing Noah's warehouse Ark while a ghostly vision of Noah, a dove, 2 dinosaurs, and a mammoth appears on the front cover of the book. There is a summary shown on the back of what the book is all about and goes like this, with my emphases included in bold parentheses,
“The Adventure isn't over yet (Actually it is a hoax.) The search for Noah's Ark (warehouse) is one of the greatest detective stories (hoaxes) of modern times. Noah's Ark and the Ararat Adventure takes you on a daring mountain climbs and into a world that has long since ceased to exist (that never did exist in the first place!) Is there reliable evidence that Noah's ark is still on Mt Ararat? (NO!) If so why hasn't it been found? (because it rotted away that's why!) Dr. (or is he?) John Morris looks at clues (he himself have laid down in secret.) that has been found and takes you with him up the mountain (actually it's a mountain range, but John does not want you to know that.) as he and his friends (whom be bribed to come with him) explore the areas of reposted sightings (that is known to be fictional and discredited.). Discover what the world was like before the Flood (that never existed.). What was it like when men and dinosaurs lived side by side (while they NEVER did!)? Just how did Noah get all of those animals into the ark (He couldn't with all of those 90 million plus animals living and extinct around him.)? These questions and many more are answered (dishonestly) in this fascinating (faulty to be exact.) book.”
The so-called adventure is actually a hoax made up by YECs to convince the gullible of their own biblical views to be regarded as true, but in reality it is not.
Page 1 features a drawing of John that's really a drawing version of an actual photograph of him on the mountain as shown in NALW and a brief forward summary made up by him about the book and the claims made up by people who allegedly saw the ark in many areas and places on the mountain.
Page 2 shows a Forward that is actually an appeal to authority. It is made up by an astronaut named Co. Jim Erwin who passed away in 1991, who claims he have found evidence of the flood occurring at the same time as the heyday of both the Sumerian nation and the Ancient Egyptian nation occurring in 2370 BC/BCE. He may have been an astronaut who walked on the moon but he was NO archaeologist, paleontologist, and/or a historian!
Page 3 shows a list of contents of the book. No big deal. Morris, like all other YECs, made up a world where all life forms, past and present, live at the same time, not to long ago, in a few thousand years past (At the very height of Egyptian civilization.). In this fantasy time, what YECs called the “Lost World,” on page 4 and 5, Morris encourages the reader to imagine what was like in the so-called pre-flood era that never existed, where we see dinosaurs and modern animals as well as some descendants of Adam living side by side in a world that has never existed to begin with.
Pages 6 tried to answer the question, “How can we know what the world was like before the flood?” The answers is you can't! It never existed in the first place. Morris, however, believes the world according to him and his old man once existed because it says so in the Bible...or did it really says that according to his made up interpretations of it? He goes on with stating his falsehood about the billions of dead things laid down by Noah's flood as told by other YECs like Ken Ham, while being ignorant of the fact that finding fossils are monstrously rare and they are not laid down by water and buried in mud all over the earth. Then he goes to claim if we don't believe the details he thinks God have provided in the Bible, then then it would be much difficult for us to understand the past from the evidence we see around us. The problem with this claims is that the evidence to the past according to Morris and other YECs is NOT there. Like I said, using the Bible as evidence of the earth's past according to the YECs is NOT evidence at all. It proves nothing of what the YECs claim for the earth's past to be. I don't care what the YECs say about it. Even the image involving people being “puzzled” about putting together a puzzle set without help from the Bible, according to the YECs in comparison with those who put together the puzzle with the greatest of ease with the Bible's help as shown in the illustration on the same page won't prove their point either.
Morris, then on page 7, tells of the beginning in the YE mythic version of the Garden of Eden. And of how the animals and people sickly live at peace, side by side, and be vegetarians (actually killing the plants in the process despite efforts being made by the YECs to claim constantly that there was no death occurring before the Fall.) and how the garden is misty at night (Morris and others like him believe there was no rain that occurred before the flood. However what they do not know and/or refuse to know is of the fact that mist is a form of rain and instead there could be a river there in the garden irrigating the plants growing in the garden instead of a mist.) and always sunshiny in the garden and how God told Adam and Eve they are not to eat the fruit from a certain tree but eventually they did and got kicked out of the Garden for good.
Page 8 tells the reader that Adam and Eve disobey the Lord when Satan, in form of a snake, tempts them to eat the forbidden fruit and 'our parents,' or so they were called according to Morris, sadly gave in and lost their garden home. Morris claim because of what they have done, sin came to the world and have also brought death into the world as told in Romans 5:12. Problem is that what the Apostle Paul is talking about is actually spiritual death, not physical death. But Morris refuses to believe that even though there are verses to accompany Romans 5:12 in the Bible that tells us clearly that before Christ died for us, we were all dead spiritually. After Christ died and rose from the dead, those who accept Him will become spiritually alive in Christ Himself. In Christ, we as Christians are all revived spiritually just like what Paul says in his letters to the church. If Christ died to take away only physical death and physical death is still with us, then He'll be a total failure and would fail His people big time. Many fundamentalist Christians believe that the Garden of Eden was destroyed in the Flood but that has nothing to do with dinosaurs, science, or earth's scientific history at all.
Morris then stated that the whole world was effected by the curse of sin which brought on hard work, people and animals dying, and meat eating animals making kills, which is highly flawed. First off predatory behavior is NO sin. Even the Bible in some cases condones predatory behavior. However, YECs thinks that this is a weak provision. Does this mean that God is weak too? Such insolence! The entire planet is not cursed. Only the ground that Adam lived on is cursed meaning the ground will reverted back to it's uncultivated state which means Adam had to worked his butt off to grow his own food. And finally, whether YECs like it or not, animals do not sin. Death, no matter how unpleasant it is, is a necessary part of life. It's God's way of ending one's suffering in this world; like when the spirit is set free from its body that's painfully stricken with a terminal disease. Something YECs don't even want to admit. This website known as godandscience.org contains references that deals with the issue of what YECs preach when it comes to predators, curse, animal morality, and physical death. What YECs, even Morris, preach about on page 8 is all refuted right here.
- http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/genesis3.html
- http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/death.html
- http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/youngearth.html#Death%20is%20evil
- http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/carnivores.html
- http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/paradise.html
Page 10 deals with the pre-flood life spans of people as told in Genesis 5, which it is actually a mistranslation of that Bible chapter. See here on this site for details (note: click on How old was Noah to read the article.).
Page 11 deals with man's wickedness as told in Genesis 6:13. Morris, ignorant as usual, claims the animals were also wicked; not living the life God has intended for them to live. A worthless claim. Does this mean the animals have to have Jesus too to be saved? No! Animals are morally innocent and don't need to have a savior to save them from Hell like man does. God did have to sacrifice the animal and plant kingdom living around the Black Sea to punish the wicked for their sins. Fortunately Noah, a righteous man found grace in the eyes of the Lord, at God's command build the ark to save the animals and the people from the flood. Noah warned the people to repent and be saved, but his pleadings for repentance and salvation fall on deaf ears. Morris claim there was no rain before the flood, but what does he and other YECs call mist as? Smoke? Get real! Mist is a form of rain and all that mist is not going to water all those lush plants that supposedly grow in the pre-flood world. Ordinary rain will. But it all depends on the kinds of plants that's out there that will take in water without a problem. Some plants needed more water than others. Some just need only a little to survive. If there ever was a worldwide flood, NONE of the plants, no matter if they need little or a lot of water, fresh or salt water, will ever survive.
Now we get to pages 12 - 17 that talks about the warehouse ark and life inside of it YECs insist that this is the actual ark that Noah sailed on. Most likely, it is probably all made up by Morris' dad when he looked at a certain warehouse for vehicles or for storage of certain supplies somewhere or he just made it up out of the blue. Either way, this ark concept is all made up based on an old Hebrew word for 'ark' which is 'aron' meaning 'chest' or 'box'. They think the traditional ark, the boat with the house on top of it is not right. How do they know? Did they ever did any research on it to know what they are saying is right or did they made it up out of the blue based on that ancient Hebrew word and use a warehouse as a model invent such a claim? What makes them think that what they are saying is true, while in fact they probably have all made it up from their heads in an attempt to fix the problems that are associated with the ark? Obviously, the first answer is they don't. They made it all up on their own. Secondly, as far as I know, perhaps they got the idea from a large storage warehouse they saw at one time. And third they got it all from "The Letter of the Law", twisted version of Genesis 1-11 made up by YECs like Morris himself. Wherever they got the concept from, it doesn't matter. This ark concept is highly flawed and questionable.
Page 13 tells of Noah and his family who have been building the warehouse ark for 120 years. The concept is taken from Genesis 6:3, which says that God gave the people 120 years to repent of their sins; giving Noah and his family enough time to build the ark. That is what Genesis 6:3 usually means according to many Christians. However, although it's no big deal concerning of the ark's construction the pitch, the wood (traditionally gopher wood refers to cypress wood.) the 3 decks and a huge door and window (Not many windows mind you.), The big question is, where did Morris and others get the idea of Noah's retangular ark to have a bunch of windows at the top center on the roof? If that's really for ventilation purposes, then the whole ark will be totally soaked when the flood rains came seeping in the window and door openings. Even when there is tar or pitch covering the ark inside and out. Plus, this fails to explain how can ventilation get to the lower decks of the ark if all of the opening are at the very top. Even with a wooden boat, the ark still need to have very strong metal supports in them to keep the warehouse ark from splitting apart and a special pump to pump out the water back outside the ark. Over the years, wooden boats were torn apart and destroyed during fierce storms. I believe Henry Morris, John's father, is the first to give out this concept of what the ark is like and other YECs just simply follow suit.
Morris then tried to answer the question about how did Noah get all of the animals in the ark. To which he claims that all of the animals lived much closer together and God brought them into the ark with ease. This, however, failed to explain how come we find NO fossils of kangaroos, koalas, and wombats elsewhere, even in the Middle East, outside of Australia. The Middle East would be a very overcrowded place with all those 90 million animals plus millions of people living together all in that one section of the world come to think of it. Morris claims there were no mountains back then before the flood. If it is so, then how come there is a mountain shown on pages 9, 15, 16, and 17 in the book and how come we are finding evidence of mountains forming gradually over millions of years and not at all a full year as YECs claim for them to have formed during the flood?
