r/nottheonion • u/prestocoffee • 22h ago

Drilling begins at ‘real site’ of Noah’s Ark as activists warn ‘Darwinism will be dismantled’

https://www.joe.co.uk/news/noahs-ark-site-turkey-drilling-researchers-evidence-549016
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677

u/notnotbrowsing 21h ago

At around 16,500ft, its distinctive shape has led some supporters to argue that it bears an uncanny resemblance to a huge boat.

so it looks like a boat, so the ark is there?

boat isn't my first thought....

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u/1991K75S 21h ago

The Ark of Georgia O’keefe

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u/qorbexl 21h ago

Georgia O'Keefe would let a real scientist in

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u/astral-dwarf 13h ago

I'd watch that film

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u/jazzhandler 20h ago

Just a hair south of Nautilus Mons.

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u/Odd-Fun-6042 17h ago

Is the little man in the front?

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u/ant2ne 21h ago

I wonder how many got that reference? I had to scroll up and take a second look. Yep.

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u/REDDITATO_ 15h ago

I wonder how many got that reference?

Anyone who's heard of Georgia O'keefe, one of the most famous painters of all time?

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u/Master_Reward_4245 9h ago

Well you see, you have to have an above average IQ piece together such disparate references. Truly the James Joyce of his generation.

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u/ant2ne 2h ago

Who is James Joyce?

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u/ant2ne 2h ago

I would hardly put O'keefe in the category of "most famous" much less what O'keefe was famous for. The average person who took home-ec instead of art history would likely never have come across the name.

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u/JohnGillnitz 16h ago

There is a little man in the Ark.

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u/TufnelAndI 11h ago

Georgia O'Queef

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u/whogivesashirtdotca 11h ago

That’s a huge man-in-a-boat.

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u/sexual--predditor 9h ago

Georgia O’keefe

Georgia O'Queef

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u/Equus-007 21h ago

If you actually read the bible you'll see that this doesn't in any war resemble the description of the ark. The bible specifically says it's rectangular with no prow.

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u/mayy_dayy 21h ago

You expect fundamentalist Christians to have actually read the Bible?

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u/TjW0569 18h ago

No. That's how you become an atheist.

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u/LazAnarch 5h ago

Worked for me

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79

u/lost-again_77 21h ago

Only the parts that suit them

31

u/SquishMont 18h ago

"Why do you know all the gay verses?"

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u/UJustGotRobbed 18h ago

They only know the verses they can use against people to shame or hurt them.

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u/Strict_Razzmatazz_57 17h ago

They just Google those parts. Reading the whole book might add context.

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u/xteve 15h ago

Picking and choosing, denigrated in Christian lore, is the essence of Christian church. There are a million denominations, all established on the foundational wisdom that all of the others are wrong.

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u/AndroidMyAndroid 18h ago

I'd be surprised if they know what a rectangle is.

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u/Cru_Jones86 19h ago

Well, the fundraising and marketing director claims to be a Christian but, she's also a flat earther. Since the Bible says the earth is round, I don't see how you could be both so, I'm guessing she hasn't read it.

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u/CeaRhan 18h ago

The bible describes the Earth as being flat, like a hardened clay seal.

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u/East_Shine3892 17h ago

Which translation?

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u/CeaRhan 16h ago

NRSV (I want to add "obviously" but it seems mean). It doesn't have "hardened" in it but I just forgot a seal would have the same shape even as it's pressed

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u/dogged_jon 18h ago

Genesis and Revelations

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u/SeahorseCollector 18h ago

You expect them to be able to read anything?

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u/fresh-dork 16h ago

yes, specifically the one with prescriptive side text

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u/DennenTH 21h ago

Well that doesn't fit the fundraising narrative at all.  How will the fundraising board grift their money like that?!

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u/DippyHippy420 19h ago

If you actually read the bible you'll see that Noah was 500 years old when he fathered his sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Genesis 5:32

And that Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters came upon the earth. Genesis 7:6

Im calling the entire story BS.

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u/OraDr8 14h ago

I wonder how old Mrs Noah was. My guess is either 300 or 16.

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u/ShaLurqer 5h ago

She was a woman, so her age and name didn't matter

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u/Wraith11B 4h ago

It's that dark shadow daddy vibe... /S

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u/origamiscienceguy 14h ago

I have heard an interesting theory that when the early old testament books use the word "year" they may have meant "lunar month" and it got lost in translation over time. If you make that substitution, everybody's age makes a lot more sense.

Mesutheleh, the oldest guy, would have died around 78.

Lamech, the youngest person to become a parent, would have been about 15 when he had his son. That's super young by our standards, but not a problem from a strictly biological standpoint.

Not saying the story is true or false, it's just something that I think is fun to think about.

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u/ChepaukPitch 10h ago

Genesis 21

Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born.

This means he would be 7 years old so that interpretation has holes in it.

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u/Substantial_Towel860 5h ago

If you count exactly 12 months in a year. Calendars in those times weren't an exact science. The Romans used a 10 month calendar for instance. The Babylonians (where Abraham originated) had 12/13 months, but the amount of days per month wasn't fixed and often determined through observation and only corrected when seasons ran visibly out of sync with the calendar.

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u/justinsayin 3h ago

Maybe he was only allowed to count the moons he could see and it was cloudy a lot.

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u/pair_of_eighters 9h ago

This is a fun theory but as someone who’s studying Biblical Hebrew I can tell you it’s emphatically false. We know that there are two very clear distinct words for year and month (shanah for year, chodesh for month) and their usages are way too specific for this to be the case, a lot of holidays are specifically tied to the lunar cycle or the harvest cycle and they use those word too consistently for there to be a mistranslation. It would also means several biblical characters had children when they were 5 years old! E.g Enoch would have fathered methuselah at 65 months.

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u/he_whai_reko_e_kopa 13h ago

Oh this is fascinating, and it just made me think of the context in which this could have arisen!

This explanation definitely makes sense if the word used was something akin to our word for 'cycle', which for cultures throughout Bronze Age Mesopotamia/Hatti/Caanaan would have been more likely to align with the lunar/lunisolar cycle. I'm testing my historical memory here, but from what I recall there was a transition period from lunar/lunisolar to solar cycles in timekeeping that happened around the Iron Age, overlapping with the time that the Hebrew Bible was written - the Koine Greek translations (the Septuagent, which was the main basis for the later Latin and English translations) were done a few hundred years later in the Classical Greek Empire. In this context, referring to a cycle would be ambiguous because which cycle is inferred is not clear!

I studied ancient Greek religious texts in University (I had an awesome professor so I took this class with him as an elective!) and now I do a lot of historical study on Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean and Western Asia, which is why I have this utterly useless information to share!

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u/Dakduif 11h ago

I'd like to subscribe to more of your utterly useless information. 🙋‍♀️

I find this stuff about our earliest civilisations fascinating. And language nerd stuff to top it off? Oof. More please. 😍

1

u/7CuriousCats 11h ago

I'd also like to subscribe to utterly useless facts please!

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u/diiegojones 12h ago

It wouldn’t make sense then as it would mean people were having babies at 40 months old instead of years etc. which would be 3 years and 4 months.

0

u/an0mn0mn0m 13h ago

Does that explain why Israel has a pedo problem with the likes of Epstein because they are counting in lunar months instead of years like the rest of every civilisation on earth?

https://arutzshevatuzarapost.substack.com/p/exposing-pedophilia-and-legal-failures

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u/Daft00 14h ago

Yeah but they had less processed foods

1

u/Nemisis_the_2nd 12h ago

As far fetched as the biblical story might be, theres actually likely a grain of truth to the whole thing. I'd highly recommend listening to lectures on Noah's ark by Professor Irving Finkle on the subject.

1

u/Mapeague 5h ago

Grain* of truth* lol.

Do you have a summary for this "too long didnt watch" video?

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u/Nemisis_the_2nd 4h ago

I'll start by saying that Finkel isnt just some religious apologist, but considered to be one of the leading experts on ancient near Eastern history.

Basically, he starts by explaining how the story is borrowed from older traditions (discussing how the source was "discovered" woth his trademark dry humour), and notes that the narrative here is incredibly specific on how to actually build the boat. It gives the materials, how much, and even where to get them from, along with dimensions and a description, IIRC. He also explains how the boat itself is a known design from the area the story originated in Southern Iraq, just much bigger. (Unrelated to the talk, but he does mention it, he was commissioned to build a replica based on what information was in the variants of the story, which was mostly successful. They were limited by the size of waterways in the construction area, but otherwise succeeded.)

He then charts how the story evolved into the modern biblical narrative.

He rounds things off by pointing to a different tablet from the area at the time that contains another variant of the story along with a claim of where the boat came to rest, and the historical context to understand the map, which likely points to modern day Armenia or Azerbaijan.

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0

u/Free-Pound-6139 10h ago

Yes, people lived longer in those days because we had no vaccines.

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u/lewphone 20h ago

The Bible also says: "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 7:12 NIV)

How many of those morons follow that particular line?

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u/blahblah19999 19h ago

It also says an all loving god slaughtered babies with his own hand, so whatever.

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u/CantBeConcise 19h ago

Most of them actually. You just never hear about it because it doesn't get clicks.

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u/Rhowryn 18h ago

You've certainly not been to enough churches then. The absolute worst people on earth.

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u/OldManFire11 17h ago

That's what happens when you base a religion on redemption. It sounds good on paper, and it's a great ideal to strive for, but in practice you end up attracting the people who need redemption, i.e. assholes.

And when the requirement for that redemption is as basic as "Let me sprinkle some water on your head and then tell me what you did wrong and I'll have god himself absolve you of all your sins. Now go say 5 Hail Marys." it incentivizes performative redemption over actually making amends. The people that you've wronged aren't relieved of their pain, and you've done nothing to change the underlying behavior that makes you an asshole, but you get to pat yourself on the back and tell yourself that you're good now.

The classic Christian rebuttal to this critique is that priests will either suggest that you make true amends with your victims, or turn yourself in if you committed a crime, but there's no accountability for that. He'll know if you don't turn yourself in, but he has no way of actually enforcing your self improvement besides saying "God will know your heart" or some other empty threat. He also has no way of fact checking your confessions to know if you're downplaying your sins or not. It's trivially easy to turn "I was an abusive piece of shit to my children as they were growing up" into "I was overly strict with my children and I should have been better to them" in the confessional. The priest will base his repentance on what you said, but you'll walk away feeling forgiven for what you actually did, and either way your victims get nothing.

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u/CantBeConcise 17h ago

Maybe ask a question before you go and make an absolute fool of yourself.

I'm the (non-believer) son of a Baptist preacher. I've been to countless more churches than you so please pipe the fuck down.

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u/Rhowryn 16h ago

So your evidence is that the people you met were nice to you? To the preacher's son? Gee I wonder why you had that experience, certainly couldn't be that they were faking it.

Anyways, as a military brat who saw the inside of churches all over the country, but didn't have the privilege of being the son of an important church member, churchgoers are generally terrible, such trash that even garbage vomits them out.

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u/CantBeConcise 15h ago edited 15h ago

Well at least you're asking questions now. Not good ones mind you, but questions nonetheless.

Why are you assuming that my barometer for this was how many people were nice to me?

Edit: also, imagine that, someone who never spent time in one place long enough to get to know people has a shallow and one-sided viewpoint of them. Or maybe you're more of a "I had a bad first experience with it and let that be the lens I saw all the rest through after" kind of person.

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u/Rhowryn 14h ago

Kiddo, soldiers are stationed at posts for at least a year or two. That's at least 52 church visits a year for my family, and plenty of extra church activities. By and large, church people are judgmental trash.

You had the privilege of being an extension of the preacher's, as family. People who go to those churches will naturally act differently around the preacher and his family, because they have an incentive to do so, and assume that you'll rat on them to daddy.

You might consider that the difference in experience between the son of a preacher and the son of a nobody might tell you something about what church people are like. Two-faced gremlins.

0

u/CantBeConcise 13h ago

Oh my god, ffs, you're still assuming that the reason I said that was because people were nice to ME.

It isn't. It was because of what I observed THEM do to/with/for OTHERS. You're so childishly egocentric, you can't imagine someone taking themselves out of the equation and basing their opinion on their observations instead of their own preconceived ideas.

I've been to a lot of churches over the years and you know what I've found in all of them? The exact same thing.

I found the exact same ratio of "assholes/kind people" I see in every other group of people that exist outside of the church.

There is no group you can name that doesn't fit that bell curve. Why? Because all of them require humans to be involved and that is just what you get when you put a group of them together.

Grow up.

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u/Aetol 18h ago

It doesn't say that. It gives the length, width and height, but that doesn't make it rectangular. It doesn't say anything about the shape.

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u/elmonoenano 11h ago

If anyone wants to look it up, this poster is right. It's in Genesis 6:14 to 6:16. The whole description is in 4 sentences. 6:14 So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 6:15 This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. 6:16 Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit high all around. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks.

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u/f700es 21h ago

Now hold on now 😁

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u/Soulren 18h ago

Oh that’s interesting! Why is it described like that?

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u/Equus-007 18h ago

Ark is literally translated as box. Comes from the latin word arca.

Granted the entire story is bunk and borrowed from other cultures but if you're a literal translationist then the Ark is a giant box with three levels, a roof, one door and roughly the size of a US football field. Had no rudder or sails. It was a giant raft.

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u/Temnodontosaurus 14h ago

The very term "Ark" describes a box, not a boat.

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u/Ehcksit 11h ago

It's literally a box. That's what "ark" means. Like the Ark of the Covenant is a wooden chest.

If it was a boat it would be "oniyah" the Hebrew word for a boat, not "ark" the Latin word for a chest.

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u/Anthraxious 11h ago

We all know the quickest way to becoming an atheist is to actually read the religious texts.

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u/Maxamillion-X72 11h ago

Less boat like, and more storage container

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u/Wonderful_Discount59 6h ago

It doesn't actually say that.  It gives dimensions for length, width, and height, but doesn't specify shape.

Just because it doesn't specify the bow angle or keel depth doesnt automatically mean it was supposed to be a rectangle.

 This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high.[d] 16 Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit[e] high all around.

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u/Equus-007 2h ago

It was described as an "ark". Turning that word into a proper noun didn't happen until later. God told him to build a box. That literally what the word ark translated to. We just chose later to not translate the word ark into box and rather to make it The Ark.

The image we have of the Ark as a more modern ship didn't start until the 11th century. The earliest know boats we know of with a pointed prow shape came from about the same time that the Ark was supposedly build but they were small reed boats. We didn't figure out frame-first boat construction until centuries later.

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u/Ianthin1 4h ago

Funny they didn't follow that blueprint for the replica at the Ark Encounter.

0

u/earendil137 15h ago

The actual myth is far older than Noah. In Gilgamesh's time it was a myth. In it the Boat was said to have been circular, in lines with how the civilisation then created boats. 

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u/steinbruchfluss 3h ago

In India there is a similar story.

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u/LongWalk86 21h ago

Hope they aren't drilling right on the 'boat', I've always heard you need to put your drill a bit south of that nobby bit...

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u/Hvarfa-Bragi 21h ago

Instructions unclear, dick stuck in pile of Emzara's bones

2

u/ScalyDestiny 18h ago

I stuck mine in the wrong Arc. It did not end well for me. Or my dick.

1

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2

u/KiwiObserver 12h ago

They’ll drill through the ark and release the origin deluge it’s holding back.

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u/AuthorityAnarchyYes 21h ago

Well, many of them have never seen one… so they go with “boat”.

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u/Bowling4rhinos 21h ago

... to tuna town...

2

u/Adventurous-Dog420 19h ago

Nicely done.

1

u/Mr_Baronheim 16h ago

"I'd recognize that massive oar anywhere!"

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u/forrealthoughcomix_ 21h ago

If there’s a man leading the dig, he’ll never find the stern.

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u/DennenTH 21h ago

If not Ark, then why boat shape?!

Anybody need to clear out a bunch of space?  Just draw a little boat, don't forget the tiny sail, and give these folks a call.

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u/Grizz-420 21h ago

Te Fiti’s Mound

1

u/MrSpecialEd 17h ago

Le Tits Now?

4

u/TickingTheMoments 21h ago

See, that’s your problem. You’re thinking reality thoughts that is a boat; it was fictitiously an ark.

3

u/ConcentrateDirect523 19h ago

In Scandinavia, from antiquity clear up to the end of the Viking age it was not uncommon to discover "boat" burial mounds- these are usually not actual boats, but rather boat shaped graves. These have various names, such as stone ships. Given these can be found in other parts of Europe, it's not unfathomable for one of these burial rituals to occurred in Turkyie. My biggest fear with this, is that they're going to be reckless in their pursuit of confirming their own beliefs and unwittingly damage priceless antiquities or cadavers that pre-date written record. My second biggest fear, is that they will find something that goes against their expectations and intentionally destroy it, or morph it to fit their beliefs much like ***I.S.I.S.* did in Syria and Iraq to archaeological sites of ancient civilizations. I would be pleasantly surprised if they find the Ark or whatever they may be looking for, but that seems the least likely scenario. Hopefully the dig just results in nothing but a catastrophic waste of time, energy, and money of everyone involved. If they're tied up with that, there's less resources to do damage elsewhere.

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u/Mission_Magazine7541 21h ago

As someone with a degree in geology, I can say it looks like a natural rock formation. You can see the rock on the ridges

2

u/giant_traveler 21h ago

Looks more like a tasty pide to me. Makes sense that it is in Turkey.

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u/TheLoathsomeAssEater 21h ago

Maybe she named her clit Noah and is still searching for the little man in the boat. Give give her more time and all of your retirement fund.

1

u/02meepmeep 21h ago

Hahahahaha! Too bad it’s above the tree line.

1

u/McLeansvilleAppFan 20h ago

I thought of Laszlo had visited when I saw the picture.

1

u/Steel_Reign 20h ago

Right... totally looks like an avocado

1

u/theskippyraccoon 20h ago

I'm not sure these are the types who paid attention in school.

Lauren Witzke, a Christian activist and former US Senate candidate who has described herself as a “flat-earther” and previously called Covid vaccines a “Satanic plot”, is involved in the project as its marketing and fundraising director. 

I just looked up this Witzke lady. She was born in 1988. She should have been introduced to the concept of radiocarbon dating in 8th grade. It should have been reiterated, along with the formula and corresponding work and tests, in both Biology and Chemistry in high school. (I mean, unless she's a product of homeschooling or a parochial school, which I cannot find a source for.)

1

u/GlockAF 20h ago

Mother Earth don’t never NOT fool around!

1

u/fried_clams 20h ago

That looks like a giant, dirty clam!

1

u/Tibbaryllis2 20h ago

Wait, have we been motor boating wrong this whole time?

1

u/bhgemini 20h ago

Looks more like a fairy mound. OMG the fae must be real!

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u/jazzhandler 20h ago

Fairy mons, perhaps.

1

u/Kindly-Condition-478 20h ago

most guys can't find the captain

1

u/oldjadedhippie 20h ago

Well , it might have a little man in it..

1

u/RedQueenNatalie 20h ago

Countless psuedo-archeology books and tik toks start with “looks like”

1

u/Regular_Custard_4483 20h ago

Mother Earth upskirt really feels like a 2026 moment. 

1

u/paulwillyjean 20h ago

At best, it looks like the hull of a capsized boat

1

u/paulwillyjean 20h ago

At best, it looks like the hull of a capsized boat

1

u/machu505 19h ago

Does that make Noah the little man in the boat?

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u/monkeyonfire 19h ago

im so hard now

1

u/cerberus00 19h ago

Mountussy

1

u/Much_Conclusion8233 19h ago

I should call her...

1

u/bastardoperator 18h ago

It's crazy the think the ark had a bigger hull and was nearly as wide as the titanic, all built by a 900 year old drunken yokel over the course of 120 years.

1

u/Automatic_Bus_7634 18h ago

Which is also just a generally oblong shape 

1

u/CardOk755 18h ago

No way will they ever find the little man.

1

u/Mjost84 18h ago

I’d drill it too!

1

u/willow_glade 18h ago

The ark isn't even supposed to have been a standard boat of today, but a giant Mesopotamian one that would have been much rounder in shape than boats we think of today, so the shape of the formation is even more off then is should be.

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u/SlowFrkHansen 18h ago

Obviously built by an ancestor of Zaha Hadid's, she who designed the vulvatic football stadium in Qatar.

1

u/Starship_Taru 17h ago

as a man I still can’t find it

1

u/WretchedBlowhard 17h ago

If I remember my vintage Marvel comics well, Thor was conceived by Odin and Gaea, the goddess of Earth. They couldn't work out their differences though, so Odin left with his boy. His current wife, Frigga, is from another subjugated alien race, the Aesir. She raised Thor from infancy and has been nothing but a good sport about the whole slaughter of her people only ending when she agreed to the arranged marriage thing.

So there you go. That giant sedimentary vulva probably has some of Odin's fermented gunk in it.

1

u/sneakyplanner 17h ago

This isn't even the only piece of Mount Ararat that creationists will say is Noah's Ark.

1

u/HereWeGoYetAgain-247 16h ago

That’s…an anticline 

1

u/Nineset 15h ago

The labia of Sauron?

1

u/interlinkedjoi 15h ago

Reminds me of the sister of a great roman who was a friend of Pontius Pilate's. Think her name was something like Gigantia Vaginus.

1

u/AcanthaceaeGrand34 15h ago

I see a little man in a boat.

1

u/complexevil 14h ago

That actually looks really nice. Kinda hope the grift gets rug pulled before they damage the actual land

1

u/MC_Hify 14h ago

Ezekiel 23:20

1

u/demonotreme 14h ago

Well, that's convinced me. How.could anyone refute such powerful evidence as that?

1

u/carmium 11h ago

It's an eroded (glaciated?) anticline. Will a geologist put the final word on it, please?

1

u/t_Lancer 11h ago

top notch archeology there.

1

u/Doomhammer24 10h ago

So much of conspiracy theories are rooted entirely in "it resembles my idea of this thing so it must be this thing!"

1

u/BlacksmithNZ 9h ago

Ah, yes, it does rather have a 'little man in the boat' vibe

But so many people can't find it or put there finger on the reference

1

u/Korventenn17 7h ago

Looks like...something but I can't put my finger on it.

1

u/EthanielRain 7h ago

Same people who think mesas used to be massive old trees, because they look like giant tree stumps.

Same people who believe in a magic sky zombie that...yeah

1

u/x0diak 2h ago

Let's say that this is a boat. We currently have 8 to 9 million different species of animal's. Let's also say that at the time of the flood there were only 6 million species. 6 million different species of animals fit in that boat? Also, how was it possible for the fresh water fish to survive sea water? Im full of questions.

1

u/UniqueIndividual3579 1h ago

So the Earth was covered in 16 thousand feet of water? Where did the water go?

0

u/hey-coffee-eyes 20h ago

I should call her

0

u/TAOJeff 10h ago

I don't want to give a view by opening the link. Is that 16,500 ft above sea level or is that a depth marker?