Another Noah’s Ark Book… Heaven Forfend…
These things keep spewing from the presses like diarrhea spews from an ailing baby. It’s no longer just simple silliness or sad dilettantism, it has become a cottage industry driven by greedy people concerned only for public acclaim and personal profit.
In May 2010 a Chinese-Kurdish research team released to the press that they had found a large wooden structure on Mt. Ararat at an altitude of 4,200 meters. But this spectacular discovery has been ignored – even though it IS most probably the biblical Ark of Noah.
No, it isn’t.
The Danish journalist Henri Nissen began in 1999 to research the topic and has made several expeditions to Eastern Turkey. His book, Noah’s Ark: Ancient Accounts and New Discoveries, has now been released. Nissen unveils the great Chinese-Kurdish discovery and presents the reader with facts that allow one to decide for himself if this find is genuine or not. He also presents a historical review of the search for the Ark and describes the ancient sources, both biblical and other, such as the Sumerian clay tablets, which also describe the Flood, the Ark, and persons alluding to Noah.
I know my Danish friends will be so very, very proud that this dilettante is one of their countrymen. But surely he must be a professional archaeologist or Biblical scholar, right?
Wrong.
Henri Nissen is a journalist and has written thousands of articles, produced radio broadcasts and television programs, and written 11 books. He has traveled extensively in French-speaking Africa for the Lutheran World Federation. He is now an independent media consultant. He is married to the artist Birthe Engedal and has a daughter and two sons. The search for Noah’s Ark has been his passion for the last ten years, and he has visited the Ararat Mountains numerous times. This book is the result of his comprehensive research.
Journalists… Why they think they’re capable of serious scholarship is beyond me. Anyway, Mr Nissen, you’ve earned it, so here’s your dilly:
[Thanks to Eric Cline for pointing the story out.]
Dear Jim, while digging in my backyard in Montreal, I made an astonishing archeological discovery: one of Adam’s wisdom teeth. Nearby was an authentic papyrus written in perfect French (as you well know, French being the language the Bible was written in) by Eve in person. Already hundreds of miracles happened. My neighbour’s elederly aunt was cured of her prostate cancer just by kissing it. I am now finishing writing a very scholarly book on the whole topic and I would greatly appreciate your writing the preface.
Claude Vigneau
October 1, 2012 at 22:33