As significant findings like this come to light, there’s one very important thing to note, Christian apologist and American Family Radio host Alex McFarland said Thursday: These discoveries, by some, may not be considered defining proof of biblical people and events, but “there never has been an archaeological find that contradicted something we read in the Bible,” he told show host Jenna Ellis.
“Over and over," he said, "archaeological discoveries have validated and corroborated what we read in the Word of God.”
A research team known as Noah’s Ark Scans, working at the Durupınar Formation in eastern Turkey (roughly 18 miles / 30 km south of Mount Ararat), says they’ve used ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and soil analysis to identify features beneath a large boat-shaped formation which they believe may be the remains of the Ark, Daily Express U.S. reported.
The team's GPR data analysis claims to have identified central and side passages or corridors throughout the vessel, Express UK reports. The scans additionally detected three distinct layers underground, corresponding with the Biblical description of the ark containing three levels.
The Durupınar Formation sits just 18 miles south of Mount Ararat, Turkey's tallest mountain, and has only been recognized by the modern world for less than a century. According to reports, intense rainfall and seismic activity in May 1948 eroded the covering mud, exposing the mysterious formation, which was subsequently discovered by a Kurdish shepherd, Daily Express U.S. reported.
Archeology as a science is relatively young as compared to fields like math or astronomy. It really began to gain momentum in the 1800s.
Early explorers like Edward Robinson, Charles Warren and Charles Wilson were key figures in the growth of biblical archaeology.
“Nowhere have the finds been more exciting than and significant than in the area of where archaeology, not only throughout the Middle East but around the world, vindicates and validates what the Bible says,” McFarland said.
These findings have refuted German Liberalism, an 18th Century movement, that, among other things, denied the existence of Abraham, Moses and the Exodus, McFarland said. Some have argued that writing didn’t exist at the time of Moses, therefore Moses couldn’t have written the first five books of the Bible.
“But archaeologists have demonstrated that writing existed thousands of years before Moses lived," McFarland countered, "and on and on we could go: Solomon building the temple, King David, the Exodus, the Palace of David..."
The validation, the discoveries are fascinating, but believers need to remember that belief is rooted in faith.
The discoveries, though, can play a key role in deepening faith.
Harder not to believe than believe
“The evidence is so compelling that it’s a fairly easy painless step of faith. In fact, obstinate unbelief against the Bible in light of the voluminous evidence … that’s what’s unjustified,” McFarland said.
Some of the most compelling evidence comes from Ezekiel 37:11-12, McFarland says.
In the text, the Lord instructs Ezekiel to say to the Israelites: “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you p from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel.”
The rise of Israel after the Holocaust is a direct connection with these verses, McFarland said.
“Just three years after the Holocaust that happened … the rebirth of the nation of Israel May 14, 1948. That’s just one thing of hundreds we could talk about,” he said.
