Archaeological Discoveries

Noah's Flood — fact or fiction?

Ships buried deep beneath mountains. Well-formed boats have been unearthed in solid stone and at remarkable depths underground — in Switzerland, Russia, and Africa among other places. The Swiss discovery, in 1460, was found 100 feet deep inside a mountain, complete with an iron anchor and, more disturbingly, the bones of forty men among the timbers.

The Bible describes Noah as a preacher of righteousness for over a century before the Flood — met, presumably, with the same skepticism people bring to warnings of catastrophe today. Then, the account says, it happened: a cataclysmic event disrupting the earth's crust, releasing vast subterranean waters, and bringing weeks of continuous rain as a surrounding water canopy collapsed. Genesis describes it as "the windows of heaven" opening.

Beyond the Bible, flood traditions appear across cultures worldwide — a strikingly widespread and consistent memory of global catastrophe, survivors, and a repopulated earth. Further ship discoveries have turned up in Naples after an earthquake split a mountainside, and in Peru, where 16th-century miners found an ancient ship deep underground while following a vein of silver.

This is an excerpt. The full article and companion eBook examine the geological, archaeological, and cross-cultural evidence for a global flood in far greater depth — including the search for Noah's Ark itself.