Christian Pure

Where Did Noah’s Ark Land? The Mountains of Ararat, but Which Peak?

Christian Pure Team

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Published

Summary

  • Genesis 8:4 says the ark rested “upon the mountains of Ararat,” which names a land and leaves the mountain open. Ararat is the Hebrew form of Urartu, an ancient kingdom between the Aras and the upper Tigris.
  • Armenian tradition and most modern searchers hold Greater Ararat, which Armenians call Masis. Jerome pointed to the peaks above the Araxes plain about 410, Armenian Christian texts naming Masis survive from the 11th century, and scholars disagree about how far back the belief goes.
  • The Targums, Genesis Rabbah and the Syriac Peshitta move the ark south to Corduene (Qardu). A monastery there by the 5th century, and later Muslim tradition, fix it on Mount Judi (Cudi Dağı) near Cizre, about 190 miles (300 km) south-west of Ararat.
  • St Jacob of Nisibis woke to find wood from the ark beneath his head. The earliest history to tell of him, written about 470, sets his mountain in Korduk’; the Armenian Church today tells the story of Mount Ararat and keeps the fragment at Etchmiadzin.
  • Christians still differ on the site: ABR’s Rick Lanser favours Ararat, CMI’s Bill Crouse favours Mount Judi, and ICR’s Tim Clarey proposes a ridge west of Ararat.
  • The search goes on at the Durupınar mound near Ararat. Carbon-14 results on burnt wood are expected from France around the end of October 2026 and from Turkey about three months later, and the final radar report at the end of November; no ancient wood has been identified so far.

Genesis says the ark rested “upon the mountains of Ararat,” and tells us no more about the place. Ararat is the Hebrew form of Urartu, an ancient kingdom in the highlands between the Aras and the upper Tigris, in what is now eastern Turkey, Armenia and north-western Iran. So the verse names a land, and it never says which of its mountains held the ark. Tradition has settled on two of those mountains: Armenian Christians and most modern searchers point…

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Bibliography (Click to show)
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