Mountains of Ararat explained

In the Book of Genesis, the mountains of Ararat (Biblical Hebrew, Tiberian Hebrew: hārê ’Ǎrārāṭ, Septuagint: Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: τὰ [[:wikt:ὄρος|ὄρη]] τὰ Ἀραράτ)[1] is the term used to designate the region in which Noah's Ark comes to rest after the Great Flood.[2] It corresponds to the ancient Assyrian term Urartu, an exonym for the Armenian Kingdom of Van.[3] [4]

Since the Middle Ages the "mountains of Ararat" began to be identified with a mountain in present Turkey (historical Armenia) known as Masis or Ağrı Dağı; the mountain became known as Mount Ararat.[5] [6]

History

Citing historians Berossus, Hieronymus the Egyptian, Mnaseas, and Nicolaus of Damascus, Josephus writes in his Antiquities of the Jews that "[t]he ark rested on the top of a certain mountain in Armenia, . . . over Minyas, called Baris".

Likewise, in the Latin Vulgate, Jerome translates Genesis 8:4 to read: "Requievitque arca . . . super montes Armeniae" ("and the ark rested . . . on the mountains of Armenia");[7] though in the Nova Vulgata as promulgated after the Second Vatican Council, the toponym is amended to "montes Ararat" ("mountains of Ararat").[8]

By contrast, early Syrian and Eastern tradition placed the ark on Mount Judi in what is today Şırnak Province, Southeastern Anatolia Region,[9] an association that had faded by the Middle Ages and is now mostly confined to Quranic tradition.

The Book of Jubilees specifies that the ark came to rest on the peak of Lubar, a mountain of Ararat.[10]

Sir Walter Raleigh devotes several chapters of his Historie of the World (1614) to an argument that in ancient times the mountains of Ararat were understood to include not only those of Armenia, but also all of the taller mountain-ranges extending into Asia. He maintains that since Armenia is not actually located east of Shinar, the ark must have landed somewhere in the Orient.

See also

Further reading

Notes and References

  1. Book: BIBLE - GENESIS 8:4.
  2. Web site: Genesis 8:4 . Bible Hub . Online Parallel Bible Project . 8 June 2018 . genesis84 .
  3. [David Marshall Lang|Lang, David Marshall]
  4. Redgate, Anna Elizabeth. The Armenians. Cornwall: Blackwell, 1998, pp. 16–19, 23, 25, 26 (map), 30–32, 38, 43. .
  5. Book: Agadjanian, Alexander . Armenian Christianity Today: Identity Politics and Popular Practice . 15 April 2016 . Routledge . 978-1-317-17857-6 . 14 . It is worth noting that, contrary to Armenian Apostolic Church discourse and popular knowledge, it was probably as late as the beginning of the second millennium AD when the localization of the biblical Mount Ararat was permanently moved from the highlands hemming upper Mesopotamia to Mount Masis in the heart of historical Armenian territory..
  6. Book: Petrosyan, Hamlet . Levon . Abrahamian. Levon Abrahamian. Nancy . Sweezy . Armenian Folk Arts, Culture, and Identity . 2001 . Indiana University Press . 978-0-253-33704-7 . 36 . The Sacred Mountain . When Armenians were first introduced to the biblical story of the flood, there was no special interest in the location of Mount Ararat. Most Armenian historians in the Early Middle Ages accepted the generally held Christian opinion of the time that Ararat was located near Mesopotamia in Korduk (Corduene), the southernmost province of Armenia. However, when European Crusaders on their way to free the Holy Land from Moslem rule appeared in the region in the 11th century, Armenian hopes for similar "salvation" helped to catalyze the final identification of Masis with Ararat. From the 12th century on, Catholic missionaries and other travelers to the region returned to Europe with the same story: that the mountain where the Ark landed was towering in the heart of Armenia..
  7. Web site: The Book of Genesis: Chapter 8 . LatinVulgate.com . Mental Systems, Inc. . 8 June 2018 . latinvulgategen84 .
  8. Web site: Liber Genesis . Nova Vulgata: Bibliorum Sacrorum Editio . The Holy See . 8 June 2018 . novavulgatagen84 .
  9. Conybeare . Frederick Cornwallis . Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare . Reviewed Work: Ararat und Masis. Studien zur armenischen Altertumskunde und Litteratur by Friedrich Murad . . April 1901 . 5 . 2 . 335–337 . 10.1086/477703 . 3152410 . conybeare1901 .
  10. Web site: The Book of Jubilees: Chapter 7 . Pseudepigrapha, Apocrypha and Sacred Writings . 8 June 2018 . jubilees .

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