Chapter 2
The Evidence- Man's First Home in Turkey
It all began in Turkey- here was where mankind was reborn so to speak. Remnants of the numerous and varied nations which all were "born" when they were divided by the confounding of the language, can still be found here: "Turkey has so many archaeological sites that no one has yet been able to count them. An educated estimate is that there are some 40,000, ranging from scattered burials to the magnificent remains of sumptuous cities. As the land bridge between Asia and Europe, Anatolia [Turkey] has witnessed a unique procession of peoples and civilizations. In this varied landscape one finds Neolithic settlement and Bronze Age cities, and, in a continuous chronology, the mingled artifacts of the Hittites, the Assyrians, the Phrygians, the Lydians, the Ionian Greeks, the Persians, the Armenians, the Hellenistic Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Arabs, the Seljuks, the Frankish Crusaders, and the Ottoman Turks. The great majority of sites are in unpoliced rural areas, many of them only recently opened up by the building of roads." (PP, p. 56.)
The Fertility of the "Ararat Plain"The area where the ark came to rest was in a mountain range just a few miles south of the Araxes Valley or Ararat Plain (PH, p. 35). The Aras (Araxes) River runs through this valley, beginning in Erzurum, Turkey, (west of Noah's home), and traveling east it then forms part of the Turkish- Russian and Turkish-Iranian border. The 2 volcanic Ararat mountains arose in this plain and can be seen from the site of the ark as arising abruptly from the green, fertile valley. This area possesses a "special fertility" (PH p. 35) which is indicative of the special provisions God made for the first family in reestablishing life on the planet. In 1989, Ron photographed a roadside vegetable stand in the area near the ark where a local farmer was selling his cabbages- the largest we have ever seen anywhere! (See photo at right).
Plant Foods from Seeds Brought on the Ark
Before Noah and his family entered the ark, after he was told by God to take 2 of every unclean animal and 7 pairs of every clean animal, he was further instructed:
GEN 6:21 And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.
This indicates that all of the food for both the people and the animals was plant-life; food products that could be gathered and would last throughout the entire time they were in the ark. And from this food they would have had seeds, even if they didn't bring seeds with them (which I suspect they did). When they left the ark, they began to sow the seeds that would produce food. And the archaeological excavations reveal evidence which fit this scenario perfectly. I couldn't help but chuckle when I read the following concerning the evidences found in eastern and central Turkey: "Paleo-botany had provided evidence illuminating the earliest stages of the cultivation of emmer and einkorn wheat and two-row barley, with subsequent mutations resulting in improved strains; but still the problem of the ultimate geographical sources of the wild grains found in the earliest excavated settlements awaits solution,..." (PH, p. 4). "Even more important than the different varieties of timber available for building were the species of edible plants. Of these of course the most important are the cereals, but also the most problematic because of the unsolved questions of the origins." (PH, p. 10). It was in Anatolia (Turkey) that many plants were "reborn"- planted there by Noah and his family from seeds brought there from before the flood,- and from there, carried to the various parts of the world: "Anatolia is situated at the meeting of three principle zones of distribution of plants: these are the so-called Euro-Siberian zone (Europe, Russian and Siberia), the Irano-Turanian zone (the steppes of central Asia, Iran and central Anatolia) and the Mediterranean zone.... Recent work has shown a large percentage of plants which are endemic, that is, confined to Turkey: this is particularly true of the Taurus ranges, where the Irano-Turanian and the Mediterranean botanical zones meet." (PH pp. 9, 10). This last quote is especially exciting for it tells us that in the general region of south central Turkey, there is a large number of plants that are found ONLY there! Well, what does that mean? It indicates that some of the original plants Noah brought from the pre-flood world never made it past the region of Babel. When the time came that the groups left the area, it looks like they only took with them the major grains and staple plant foods leaving behind a variety of plants whose beginnings were in the pre-flood world.Noah Even Planted Fruits Which Today STILL Grow in the Cold Climate
Not only did Noah and his family have grain foods- they had fruits, which is rather amazing considering the climate of the northeastern part of Turkey. To this day, Turkey has fruits which thrive in spite of it's cold climate: "...apples, plums, apricots, peaches and mulberries are common in the eastern highlands, including the districts round Lake Van, where they are hardy enough to survive the severe winters" (PH, p. 10). Remember Noah's vineyard?: GEN 9:20 And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:.Yet, vineyards are usually found in warm climates, certainly not in regions with such dreadfully cold winters as eastern Turkey. But,: "The vine is a hardy plant at home in much of Anatolia, Trans-Caucasia and the Urmia basin, the grape-bearing type being vitis vinifera,..." (PH, p. 11). To sum up the evidences, the earliest found specimens and forms of many, many food plants are found in the ancient settlements extending outward from the area of the ark and Ron's site for Babel in south central Turkey. Turkey even has some plants today which are found no where else on earth. How can these things be explained? There is no explanation except for the Genesis account.
