Even if something more interesting HAD happened, I'd still blog about THIS.

So guess what... Noah's Ark is reported to have been found!

I haven't had much time to blog lately, but I have been thinking about posting (That counts, right? Don't tell me you can't read my mind.) I planned to take some time to post a Wednesday Hump-Day Smoothing recipe or something, when my plans got thwarted by my boss who was really excited to tell me that wood from Noah's Ark was found in Turkey yesterday. Ok, I thought. That beats whatever nothingness all two of you were going to read today.

Here's the dish:

 Fox News account

ABC News account (Sorry... it won't let me embed this video. But please watch!!!!!)

There are a few skeptical points made, including that the wood should have disinigrated after 5000 years, that God would have commanded Noah to build other items out of the Ark wood due to lack of forests at the time ("Search for Noah's first house instead of Noah's Ark", Mt. Atarat could have splintered the Ark to pieces, etc. 

But I couldn't help getting reeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllllllllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyy excited. What if this were true?

I'm excited because I believe this story is factual. I know Noah was a prophet called by God and asked by Him to deliver a message to the people. There is no doubt in my mind that he was instructed in how to build this structure in preparation for a baptism of the Earth, the Great Flood, and that it must have sounded so crazy to the rest of the people that few believed and supported Noah. If the Ark were found, it would help others celebrate, respect, and revere that man and his family for the struggle and journey they undertook, as well as the "radical" possibility that God knows and speaks to us yesterday, today, and forever. It could be a very powerful missionary tool! Those darn people in New York won't believe anything  until it's on their doorsteps.... grumble, grumble.

But the expert from the ABC news video states that people have wanted to find the Ark for years to lend some validity to the Bible and their faiths. I got somewhat defensive at hearing that, even though I have to admit I want that for those unbelievers and skeptics.

That got me thinking... If scientific evidence exists to support this and other Bible stories, would God really help us find it? Would He want His children to be given evidence, in addition to the Book of Mormon, of His existence, or would that defeat the concept of Faith?

Faith is, after all, 'the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.' Heb. 11:1

Though we consider The Book of Mormon to be additional evidence of Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father, the Golden Plates it was translated from were translated to Heaven. We were to believe the Book of Mormon to be true, not to physically see the plates and symbols on them. Because to see isn't  faith, that's fact.

Is the Bible, then, comparable to the Book of Mormon and the Ark comparable to the Golden Plates? Will we, or should we, or would Heavenly Father ever allow or want us to see, feel, and hear the factual existence of that structure?

Gosh... I sure would love to believe that we could, but I just don't know that that fits into the definition of faith. Heavenly Father would never force us to believe anything, and comming face-to-face with evidence of something faith-ful would be hard to deny, ignoring our free agency.

What do you think?