Relics

Everyone has heard, I am sure, about how the Catholic church has maintained certain relics throughout history. Bones of saints, bits of the cross, the spear which pierced the side of Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea's toilet paper, and the like. Of course, most of us in this enlightened age realize the truth -- that relics such as these are complete hooey.

But yet there is still a reverent fervency for certain biblical relics; specifically the Holy Grail, Noah's Ark, Mount Sinai, and the Ark of the Covenant. Well, at any rate the Holy Grail certainly does not exist (and never did -- it is a purely Catholic tradition which got entirely out of hand). But what about the others? Many have actually claimed to have found them.

One of the most prolific self-proclaimed biblical archeologists in history, Ron Wyatt, claimed to have found the site of the Red Sea crossing, the "real" Mount Sinai, Noah's Ark, the Ark of the Covenant, and just for good measure, Sodom and Gomorrah. PS: Wyatt was a nurse anesthetist who claimed that the big guy upstairs had blessed him with keen insight. In other words, he had absolutely no experience as an archaeologist.

As a fundamentalist bible-literalist young-earth creationist I also believed wholeheartedly in Wyatt's discoveries; to such an extent that even through my deconversion and up to this very weekend I had a difficult time trying to reconcile them with the fact that I no longer believe the bible or consider it to be anything close to historically accurate.

But then! I ran across this blog: Against Jebel al-Lawz, which presented a very clear, concise, and well-researched, well-referenced rebuttal on some of Wyatt's "discoveries." The author even piled on the resources to help refute all of Wyatt's other claims. It was scathing. But the best article I read was about the Noah's Ark formation on Mount Arat: the author theorized that the formation (while certainly not a boat) may actually be responsible for the creation of the legend!

Regardless, it is satisfying to once again learn the truth and dispose of the fiction. But also a little sad -- another bit of childhood, of the last 35 years of my understanding of the universe, is gone. It seems like a recurring theme now -- in some regards, I am digging up these religious relics of my mind and exposing them to the light of truth and reason. And just like those physical relics, each mental one "promptly disappears in a puff of logic."

Until next Monday,

Frank