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We should mention here and now that the Hebrew word translated "mountain" in the Old
Testament does NOT, necessarily, signify a mountain of great elevation. This same word is trans-
lated "HILL" in many verses of the Old Testament! The word -- HAR -- (Strong's Concordance,
#2022) is translated "HILL of Zion" in one place and "mount Zion" in another (Psalms 2:6; Micah
4:7). "When we read the words hill and mountain in the flood account, BOTH are from the SAME
word. HAR simply means an elevated area, something one would go up to or mount, a mountain.
The idea that it must mean a mountain many thousands of feet high is simply not true" (NF, JLD, &
LF, pp. 70-71). There are no mountains in the southern Tigris-Euphrates valley where Noah lived,
only higher or lower hills on a flat alluvial plain. The nearest mountains are beyond the horizon.
Noah could have seen hills being flooded in the Euphrates valley -- but not mountains!

The ambiguous Akkadian word for hill/mountain was shadu and is so used in the Gil-
gamesh Epic. Shadu could mean a low hill only a few feet high. In the Gilgamesh Epic, the place
where the ark grounded is usually translated Mount Nisir, as we have seen. But the word shadu
translated as "Mount" could also mean hill or mound. Nisir could be a corruption of the Akkadian
word "nisirtu" meaning "hidden," "inaccessible," or "secluded." The Gilgamesh grounding place is
therefore vague, saying only that the ark grounded on a secluded hill or mound.

This is confirmed by The Book of Jubilees -- a haggadic commentary on certain portions
of Genesis and the opening chapters of Exodus -- undoubtedly the work of a Palestinian Jew and
written before the destruction of the Temple. In chapter VII, verse 1, we read --

And in the seventh week, in the first year thereof, in this jubilee, Noah planted vines ON THIS HILL
UPON WHICH THE ARK HAD RESTED, named Lubar, the Ararat Mountains, and they produced fruit in
the fourth year, and he WATCHED their fruit and GATHERED them in this year in the seventh month, and
he made wine of it, and put it into s vessel and kept it until the fifth year, until the first day of the new
moon of the first month (translated from the Ethiopic by George H. Schodde. A reprint from an edition
published in 1888 by E.J. Goodrich. Published by Artisan Sales, Thousand Oaks, CA.).

This certainly indicates the ark lodged at a low altitude -- not 15,000 feet or so up a
mountain!

This, now, begs the question -- "At what elevation did the ark come to rest?" The Bible
does not tell us in so many words, but there are many reasons to believe that it was not at a high al-
titude. It was clearly accessible because ancient information that has come down to us today re-
lates that people (the general population of the area) saw the ark and took pieces of it for amulets
(lucky charms). Berossus wrote: "It is said there is still some part of this ship in Armenia...and that
some people carry off pieces of the bitumen, which they take away, and use chiefly as amulets for
the averting of mischiefs" (Josephus, 1, 3:6). Josephus also quotes Nicolaus of Damascus who re-
corded that the remains of the wood of the ark were preserved for "a great while." In another place
he states that "remains of that ark, wherein it is related that Noah escaped the deluge...are still
shown to such as are desirous to see them." Now, there is one thing all these statements show:
They envision the ark as coming to rest at a LOW ALTITUDE on a spot that was ACCESSIBLE to
the general populace -- NOT on top of some mountain that no one at that time had ever climbed!

Ararat is an extremely difficult mountain to scale -- most of it is steep and rugged with
loose pieces of lava rock the size of cars. Violent storms come up suddenly and rake the higher
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