Skeptics greet biblical 'evidence'

A crowd at First Presbyterian remains doubtful as they listen to a man speak of the ''discoveries'' of a biblical archaeologist.

By EILEEN SCHULTE
© St. Petersburg Times
published December 7, 2002

DUNEDIN -- Bill Fry held aloft a two-pound chunk of petrified timber from Noah's Ark and smelly brimstone from Sodom and Gomorrah to make his point.

"Make no mistake," he told a group of people at First Presbyterian Church Wednesday night. "We have all the information we need for salvation and eternal life. But what you'll see tonight is significant. It is a stimulus to faith, a deeper faith and to unbelievers, a spark of faith. It is hard evidence the Bible is true and accurate."

Fry, of Anchor Stone International, was defending the archaeological discoveries of the late biblical explorer Ron Wyatt. Anchor Stone International is an organization that seeks to verify Biblical stories through archaeology. Through its videos and Web site, it promotes the work of Wyatt, a nurse anesthetist and amateur digger who used the Bible as a guidebook. Wyatt died in 1999.

Fry, who lives in the Winter Haven area and said he has a background in electronics, is trying to carry on Wyatt's work.

He dimmed the lights and showed a 25-minute video detailing Wyatt's findings on Noah's Ark, which supposedly docked 6,500 feet up in the mountains of Ararat in eastern Turkey, and Sodom and Gomorrah, the sin city turned to ash by God in the Dead Sea valley 3,900 years ago.

The video showed fuzzy footage from the mid-1980s of Wyatt conducting radar scans and standing next to huge anchor stones said to be the Ark's (the rope holes are still visible). He is holding metal rivets lodged in fossilized wood at the site of the football field-size ship that he believed is embedded in the mountain.

It showed him "discovering" Sodom and Gomorrah, which look like a moonscape of strange geometric shapes. He pointed out sulfur balls embedded in what he said were walls of the city that was turned to ash by a violent storm of fire and brimstone on God's orders.

After the video, it was Fry's turn again at the podium.

"This is a sample of petrified wood I took from within five feet of the Noah's Ark site," he said, holding up the two-pound brown rock. "And this is fossilized coral found adjacent to the Ark. It shows there was sea life at 6,500 feet."

Then he held up two plastic sandwich bags, one filled with ash and one with brimstone from the Sodom and Gomorrah site.

"You can come up after the slide show and handle these things," he said. "But your hands will smell like sulfur for 24 hours."

He presented a slide show of Wyatt's supposed discovery of the Ark of the Covenant hidden in a cave in the old city of Jerusalem, which according to legend contains the Ten Commandments. Fry said the Israeli government now restricts access to the area and curtails information about it.

The slides, he said, also show fossilized human femur bones and coral-encrusted chariot wheels found in 60 to 200 feet of water in the Gulf of Aqaba. That, said Fry, is evidence of the crossing of the Red Sea by the Hebrews 3,500 years ago.

"Any questions?" Fry asked the group after the show.

Had Fry thought of having the petrified wood from Noah's Ark carbon dated? a man asked.

"We could, but it's a no-win situation," said Fry. "There are lots of inaccuracies with carbon dating."

A woman in the back spoke up and told Fry she thought it was hard to believe the ash from Sodom and Gomorrah is still there.

"You'd think it would be gone after 3,900 years, but God has miraculously preserved (the buildings)," said Fry. "He wants us to know these things. I can stand here and say with integrity these things are real. Maybe you can't do that. God went to a lot of trouble to preserve these things. He put them in dangerous places so people wouldn't touch them until this time in history."

Although some in the audience said they believed the ship in the mountain was quite possibly Noah's Ark, they were not buying the rest of it.

"I have my doubts the ark had metal in it," said Roberto Sanchez, an architect and engineer.

He also was suspicious that Wyatt's findings proved God parted the Red Sea to allow the Hebrews through. He said "a catastrophic earthquake could have separated (the water for a time) and people on horseback could have gotten through."

The Rev. Vickie ByRoade pastor of the church, also was not convinced.

But "I love being able to touch these things," she said, holding the petrified wood from the Ark in her hands.

-- Eileen Schulte can be reached at (727) 445-4153 or schulte@sptimes.com.

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