Christianity: Details about 'Ron Wyatt'
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Ronald Eldon Wyatt (1933 - August 4, 1999) was a controversial self-styled archaeologist (he had no training in the discipline and held no professional position) who claimed to have found many significant biblical sites and artifacts.
BiographyWyatt was a nurse-anesthetist at Nashville's Summit Medical Center when in 1960 he saw a in Life Magazine of a boat-like shape on a mountain near Mount Ararat. The resulting wide-spread speculation in evangelical and prophetically-inclined Christian circles that this might be Noah's Ark started Wyatt on his career as a self-styled archaeologist, although he lacked any training in the discipline and never held any professional position. From 1977 until his death in 1999 he made over 100 trips to the Middle East, his interests widening to take in a wide variety of references from the Old and New Testaments. By the time of his death in 1999 his discoveries included:
Wyatt had a charismatic, swashbuckling personality, and won a devoted following among fundamentalist Christians seeking tangible evidence of the literal truth of the Bible. His credibility was disputed - often bitterly - by genuine archaeologists, one member of the Israel Antiquities Authority going so far as to state: "Ron Wyatt is neither an archaeologist nor has he ever carried out a legally licensed excavation in Israel or Jerusalem. In order to excavate one must have at least a BA in archaeology which he does not possess despite his claims to the contrary. .. fall into the category of trash which one finds in tabloids such as the National Enquirer, Sun etc." The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) have always been well aware of the excavations, and, while most of the permits were verbal only, between IAA and Ron Wyatt, the IAA have issued official permits to all WAR excavations since 2002. The more responsible branches of the evangelical movementare not any less sceptical, one Adventist professor of archaeology summing up Wyatt's Noah's Ark and anchor stones claims in these words: "While the Durupinar site is about the right length for Noah's ark, .. too wide to be Noah's ark. Wyatt has claimed that the "boat-shapedness" of this formation can only be explained by its being Noah's ark, but both Shea and Morris have offered other plausible explanations. Likewise, Wyatt has argued that the standing stones he has found are anchors, while Terian is aware of similar stones outside the Durupinar site area that were pagan cultic stones later converted by Christians for Christian purposes." Dismissed by the mainstream as as a pseudoarchaeologist, Wyatt and his followers in turn dismissed their critics as motivated by personal spite and/or anti-Christian animosity. Following Wyatt's death a split developed between the official Wyatt Archaeological Research (WAR) organization which he founded, and the independent ministries and interested individuals which had previously cooperated with WAR. WAR currently claims to be the sole owner of all Wyatt's photographs, newsletters and other intellectual property. Other individuals previously close to Wyatt have established rival websites - see External links. Sceptical sites |
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