My take is that the oldest source is the most trustworthy – unless a more recent source can disprove the earlier one.
Long before Christian traditions cited Mt Ararat as the landing place for Noah’s Ark, there was Mt Judi:
In the book, Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus wrote:
| “ | the ark rested on the top of a certain mountain in Armenia … However, the Armenians call this place, αποβατηριον ‘The Place of Descent’; for the ark being saved in that place, its remains are shown there by the inhabitants to this day. |
That was written in AD 93 or 94.
The identification of Mount Judi as the landing site of the ark persisted in Syriac and Armenian tradition throughout Late Antiquity but was abandoned for the tradition equating the biblical location with the highest mountain of the region, Mount Ararat.
It makes sense, given the enormity of the alleged flood, that the legend is changed so that the highest mountain in region becomes the official landing place.
The most ancient descriptions of the ark story come to us from (modern day) Iran. Mt Judi is far closer to Iran than Mt Ararat.
Ararat or ancient urartu is the Landon’s place,is close to Iran and mother Russia and the panda Lee Chinese expedition which found 7 rooms of what the shepards claim to be 48 or 50,so back claims of the ark archeology being elsewhere is false and possibly war mongering,as the two hideous wars before 1820 when the first postmodern westerners were taken to the mountain .Chris Young
I am of Armenian Descent.My father was born in Ezrume Turkey. My grandfather and grandmother and my father walked out of Armenia to avoid being slaugbtered by The Ottoman Turks who were Muslims. I have always wondered about the truth of the Ark.