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Bible Dictionaries
Ararat
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
or ARARAT ( Genesis 8:4 , 2 Kings 19:37 [|| Isaiah 37:38 ], Jeremiah 51:27 ) is the Hebrew form of the Assyrian Urartu , which on the monuments from the 9th cent. downwards designates a kingdom in the N. of the later Armenia . The extension of the name naturally varied with the political limits of this State; but properly it seems to have denoted a small district on the middle Araxes, of which the native name Ayrarat is thought to be preserved in the Alarodioi of Herodotus (iii. 94, vii. 79). Jerome describes it as ‘a level region of Armenia, through which the Araxes flows, of incredible fertility, at the foot of the Taurus range, which extends thus far.’ The Araxes (or Aras ), on its way to the Caspian Sea, forms a great elbow to the S.; and at the upper part of this, on the right (or S.W.) bank of the river, the lofty snowclad summit of Massis (called by the Persians the ‘mountain of Noah’) rises to a height of nearly 17,000 ft. above sea-level. This is the traditional landing-place of the ark; and, through a misunderstanding of Genesis 8:4 (‘in [one of] the mountains of Ararat’), the name was transferred from the surrounding district to the two peaks of this mountain, Great Ararat and Little Ararat, the latter about 7 m. distant and 4000 ft. lower.
Whether this is the site contemplated by the writer in Genesis (P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] ) is not quite certain. The Syrian and Mohammedan tradition places it at Jebel Jûdî , a striking mountain considerably S. of Lake Van, commanding a wide view over the Mesopotamian plain. It is just possible that this might be included among the ‘mountains of Ararat’ in the wider sense of the term. This seems the view of Joseph us ( Ant . I. iii. 5, 6), who is unconscious of any discrepancy between ‘Armenia’ and the ‘Kordyæan’ mountain of Berosus. His statement about relics of the ark being shown in his time appeals to be borrowed from Berosus, and applies to whatever mountain that writer had in mind possibly Jebel Jûdî! The Targums and Peshiá¹ta, however, which are influenced by this tradition, read Ḳardû (Kurdistan), in verbal agreement with Berosus. The cuneiform Flood-legend puts it much farther S., at the ‘mountain of Nisir,’ probably in one of the ranges E. of the Tigris and S. of the Lesser Zab. This, of course, is quite beyond any imaginable extension of the name Ararat. Assuming, therefore, that the Biblical and Babylonian narratives have a common origin, the landing-place of the ark would seem to have been pushed gradually northward, the natural tendency of such a tradition being to attach itself to the highest mountain known at the time. On this principle the ultimate selection of the imposing Mount Massis would be almost inevitable: and it is probable that this is the view of Genesis 8:4 , although the alternative hypothesis that Jebel Jûdî is meant has still some claim to be considered. The suggestion of Nöldeke, that Ararat is a late substitution for Ḳardû in the original text of Genesis, has nothing to recommend it.
J. Skinner.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Ararat'. Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdb/a/ararat.html. 1909.
