History of the Jews in Turkey modest Jewish population. According to Jewish scripture, Noah's Ark landed on the top of Mount Ararat, a mountain in the Taurus range in Eastern Anatolia, near the present-day borders of Turkey, Armenia, and Iran. Flavius Josephus, Jewish historian of the first century, notes Jewish origins for many of the cities in Asia Minor, though much of his sourcing for these passages is traditional. New Testament mention of Jewish populations in Anatolia is widespread: Iconium (now: Konya) is said to have a synagogue in Acts 14:1, and Ephesus is mentioned as having a synagogue in Acts 19:1 and in Paul's Epistle
Mount Ararat "largely because it would have been the first peak to emerge from the receding flood waters." Ararat is where the European tradition and most of Western Christianity place the landing of Noah's Ark. According to Spencer and Lienard the tradition "seems to be well entrenched in the Christian world." A 1722 biblical dictionary by Austin Calmet and the 1871 Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary both point to Mount Ararat as the place where tradition says the ark rested. American missionary H. G. O. Dwight wrote in 1856 that it is "the general opinion of the learned in Europe." James Bryce, while admitting