The Ark Encounter, located in Williamstown, Kentucky, is an attempt to reproduce as closely as possible the original ark and was built to the dimensions specified in the Bible - 300 cubits long by 50 cubits wide by 30 cubits tall. A cubit is the length of a forearm, or somewhere between 18 and 20 inches. The designers used the longer length, and therefore this version of the ark is 510 feet long, 85 feet wide, and 51 feet tall.
The ark is a jaw-dropping sight, the wonder of which is not well conveyed by the photo below.
The Ark Encounter is a museum which was built by and is operated by the same creationist organization - Answers in Genesis - as the Creation Museum I wrote about in an earlier blog post. Answers in Genesis is considered a "young Earth creationist" group, which means that they believe in the literal truth of the Bible, including that the age of the Earth is only 6000 years or so, calculated from the begats listed in the Bible, with the assumption that that perfect document would not have left out any of the generations. Answers in Genesis partnered with a tourist attraction firm, won concessions from local and state governments, collected massive donations from believers in creationism, and spent six years and over $100M dollars in building this life-sized version of the historical ark.
Upon arrival at the park, you are shuttled to the ark on a bus. You enter the midsection of the ship and walk up a ramp to reach the second floor.
You then come across cages containing realistic models of some of the animals that were supposed to have been kept on board for the length of the flood.
Some of the animals we saw were familiar and some, like dinosaurs, are now extinct. These creationists get around the issue of what seems like the impossibility of fitting every animal species on board by interpreting the Bible's instruction that Noah take on board every kind of creature that walked, flew, or slithered to mean that only each general category of animal would be included. The idea was that natural selection - which they believe in, though not evolution - would have resulted in the wide variety of animals we see today.
The makers of this museum admit that the Bible's description of the ark's construction is sketchy, so they make their best guesses as to the details. For example, they believe that waste removal may well have been accomplished by rigging up an animal-powered vertical pulley system which would raise collected animal waste to the surface in buckets, which then could be emptied overboard. Even so, poop detail would not be a job I'd sign up for.
Many attractive tableaux depict life aboard the ark. Here are Noah and his wife at work.
Signage throughout the ark instructs us as to the literal truth of every word in the Bible, the debauchery of the world that made the construction of the ark necessary, how they believe it was built, and speculation as to what things were like in everyday life on board. For example, they conclude that Noah and his family were vegetarians.
A good deal of effort is spent in attempting to counter the conclusions of scientists who believe that the Earth is billions of years old, not 6000. Some of the arguments are clever .. but not convincing in the least, I suspect, to an unbiased observer. It is amazing to me that a number of individuals intelligent enough to design such an impressive museum and to come up with alternative explanations of scientific evidence have devoted large parts of their lives to such a belief system. The variety of human psychology is quite spectacular.
I certainly recommend that anyone who finds himself in this area make the effort to visit the Ark Experience. Both it and the Creation Museum are magnificent accomplishments and worth exploring even if you, like us, find the concepts behind them impossible to credit.
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