As you decide on your vacation plans this summer, consider a trip to Williamstown, Kentucky where a life-size replica of Noah’s Ark will open to the public on July 7, 2016.

“The Ark Encounter,” described as a one-of-a-kind, historically-themed attraction, is the largest timber-frame structure in the U.S. The full-size Ark was built according to Biblical dimensions found in Genesis 6.

The Bible says Noah’s Ark was 300 cubits long (Genesis 6:15) and using a cubit of 20.4 inches that calculates to 1.70 feet per cubit, making the Ark about 510 feet long. To put it in perspective, it would take more than one and a half football fields to equal the Ark’s length. NASA could park three space shuttles – nose to tail – on the Ark’s deck.

Ken Hamm of Answers in Genesis headed up the project, and a team of Amish carpenters used their expertise to help build the Ark. The opening date of July 7 was chosen specifically to coincide with the verse in Genesis 7:7 that says Noah and his family entered the ark.

Hamm said in an interview with Christian News Headlines, “When they (visitors) see the size of this, then they start saying, ‘Well maybe Noah could fit the land animals on board.’ That’s really what we’re doing here, showing the feasibility of this: how could Noah feed them? How could they get rid of the waste?”

Scientists at the University of Leicester in England who studied the exact dimensions of Noah’s Ark concluded the Ark could have floated even with two of every animal in the world, states an article in the London Telegraph. They were “confident it would have handled the weight of 70,000 creatures without sinking….Previous research has suggested that there were approximately 35,000 species of animals which would have needed to be saved by Noah.”

A University student who helped with researching the buoyancy of the Ark commented, “You don’t think of the Bible necessarily as a scientifically accurate source of information, so I guess we were surprised when we discovered it would work.”

The Ark Encounter will equip visitors to understand the events of the worldwide flood, as described in Genesis. There is geologic evidence for the Genesis Flood, according to answersingenesis.org. “The Flood of Noah’s day was a worldwide catastrophic event that resulted in large-scale human and animal death, leaving behind many of the plant and animal fossils and landforms we see today,” states www.arkencounter.com.

What can we learn from Noah’s Ark? Someone has said, “It pays to plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.” You’ve probably read this quote, “Remember, professionals built the Titanic, but amateurs built the Ark.”

Most importantly, we learn that God saved Noah and his family and the animals on the Ark, just as He had promised. We find Noah in the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11:7, “By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household.”

To learn more about Ark Encounter and Noah’s Ark, check out www.arkencounter.com.

 

– Jan White is an award-winning columnist. She can be reached at jwhite@andycable.com.