In a scene straight out of "Evan Almighty," a religious group including Amish carpenters is re-building Noah's Ark to exact biblical specifications in the farmlands of Kentucky. But the group is not claiming it's for protection against a coming deluge, but rather proof that Noah was capable of the task thousands of years ago.
"The message here is, God's word is true," said Mike Zovath, project manager for Answers in Genesis, the Christian ministry undertaking the project in Hebron, KY. "There's a lot of doubt: `Could Noah have built a boat this big, could he have put all the animals on the boat?' Those are questions people all over the country ask."
The massive project will be a centerpiece at a controversial theme park/museum that has already drawn fire for its refusal to accept modern scientific dogma, and representing ideas according to a strict belief that the Bible is literally true.
The work on the replica Noah's Ark begins next summer and will be built mostly by Amish carpenters from Indiana. The Amish are renowned for using crafting techniques which don't rely on tools and technology invented since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. So they should know what they're doing.
It's all part of a new $155 million religious theme park, called Ark Encounter, which will also showcase a replica Tower of Babel as well as an ancient village.
This should be very interesting. Whether one shares the same beliefs as this group or not, it would be fascinating to see how such massive constructions were made by societies sometimes thought of as "primitive."
If history has taught one indisputable lesson, it's that the ancient were no slouches when it came to erecting buildings which still stand, roads that still carry traffic, and boats that still float.
And, who knows? Maybe the new Noah's Ark will be finished just in time for Doomsday, 2012...
Image courtesy of Wikipedia
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Comments: 4
Oddly enough the human race is going to experience some flooding in the next century, as the melting ice deposits of Greenland and Antarctica boost sea level between 10 and 100 feet. But this will be a slow motion disaster, not a sudden emergency. Humans will be forced to abandon immense quantities of economically valuable infrastructure, but will not drown. This is what we call global warming, the science based thing that a sizable minority of gather bloggers do not accept as true.