“>Creation Museum, just north in Petersburg, Kentucky.
The underlying premise of the Ark Museum is that beside “the Cross, the Ark of Noah is one of the greatest reminders we have of salvation.” The reference, of course, is to the biblical story of a massive, worldwide encompassing flood which destroyed all human and other land based animal life on Earth, save that of a man named Noah, his family and such animals as he was able to collect and maintain on an enormous ship, the Ark, which rode the flooded seas for an extended period. (See generally, Gen. 6:9-9:29.) Ark Encounter considers the story of Noah’s Ark to be “true,” that is, an “historical account recorded for us in the Bible.”
For young earth creationists, like the proponents of Ark Encounter, history dates back to, and only to, about 6000 years ago, when, they believe, God created heaven and earth. Based on the genealogies in Genesis, the flood began when Noah was 600 years old, in the year 1656 AC (After Creation). Following the reckoning of “>this equates to 2348 BCE (Before the Common Era). The traditional Jewish calculation of the date of creation is somewhat different, occurring “>1656 years later, or about 2105 BCE.
Ark Encounter claims that it has built a timber frame Ark “according to the dimensions given in the Bible,” more specifically, “(s)panning 510 feet long, 85 feet wide, and 51 feet high . . . .” (See Gen. 6:15.) It also promises “jaw dropping exhibits inside the Ark,” where visitors can see models of the animals, including dinosaurs, Ark Encounter asserts were taken by Noah on his voyage.
An “>flood stories from around the world can now be easily accessed. On its website, however, Ark Encounter discusses only a few of these, and then in a cursory fashion, taking the position that the only “true account” is the one found in the Bible. At the same time, it contends that the existence of so many flood stories “point(s) to a universal truth – there was a worldwide flood in the ancient past.” The argument doesn’t hold water, though. The variety of detail in these stories is so extensive, and the dating, such as it is, so inconsistent, that collectively the vast number of stories refutes the notion that there was one global deluge.
Conversely, there is at least one nation that “>Rutgers professor of Jewish history Gary Rendsburg “>Mesopotamia, literally the land between the rivers. Similarly, the biblical stories that follow the flood account – the Tower of Babel saga and the journey of Abram’s family – are also rooted along the Euphrates and throughout Mesopotamia. (See Gen. 10:10, 11:1-9, 11:31; see also, Josh. 24:2.)
Mesopotamia, in stark contrast to Canaan, the land ancient Israelites later claimed to be promised to them, is “>George Smith, a young printer by trade and largely self-trained archaeologist, was working on a collection of cuneiform tablets at “>3,200 years ago. “>Yeshiva Associate Professor Shalom E. Holtz “>YHWH, YHWH reportedly “smelled the pleasing odor.” (See Gen. 8: 21.) This, Prof. Rendsburg teaches, is the only time among the many biblical references to Israelite sacrifices where it is said that God smelled a sacrifice. Rendsburg then calls attention to “>Epic of Atrahasis. Citing the work of the late “>Sumerian flood story featuring Ziusudra of Shuruppak. “>notes that a fragment of the Gilgamesh epic, dating to late in the second millennium BCE, has been found in Megiddo in Northern Israel, and another tablet about Gilgamesh’s life, apparently not part of the twelve tablet Epic, has been found in the coastal city of Ugarit, formerly Northern Canaan and presently in Syria. Neither refer to a flood, but both provide evidence that Mesopotamian stories were transported physically to core biblical lands.
Needless to say, if the exchange of ideas in the normal course was not a sufficient opportunity to learn of ancient Mesopotamian flood stories, the exile of the ruling and literate Judahites to Babylon following the destruction of Jerusalem around 587 BCE surely provided it. Those who were taken or, later, grew up in Babylon could hardly have failed to hear of the classic tales that had already traveled beyond their home of origin.
The Refusal to Acknowledge the Cultural Heritage
The failure of Ark Encounter to acknowledge the intellectual history preceding the development of the biblical flood story is more than troublesome. It also precludes a careful reader of the biblical story from appreciating fully the insights and inventiveness of the biblical authors and the dramatic changes they brought to an ancient Mesopotamian tradition.
For instance, the gods in the Atrahasis story resort to flooding the earth because they are irritated by the noisiness of humankind. Their clamor prevented the gods from sleeping well. By contrast, the text in Genesis states that humans were destroyed because of “hamas,” which Yale bible scholar “>translates as “violence, bloodshed, but also all kinds of injustice and oppression.” (At Lecture 4, Ch. 4.)
In Gilgamesh, the gods are seen fighting with each other, and once the flood is unleashed, they become terrified of what they have wrought, in part because of the power of the flood and also because they now do not have any food and are starving. That is, as Prof. Hayes teaches, the Mesopotamian gods are in disarray rather than control. The biblical God, however, is neither at the mercy of the elements of nature nor subject to anthropomorphic needs. Similarly, the old gods acted capriciously, but God in the Noah story has standards, and punishes immorality while rewarding righteousness.
The reader will learn no grand lesson from the survival stories of Ziusudra, Atrahasis and Utnapishtim. But the reader of the Noah tale will easily grasp the basic lesson being taught, which Prof. Hayes summarizes as follows: “inhumanity and violence undermine the very foundations of society.” The “cosmic catastrophe” of the flood is not due to religious sins, offensive as they may be, but for a more fundamental breach of basic moral law. With this modified, transformed story, then, the biblical authors changed the discussion of the nature of the universe and provided guidance for future generations.
Obviously, the Noah fable can stand on its own. It has successfully done so for well over two thousand years, effectively replacing the tales of Ziusudra and Utnapishtim as the paradigmatic world flood story. Hamlet, too, can be appreciated without realizing that William Shakespeare relied on “>Documentary Hypothesis and source criticism, a reader can, however, recreate the original texts. In one, YHWH tells Noah to bring one pair of unclean animals but also seven pairs of clean animals, the flood is caused by rain, which lasts for 40 days, Noah ultimately sends out a dove three times, and YHWH enjoys the sweet savor of Noah’s post journey sacrifice of certain clean animals. In the other, longer version, the dimensions of the Ark are specified, only one pair of animals boards, the source of the flood waters is the open gates of the waters above and below earth, the flood lasts for 150 days until the gates are closed by Elohim (God), and, after more than a year has passed, God tells Noah to leave the Ark and repopulate the world. The separated texts can be found “>extensive, if not endless. Here we will list only a sample.
1. Where is the geological evidence, in the nature of silt formations or otherwise, of a global flood about forty-four centuries ago? There doesn’t seem to be any. (See, e.g., “>here.)
2. Where is the archaeological evidence, in the form of ruins of dwellings and other structures and of bone layers, of such an event? There doesn’t seem to be any. To the contrary, the antediluvian “>Stonehenge testify to the absence of a worldwide deluge.
3. Why is there no record of civilizational disruption in the annals of the “>die?
6. Once the flood covered the land surfaces of the world, fresh water lakes and rivers would have been swamped by salt water oceans. “>Rabbi Norman Solomon that that the story of a massive, universal flood rising fifteen cubits over Mt. Ararat some forty-one centuries ago ““>good evidence, from thick deposits near Shuruppak, the Sumerian home of Ziusudra, that a substantial flood occurred there around 2900 BCE. This event is of the right kind at the right time to have prompted the saga of Ziusudra and, in turn, the other stories upon which the biblical tale is based.
Ark Encounter is really Ark Avoidance
Although it extends an invitation to “witness history,” Ark Encounter in practice simultaneously rejects both the flood literature that pre-dates the writing of Noah and also modern science which conclusively demonstrates in a variety of ways why the biblical story did not and could not have happened as it is written. Instead, it focuses narrowly on a story which the author, not claiming to be either an historian or a scientist, carefully constructed for a particular purpose at a particular time. We have not yet sufficiently identified that time, much less that author, but at least we should be able to understand the inspirational precedents with which the author was working, marvel at the vision that guided his work and appreciate the talent necessary to forge the resulting work to advance his needs and goals.
When faith fears facts, and opts for fiction, it risks looking foolish. Rather than demonstrating character, it invites caricature. We have “>Satmar sect or others, he or she actually displays a lack of true faith both in the God s/he professes to worship and the reality that God presumably created, including the creature the Bible uniquely claims was made in that God’s image. Conversely, if the phrase “image of God” means anything, it must mean, as the first chapter of Genesis makes abundantly clear, a being capable of making meaningful distinctions among various possibilities, a being that exercises the brain with which it has been blessed.
Asking a person of faith to embrace reality does not require that person to abandon belief in a Higher Power. It merely urges, to paraphrase the words attributed almost two thousand years ago to a young Jewish man from Nazareth who was teaching in Jerusalem, that such a person render to science that which belongs to science, including in this case, at least archaeology, cultural anthropology, geology, evolutionary biology and hydrology. (Cf., Mark 12:17.)
In the end, and in addition to its other failures, Ark Encounter does a disservice to its customers. Though it claims to have spent over $100,000,000, the Ark Encounter project has missed a marvelous opportunity. It has chosen to comfort the choir, instead of informing, challenging and elevating them. Worse, it encourages them, rewards them for keeping their eyes and ears shut and their minds closed. There may be short term financial gain in that, but not much future. What a pity. An Ark is a terrible thing to waste.
A version of this essay was previously posted at An Ark is a terrible thing to waste Read More »
