Letter: Ark encounter teaching people to think differently?

To the editor:

A recent column featured the “Noah’s Ark,” (“Faith-filled experience,” by Carol Edwards published Oct. 3) and it is touted as being an authentic reproduction of the one described at least in the King James Bible. It is located in northern Kentucky, near the Creation Museum. While we are used to the hype accompanying much of the entertainment industry and not being too caring about accuracy in advertising, we should expect a great deal of examination from Christian endeavors such as these.

When my first look at what was being represented as a replica of Noah’s Ark, I thought of my visit to the Creation Museum and seeing a monster iron pot for heating pitch to seal the original ark. Never mind the iron age did not occur until 1,000 BC. Are we to think God would not provide an abundant tar pit to do that amount of caulking?

When I first saw a picture of the reproduction of the ark, I was more disgusted than anything. I thought, “What would cause normal, rational people to read the biblical description of the construction of the ark, which measured 450 feet in length, 90 feet wide and 50 feet high … using the generally accepted 18 inches per cubic inch, covered with tar inside and outside, a massive all rectangular box, protected by God himself and come up with a ship that has a prow capable of splitting waves and what looks like a rudder aft, supposedly for guiding it to where God would take them?”

Add a rounded hull, which would make the vessel unstable to say the least. The reproduction has really, close-fitting planed planking of large wood that you cannot identify as gopher wood.

No one can really identify gopher wood, but let me speculate here. There is a tree that is plentiful in much of the world that would serve nicely for such a project. Bamboo. Not saying, but it’s not nuttier than planed planking. Nothing would be stronger or more plausible or more buoyant than bamboo. There were no metal tools for planking planeing planks on those times as depicted in the modern ark.

I think most people would think of a stormy, raging sea for the ark. Scripture says that it rained and I suspect it was a very smooth and dull ride even after the rain stopped. Those people in the ark went inside because the flood was getting too deep. They spent about a year in the ark, including time in the mountains of the Country of Ararat, in which the ark came to rest. It is interesting to note that after nearly a year underwater, there were leaves on the olive tree. My points in this diatribe against people who, whether for the legitimate desire to inspire belief in the goodness of some, Noah and the retributive power of God against unbridled human behavior, or those who make grand predictions, wasting huge sums of money and teaching suspecting people error as truth. Don’t scan scripture, read it and see what grand things it teaches that some do not want us to glory in.

James Weimer

Greenwood