We just got back from a trip to Kentucky, where we saw the Answers in Genesis (AiG) Ark Encounter and Creation Museum. Visiting both museums has been on our wish list ever since we heard about them back in 2016. At the time we had just returned to the states from living in Europe for several years. We knew things had changed since we had been gone, but we had no idea someone had built a 510 foot ark in the middle of a forest in northern Kentucky. We weren’t sure how or when we would be able to go, but we knew it was something we needed to put on our bucket list.
Last year we learned that our family would be having a wedding and a family reunion in Missouri. Some people might have just flown in to St. Louis and returned home, but we decided we needed to tack on several days to our trip so we could make the trek out to both museums. Now that we are back, I am still trying to process all we saw and heard and I hope that this article will help give you a sense of what it was like visiting both places.
Answers In Genesis
Answers in Genesis is a unique organization because they are young earth creationists who believe the world was created in six twenty-four days. Their literal interpretation of Scripture emphasizes the first eleven chapters of Genesis as being foundational to understanding the entire bible. This is one reason why the organization has invested so much time and resources into creating two state-of-the-art educational venues for people from all over the world to visit.
The leader of the organization is Ken Ham. He is a former high school teacher from Australia who moved to the U.S. in 1978. His charismatic leadership is driven by a desire to show that a literal interpretation of the Bible can counter the secular teaching found in so many schools throughout the world today. He has written numerous books on a wide variety of topics that support a Biblical worldview. His passion for God and Scripture is a driving force behind everything that AiG produces.
When Ham moved to America, he originally worked with an organization called Institute for Creation Research (ICR), which was based out of San Diego. He became well known for his lecture series called “Back to Genesis” that focused on three major themes: evolutionary theory leads to cultural decay, the first eleven chapters of Genesis are foundational for a Christian worldview, and that Christians need to confront atheism and humanism in society. In 1994, he left ICR and started Creation Ministries International, which later became AiG.
The organization moved its headquarters to Florence, Kentucky and in 2005 Ham explained the move by saying, “One of the main reasons [AiG] moved [to Florence] was because we are within one hour’s flight of 69 percent of America’s population.” Paul Sheehan, “Onward the new Christian soldier“, The Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, Australia, 17 January 2005. In 2007, AiG opened the Creation Museum, a 75,000 square foot museum, which includes an exhibit on the Flood, which was the brainchild of what would become the Ark Encounter. The Creation Museum cost $27 million to build, which was raised by private donations. The museum includes an impressive planetarium, animal exhibits, and a beautiful garden all around the campus.
After the success of the Creation Museum, AiG put the wheels in motion to develop what would become their main attraction, the Ark Encounter. In 2010, the organization chose an 800 parcel of land just outside Williamstown, which is about forty-five minutes south of the Creation Museum. In November, 2010 the governor of Kentucky, Steve Beshear, announced the attraction by saying, “We are excited to join with the Ark Encounter group as it seeks to provide this unique, family-friendly tourist attraction to the Commonwealth.” https://web.archive.org/web/20160918075624/http://www.wistv.com/story/13589609/religious-themed-amusement?clienttype=printable
The park was originally estimated to cost $150 million to create with the goal of generating 1.6 million visitors each year. The 800 acre parcel of land was purchased in 2014 and construction began in 2015. It took eighteen months to finish. The ark is said to be the largest timber-framed structure in the world, with over 3.1 million board feet of wood used in its construction. The final cost to build it came to $120 million, which was raised by private donors and the sale of bonds.
As might be expected, the development of a creationist theme park did not happen without controversy. The city council of Williamstown originally agreed to give the Ark Encounter considerable financial incentives, including tax breaks and a reduced price on 100 acres of land. They did so with the understanding that the theme park would bring in over a million visitors a year starting when the park opened in 2016. The ticket sales have not generated that amount of traffic yet, but Ken Ham has maintained the ticket sales are lower than the actual amount because children under 10 are free and annual passes are not counted in the daily ticket calculation. When I was there, I was told the average amount of people this summer has been 4,000 visitors on a week day and 14,000 for the weekend. Only time will tell whether the projected numbers will come to fruition, but from my perspective there were clear examples of local businesses being impacted. Our family tried to go to a nearby Cracker Barrel for dinner and we decided it wasn’t worth an hour wait for all the other Ark Encounter visitors to finish eating.
The Ark Encounter
Answers in Genesis chose a fitting name for the Ark Encounter. As soon as we drove into the parking lot, I realized we were in for an epic experience where we would be introduced to a story of Biblical proportions.
The parking lot is about a mile drive from the entrance of the park, but you can already make out the ark from that distance. Once you buy your tickets, the hosts usher you into air-conditioned buses that drive you through a lush valley up to the welcome center. The first thing that struck me about the park was the large rainbow gate at the entrance. I knew our family would have to take a picture there because it was such a powerful reminder of God’s covenant with humanity that he would never flood the earth again. In Genesis 9:15-17 God told Noah, “I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”
After taking a picture at the rainbow gate we made our way to what has become the most popular photo shoot at the ark. As I got ready for our picture in front of the reflecting pool I was impressed at the scale of the Ark Encounter. It is hard to describe the magnitude of what you see there. You can’t help imagining what Noah must have thought when he had finished his life’s work. Imagine all the time and effort, the resources and organization needed to construct such a behemoth? Imagine what it would be like to prepare a ship that would saved human and animal life on the earth? Similar thoughts and questions were racing through my mind as we finished taking our group photo and started walking towards the entrance of the ship.
The ship has three levels that function as a progressively immersive educational experience about the Flood. It starts with an introduction to the different kinds of animals that were brought into the ark. This is a fascinating exhibit because it explains that ark didn’t have to contain every type of animal, but only the animal kind, which would be either the Order or Family of animals on the animal classification chart. For example, Noah only needed to have two of the prototypical dog on the ark, because that pair of animals contained the genes from which every type of wolf and dog on the earth today most likely came from.
Halfway through the animal kind exhibit you come to the bow of the ship. It is impressive to see the massive wooden beams that would have kept the ship safe during the worldwide storm that raged on the earth for forty days and forty nights. The museum emphasizes the Biblical account of steaming hot water coming from under the ground during the flood. This wasn’t a gradual deluge of tropical rain. The Flood was a cataclysmic event that changed the entire face of the earth and the makeup of the oceans and the atmosphere. The ark would have had to be a remarkably durable vehicle to survive such terrifying elements.
At the end of the first floor exhibit is a section that gives an explanation to how Noah and his family could have cared for the animals on the ark. The exhibit features a disclaimer that explains the need for creative license in recreating how the animals might have looked and been organized. The Bible doesn’t give details about how the animals lived on the ark, but it makes it clear that God brought them to Noah. Genesis 7:7 says, “And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood. Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah.”
The second deck is titled Technology on the Ark and features a helpful exhibit on what the world was like before the Flood. I found this helpful because it is shocking to consider the world became so wicked that God actually had to destroy it. The Ark Encounter gives some sobering depictions of a world where men and women were constantly motived by evil thoughts and actions. Genesis 6 says this, “And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.”
At the bow of the second deck is an exhibit simply called the Door. It is a massive double doorway that stretches to the top of the ceiling. At the top of the door is a lighted impression of a cross, which is a fitting illustration of Jesus Christ who said, “I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.” (John 10:9 ESV) The Biblical account of the flood states that God shut the door to the ark. It was his idea to save humanity and it was his initiative that shut Noah and his family in safely from the flood.
The next exhibit is called the Fairy Tale Ark. This was surprisingly effective because it showed how often children are shown a version of the ark that is not tenable in the real world. The cute images of animals on the deck of a dingy-boat sized ark are not helpful because they encourage people to think of the Biblical account as child-like dream. The reality is much different. This was especially true when we arrived at the third deck and saw an exhibit that shows all the flood legends from around the world. Instead of dismissing the flood as an American fairytale it is important to realize that hundreds of cultures from around the world all have stories that collaborate many of the same facts about a global flood that destroyed the world, while saving humanity and a remnant of animals in a ship.
The rest of the second floor shows different ways that Noah’s family could have maintained the Ark and card for thousands of animals during the Flood. I especially liked the ingenious methods depicted to show how they could have fed and watered animals of all different shapes and sizes.
The third deck is called “After the Flood” and gives a beautiful depiction of what the living quarters could have looked like for Noah and his family. I appreciated how AiG spared no expense on the lifelike craftsmanship and realistic depictions of Noah and his family. The second and third deck also had two updated theaters that showed movies that explained different aspects of the flood and the ark’s construction. My favorite part of the last exhibit was the explanation on Flood Geology and the Ice Age. I have never bought into the evolutionary explanation of the world being shaped by billions of years of erosion. The Ark Encounter gives an impressive case for a young earth dating of the earth. Many people will find this to be the most paradigm shifting part of the museum and I would highly recommend planning to spend extra time in this section.
The last two exhibits are from the Museum of the Bible and Why the Bible is True. These were both helpful, but not as impactful as the other exhibits. There were so many people at the ark, we actually had to take a break and come back to finish the final exhibits. This proved to be a good choice because we didn’t realize how much we needed a break from all the walking. We went outside and had our lunches at one of the picnic tables that are all over the park. We could have gone to the all-you-can-eat buffet, but since we had already brought pack lunches we decided not to do that.
After finishing the ark’s three decks we went to the 1,000 person theater and listen to Ken Ham speak. He gave a powerful message about the need to teach about creation. Afterwards, we spent time visiting the Ararat zoo and the gift store. There is actually more than one place to buy merchandise and we couldn’t help purchasing a good selection of gifts and souvenirs while we were there. I didn’t realize the Creation Museum would have a completely different selection of gifts, which was a pleasant surprise when we went there the next day.
