For the first time in millennia, if you can make it to the middle of Kentucky in the USA, you can experience just how big the Ark God told Noah to make really was. That is, if Noah was around 6’3″ (195cm). Or, off the Atlantic Ocean, you can see a slightly smaller version assuming Noah was only about 5′ 10″ (180cm) that can really sail*.

Both of these ships are sure to blow your mind and make all the kids’ book versions look utterly silly.

But what if you don’t live near these places?

There are still quite a number of places where you can picture just how much room God told Noah to prepare for the survivors of the World-Wide Flood!

Perhaps even better, there’s nothing stopping you from joining the club and making your own model ark. You can even get a kit to make your own paper Answer in Genesis style version for just a few dollars.

The only thing is, depending on how small you make your model, finding such tiny animals is going to be tough. 😀
I did hear one grandpa decided to make an ark to PlayMobil scale. He had to keep it outside because it was too big to fit in his house!

You can find a basic plan for how to make your own wooden model on the Institute for Creation Research website. It’s not a project for first time wood workers, that’s for sure.

Some really cool and inspiring Models to Check Out

An internet friend of mine, Ernesto Carrasco, has been working and studying with the Institute for Creation Research for several years. A couple years ago he decided to build his own model taking advantage of all the wise people around to ask questions. He has some great pictures and description on his own blog (I borrowed one for the picture at the beginning of this article) and ICR has a nice article on what they think of his project as well.

And then you’ll want to check out This Page which is part of the World Wide Flood site.  Just click on the modeler’s name and you will see a bunch of pictures of their ideas about what Noah’s Ark. It’s not been updated in a long time, but everything is still working at least on my laptop sized screen.

If you’ve seen an Ark Model yourself, let me know! Where was it, and what did you think about it?

Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it. Genesis 6:14-16

One thing you will notice is just how big the Ark really was. We don’t know what kind of wood “Gopher Wood” is talking about, since this is just the sound the Hebrew word makes.  It certainly doesn’t have anything to do with gophers! We also don’t know what kind of “pitch” or “covering” they were to coat the Ark with (there wouldn’t have been any petroleum, or very little, before the Flood). But we do know how big the Ark must have been because of the cubit dimensions (a cubit measures from the elbow to the fingertips) God gave to Noah. If Noah was the same height as an average man now, it would have been 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high.  If his forearm was longer than ours, it would have been even bigger!!

All the way through the Bible we can’t help wondering about the details of places, and people and the way things actually happened.  I suppose God didn’t include more because we would need a library cart to take our Bible in to church with us!!

*Creation Ministries International has a good article on the Dutch Ark Replica as well.

 And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen. John 21:25