The “ark” under construction in Williamstown, Ky. Photo: Kyle Grillot for The New York Times

The latest and greatest ark fantasy exhibit is opening in northern Kentucky. The new “Ark Encounter” bills itself as “one-of-a-kind, historically themed attraction. In an entertaining, educational, and immersive way, it presents a number of historical events centered on Noah’s Ark as recorded in the Bible. As the largest timber-frame structure in the US, the 510-foot-long full-size Ark is designed to be family-oriented, historically authentic, and environmentally friendly.”

It is hard to know whether to consider the claims of historical authenticity to be a joke or simply a outright lie. The “young earth creationists” behind this absurd project appear to be in deadly earnest, so the former is unlikely. The “ark” itself is generally shaped like a ship, but is, in fact, a building, featuring a steel reinforced concrete foundation with a steel bracketed wood structure on top. It is safe to say that if there ever was a flood in that region of Kentucky, the structure wouldn’t float. It would be broken up and carried away by the flood waters in pieces.

Ark Encounter is a project of “young earth creationists” who take the Bible literally and believe that the Earth is only about 6,000 years old. The new “ark” structure in Kentucky is sized using dimensions taken from the Bible, but the the similarities end there. Ken Ham, the Australian young-earther leading the project, chose not to use bronze-age construction techniques or follow the directions provided in the Bible. In Genesis 6-9, the instructions are concise: “Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.”

Ham and his construction team used heavy equipment and modern building techniques. As no one really agrees what “gopher wood” is or was, the structure is primarily pine, by all appearances. Steel bracket hold the frames together while the structure is sheathed in Tyvek, a brand of flashspun high-density polethylene fibers sold by DuPont, rather than covered in pitch. The electrical lighting, heating and air conditioning are less than wholly Biblical either.

From a nautical point of view, one of the more ridiculous aspects of the ship-shaped building in Kentucky is that it has a bulbous bow. Bulbous bows are used to increase the fuel efficiency of powered ships operating at a narrow range of design speeds. Giving the non-powered mythological ark a bulbous bow only adds to the fantasy. The bulbous bow makes no sense, but then neither do the dinosaur or unicorn models that the young-earthers have placed on the ark.

The story of Noah and his ark is not history. It is nothing more than mythology and not even original mythology at that. There are numerous flood myths from various cultures, most predating the Hebrew version. There are nine known versions of the Mesopotamian flood story alone, all believed to be based on an older version of the myth. And, of course, there is zero evidence of a worldwide flood occurring in the last 6,000 years.

The Tyvek which helps make the ark structure somewhat water tight is being covered by a thin layer of wooden sheathing.  As Laurie Goodstein, writing in the New York Times noted: “The Tyvek was printed all over with the slogan of its maker, Dupont: “The Miracles of Science.””  There is a wonderful irony of using “the miracles of science” on a temple to misinformation and ignorance.