A REAL “Noah’s Ark” Life-Sized Boat!

(This was e-mailed to me, but I wanted to post it to share and save)

Man builds working replica of Noah’s Ark (exact scale given in Bible) in Schagen , Netherlands

The massive central door in the side of Noah’s Ark was opened to the first crowd of curious townsfolk to behold the wonder. Of course, it’s only a replica of the biblical Ark , built by Dutch creationist, Johan Huibers, as a testament to his faith in the literal truth of the Bible.

The ark is 150 cubits long, 30 cubits high and 20 cubits wide. That’s two-thirds the length of a football field and as high as a three-story house.

Life-size models of giraffes, elephants, lions, crocodiles, zebras, bison and other animals greet visitors as they arrive in the main hold.

A contractor by trade, Huibers built the ark of cedar and pine. Biblical Scholars debate exactly what the wood used by Noah would have been.

Huibers did the work mostly with his own hands, using modern tools and with occasional help from his son, Roy. Construction began in May 2005. On the uncovered top – deck not quite ready in time for the opening – will come a petting zoo, with baby lambs, chickens, goats and one camel.

Visitors on the first day were stunned. ‘It’s past comprehension’, said Mary Louise Starosciak, who happened to be bicycling by with her husband while on vacation when they saw the ark looming over the local landscape.

“I knew the story of Noah, but I had no idea the boat would have been so big.”

There is enough space near the keel for a 50-seat film theater where kids can watch a video that tells the story of Noah and his ark. Huibers, a Christian man, said he hopes the project will renew interest in Christianity in the Netherlands , where church-going has fallen dramatically in the past 50 years.

Now that I am old and Gray…give me the time to tell This new generation (and their children too) About all your mighty miracles. Psalm 71:18

25 Comments:

  1. That is one of the COOLEST things I have EVER seen!!! I would love to see that thing brought here and toured around the US!

  2. I think I am going to look up this guys address in case the global warming gets too rough on our icebergs!

    Awesome Ship!

  3. Wondering if he used renewable resources to build that?

    I’m thinking NO. :)

  4. I just happened to be reading the Bible (new Christian) and read that God sent the flood on the 17th day of the second month of the year (Feb 17th), which happens to be the date of this article…..THATS cool! I would love to see this ship.

    Dan in Cincinnati

  5. Dan, that is pretty observant of you! Keep reading the Bible, it’s your guidebook for life!

  6. This is really cool. It would be cooler if the story of Noah’s Ark actually happened. None the less, I’d like to see the boat.

  7. Jared, thanks for the comment, I won’t bother arguing the point on Noah’s Ark, but to say there is pretty substantial scientific evidence for an ancient world-wide flood, though admittedly, the story of Noah’s Ark leans heavily on the reliability of the Bible and faith in the God of the Bible, without those two foundational beliefs, I too would find the story hard to believe! Why I believe in both of those after years of study and research is too much for an comment, and I’d guess you weren’t looking for that either. :o)

    Nevertheless, I approved the comment, as believing like I do isn’t a requirement to post. Thanks for visiting.

  8. This Is A Great Opportunity To Spread The Word As You Tell Or Hear The WORD Of GOD Through “A Real Story Of Noah’s Ark” It’s A Blessing!

  9. that was very inspiring

  10. Genesis 6 specifies a size of 300x50x30 cubits instead of the 150x30x20 listed here. This is substantially smaller than the one mentioned in biblical accounts. Although clearly neither one is large enough to hold any significant portion of all the worlds fauna, especially 7 of each “clean” animal.

  11. My purpose here is only to re-post what this guy has built as it is fascinating. This obviously isn’t an ideal format for a debate. However, there has been significant research into the account of the Ark and its capacity to do what it claims, and actually there is plenty of room left over for living space for Noah’s family. Granted, only land animals, and babies at that are assumed, as fish and birds could survive outside the Ark. In addition, if you leave God out of the equation, there is no room for His intervention in their surviving the time on the Ark, if He is real, I think He is quite capable of sustaining life! The story of Noah’s Ark is not for the purpose of proving anything, but rather to illustrate how seriously God takes sin. However, it does “hold water” with the evidence if objectively considered, something I know is a difficult starting place for many. This historical account is more likely to be something that is accepted as reasonable (with the mounting evidence) only after one has resolved more personal objections to God and/or the creation story.

  12. Andrew is correct though. I know this isn’t a debate but I don’t see how anybody could actually believe that a man could put two of every single animal on the planet on a boat AND keep them alive. Geographically, it makes absolutely no sense. He wasn’t a taxi, and there is no way that a polar bear could make its way to the middle east. What about all the millions of species of bugs? Birds certainly couldn’t fly non-stop for 40 days so he would have to fit the thousands of species of birds there too. Not to mention food. I have no idea what Llama’s eat. As for oceanic creatures go, if the world was flooded then sea salt levels would be equalled out throughout the entire world, sending our climate into a downward spiral.

    As I’ve said before, the boat that this guy built is cool, yes, but as far as the whole Noah’s ark story goes, it’s bollocks.

  13. @jared. Remember Pangea? Assuming a young earth theory (which I personally don’t, but for the sake of debate let’s pretend I do,) at the time of the great flood, it should have only been a few generations after creation. That’s hardly any time at all for a continental shift. One could assume that there was just one large landmass, and that the great flood was what caused such a huge shift in the earth’s crust. Also, I don’t think that Noah necessarily had 2 of every make and model of animal, probably more accurately he had one type of cat, probably a big cat, perhaps a wolf, or some other large dog, one type of bear, etc. and that evolution just took over in the resulting generations to give us the variety of species we see now.

    I’m not saying that I’m right, I don’t even know if I believe it yet. I haven’t done as much research on the flood or microevolution as I’d like to. I’m simply saying that it’s a possibility.

  14. My ex boyfriend from the Netherlands sent me an article about this, and this was built on a 1/3 scale from the Biblical measurements.

  15. Wow! That is some replica! I noticed a lot of good comments and hope you will take a look at a few of my observations.
    1) The date of the 17th day of the second month would not exactly go with the ” Gregorian ” calendar of today. The calendar that I believe is written about requires us to observe the “new moon” and its revolutions to get the proper months. The first month called “Abib” is always in the spring and always begins 14 days after the spring equinox. The next new moon begins the month of Irar, or the second month. This year, if I am correct, that date would be May,10.
    2) As for the birds. They require little room to nest. Go to an Aviary in a zoo, or observe a hatchery and notice the hundreds of chickens in a small area. The insects have little problem there. Most of them probably nested on the birds and other animals just as they do today.
    3) Think about it. The Ark wasn’t just a shell. How many compartments may have been built for nesting purposes? Don’t we ourselves build shelves and compartments to house all of our what nots? Yet, without them our house couldn’t hold our possessions.
    4) As for the polar bears migrating. No problem. Archeologists have known for decades that before the “Flood”, the land masses of this earth was connected and foot travel was possible virtually anywhere in the world.
    5) The food. Now remember, Noah and his family weren’t weren’t dumb. Provender was provided for the animals in advance and placed aboard the Ark. What about Noah and his family? Well , they had vegetables on board as well as meat. The “clean meat” simply means meat that our God made for the consumption by his creation, in this case the humans. I am not saying they did eat meat, but if they did, they had seven pair of that kind on board, so they would not with proper management, eat the species into extinction.
    6) Remember this. The Ark is with the exception of one small window is completely sealed! We have a complete eco-system here! Eight people managing on a regular basis all the care and clean up in an enclosed environment. Think of a terrarium.
    7) On the issue of sea salt equaling throughout the world. This world was literally being torn apart. It was being cracked, broken,turned upside down( literally!), and among other things pulled out of it’s orbit! The waters were rough and stormy! No chance of equalizing there. The ancient Sumerian writings give lots of information on that time period.
    8) Noah, his wife,his three sons and their wives were on board that ship for a full year to the day. It rained 40 days AND 40 nights, the earth wasn’t ready to receive them until that year was up!
    I hope I wasn’t too lengthy in my comments. This is one of the greatest stories that is never told correctly. It is my personal belief that not understanding this part of our history , leads to never understanding “The Bible” , the word our God gave to us. Thank You.

  16. That is amazing! Just imagine trying to build that without modern tools.

    “Wondering if he used renewable resources to build that?
    I’m thinking NO.”

    Uh… Pretty sure trees are a renewable resource, Jonathan. :)

  17. Okay through the magical power of carbon dating it is believed that there was a great flood, but it was nothing like what the bible made it out to be. But for the sake of argument, we’ll say the gigantic flood of 40 days and 40 nights happened; that doesn’t mean that a man built a boat and carried a ton of animals. It is highly improbable.

    And as for Michael, Jonathan wasn’t saying that the boat itself isn’t made of renewable resources, he was saying that he wondered if it was MADE with renewable resources, i.e. a ton of saws running to cut the wood using electricity and gasoline. And he was joking.

  18. my 2 cents on the whole noah thing ask and farmer or animal breeder what would happen if you only have 1 male and 1 female of a species interbreeding would become a problem quickly and genetic abnormalities would soon appear in greater numbers and soon make the offspring not viable so 2 of each animal makes the noah story seem highly improbable to me

  19. Charlie, you bring up an odd point. If you toss God out of the equation for the flood, then a farmers opinion is valid. If, however, God is part of this story (kinda a critical character) then I think that God would be quite capable of preventing abnormalities or genetic problems. It’s actually quite silly to suggest that God could flood the world, but then be powerless to prevent some mating issues. Either God did indeed flood the world and save the animals and Noah, or He didn’t. The story of Noah’s Ark is not provable by facts or theories. If you believe in God (and the Bible) there are no issues that God can’t overcome. If you don’t, I don’t see any way to believe the story of Noah, despite the massive geological evidence of a world wide flood of some sort.

  20. What I find ironic is that someone said that there was one cat, one dog, one bird, etc. and that they just evolved into what they are now. However, evolution is pretty rejected by religion ;) So pick a side.

  21. Turkey has a national park for the Ark..It exists if you did not know. go to the site. http://www.arkdiscovery.com/noah%27s_ark.htm

    why your at it look up the shroud of Turin on Google.

    As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.”- Ecclesiastes 11:5 (we understand it now! mostly) lol, so we can kind of understand the work of God. (Complexity alotness) lol

  22. Yeah I was going to say that we understand all of that 100% now. Unfortunately, nobody understands any bit of “God” or how everything was created 100% – Including Atheism (I know that’s not a religion but just for the sake of argument we’ll throw it in).

    As for the park, you can’t honestly say that that is convincing. There’s a face of a man on Mars, so is Mars really a man?! Or is that God’s face?! No. It’s an anomaly that just happens to look like what we want it to. I’m not too sure about where it is said that “Noah’s ark” actually ended up, but wasn’t it atop the peak of a mountain?

  23. People, if you think that the flood isn’t true, then how come scientists are finding fossils of fish and other ocean creatures on the tops of mountains.
    If you don’t add God into the story of how the flood could have happened, then the story won’t make sense.

    This isn’t really about anything on this post, but I just wanted to say that global warming isn’t going to cause a huge global flood because God promised that he would never again flood the earth. He gave us the rainbow so the we can continually be reminded of his promise.

  24. This is a pretty sweet ark. I totally agree that people should not look at this story completely practical. We think we are so wise and intelligent, and that everything has to be filtered through science. This is true to a point– we should not accept things blindly, but the Bible says that the foolishness of God is STILL wiser than the wisdom of man. This shows us that we can’t understand everything! Instead of asking all these questions about why and how God did certain things, put your trust in him and watch him answer your questions. I’m gonna ask God a lot of things one day in heaven, and then I’ll have some answers to those tough questions, but for now I’m just gonna trust God, try to figure out some of the answers, and serve God as best I can!

  25. Got to have my 2 pennies worth…

    First and foremost, What an amazing bit of craftsmanship. It looks great! I will be coming over to see it in the near future. Congratulations.

    I’m sure it says in the bible animals after there kind to be placed on the ark… Look it up what is meant by “after there kind”. Polar Bears??? give a break, A Bear after its kind, Not a polar bear grisly bear pander or teddy bear. In fact not having a very good memory I don’t even think the bible even mentions Bears on the ark.

    It would be doubtful if fully grown adult animals where on the ark!! they would be young and would grow to adapt for a year on the ark… they wouldn’t eat that much too! And so would not take up much space.

    Still think its a Great bit of wood work… would love to know more about the project…

    Mr Bronz.

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