Ark Encounter

i) Ken Ham's new theme park on Noah's ark and the flood instantly garnered a hostile reaction from the atheist community–as well as BioLogos, the flagship of theistic evolution. It's striking how threatened these groups feel by the very existence of Ken Ham's theme park. For them, it's unbearable that that viewpoint should even be in the public domain. 

ii) As I've often remarked, it can be a useful exercise to visualize Biblical descriptions. Stepping into an imaginary time machine to consider what the scene would look like if you could travel back into the past and see it for yourself. 

iii) Genesis gives us a sketchy description of the ark, rather than a blueprint, so any reconstruction will include a fair about of conjecture. It's important for Christians not to equate historical reconstructions with the Biblical record, since there are different ways to fill in the gaps. Many of us have been conditioned by popular reconstructions to think we know what the text is describing, but that could be way off the mark. Consider, for instance, Ben-Uri rhomboidal design for the ark:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2015/06/what-did-noahs-ark-look-like.html

iv) There's a certain irony in the fact that Ham's model ark was constructed with power tools. If only Noah had a crane! 

I wonder who the technical consultants were for designing Ham's model ark. There are so many judgment calls regarding the exterior and especially the interior. 

v) Depicting animals on the ark may present something of a conundrum for Ham. In YEC, extant species are variations on prediluvian natural kinds. So the animals on the ark don't necessarily resemble any contemporary species. Rather, they are the progenitors of modern species, which may be fairly unrecognizable in relation to the occupants of the ark. 

vi) In the age of video games, CGI, and Virtual Reality, there's a sense in which Ham's physical mockup is rather retro. We can produce computer simulations of the ark. We can produced detailed computer modeling of the ark, inside and out. Take a virtual tour.

In fact, we now have the wherewithal to produce video game representations of creation, the Flood, the Ten Plagues, the visions of Ezekiel, Daniel, and Revelation, or picturesque vignettes in Isaiah–to take few examples. It is possible to create an immersive, audiovisual experience of these literary descriptions. 

That, of course, involves many interpretive judgment calls. But that in itself is an instructive exercise. 

For instance, suppose you did a computer simulation of Revelation. Do you depict the imagery as is, or do you update it according to what you think it stands for? The futuristic counterparts? 

In fact, you don't have to choose. You could do two different video game versions of Revelation: one which preserves the original imagery, and another which gives the viewer an interpretive future projection. 

I think it would be pedagogically informative for geeky Christians to use CGI to produce immersive representations of Biblical narratives, including–or especially–the more surreal descriptions of Scripture. That would also be a great way of getting boys interested in the Bible.