Modern-Day Noah: Dutch Businessman Builds a Full-Scale Replica of the Ark 🛳️✨It took 12,000 trees and 4 years of work to build this masterpiece. 🌈📖 You should see inside the ark. It’s just amazing.
“This is a replica of God’s ship. It only makes sense to sail to the Holy Land on it.” It took 12,000 trees and 4 years of work to build this masterpiece.
Thoughts about the coming End of the World can sometimes push a person to the most original actions. One Canadian built himself a shelter from old buses in case of a nuclear war called “Ark-2”, and a resident of the Netherlands, Johan Huybers, built an exact copy of the Ark on which Noah was saved during the Flood.
It is not known exactly what prompted Huibers to take on this project. Some say that the idea for the construction came to him in 1992, when he was reading the biblical story of Noah to his children, while others claim that it all began with a dream in which Johan saw his home country being covered by a giant wave. And this is not so fantastic: most of the Netherlands lies below sea level, on areas reclaimed from the water and drained over the centuries, fenced off with dams.
Whatever the reason that prompted Johan to his work, he took up the construction of the ship-Ark according to the descriptions contained in the biblical book of Genesis. As a result, in 2006, he created his first, so to speak, “warm-up” Ark. It was half the size of the one described in the holy book.
The appearance of a modern Noah’s Ark in the city of Dordrecht was a sensation for tourists. It was then that the businessman came up with the idea that there was no need to stop halfway – and he began building a full-scale ship. With the money he earned from tourists, Huybers set to work. His friends helped him: a butcher, a school teacher and a hairdresser.
The second ark was completed in 2012. It cost $5 million and required 12,000 tree trunks. Its dimensions correspond to the verse 6:15 from the Book of Genesis: 23 m (30 cubits) high, 125 m (300 cubits) long, 29 m (50 cubits) high. Which cubit of the measurements used throughout history was used is known only to the builder. The only deviation made by the modern Noah concerns the material: instead of the “gopher wood” mentioned in the Bible, today’s Scandinavian pine was used.
But this is only because even biblical scholars are unable to give an exact answer as to which tree was mentioned in the Bible (it is possible that the “gopher” did not survive the Flood, and all its thickets were cut down by Noah). The structure weighed 2,500 tons and could accommodate more than 5 thousand people. The replica turned out to be very popular. Johan even placed animal mannequins made of plastic inside for visitors.
However, a little later, the authorities in Dordrecht decided that the object was unsafe – and the ark was closed to tourists. As a result, Huybers began to look for other ways to use his ship. In 2016, he wanted to sail it to Rio de Janeiro, where the Olympics were taking place, but the trip fell through. But the businessman is not giving in to despair. Now he wants to sail it to Israel: “It is a replica of God’s ship – and it should only sail to the Holy Land.”
The problem so far is that the ship has no propulsion – no sails, no motor. It will need towing, and according to Johan’s estimates, it will cost $1.3 million for the entire journey. Since the ark is not making any profit, Huibers is currently collecting donations to hire a tug for the journey. The Dutchman has not yet said what to do after arriving in Israel.
Although real “arks” already exist (for example, in Norway there is a bunker storing the seeds of all the plants in the world that have been collected), Johan’s ship is very interesting. Many tourists would be happy to see it – and a voyage to Israel would raise its popularity to an unattainable level. So let’s wish Huibers good luck in his venture.
