Ken Ham Complains PBS Documentary Focuses Too Much on Stupid Parts of Ark Encounter and Creationism

2/20/2020

This week, creationist Ken Ham threw a fit over a 2019 documentary, We Believe in Dinosaurs, which aired this month on PBS as part of the Independent Lens series. He accused the documentary of being biased against creationism because it depicted, accurately, the appearance of dinosaurs in Ham’s “Ark Encounter” recreation of Noah’s Ark in Kentucky. “It turned out to be an agenda-driven propaganda piece focusing on dinosaurs and the Ark Encounter, where dinosaurs represent only a tiny fraction of the exhibits at the Ark,” Ham wrote. That’s a bit like complaining that histories of Germany always mention that Hitler fellow even though he was only in power for 12 years.

Nephilim vs. dinosaurs at Ark Encounter.

But let’s not pretend that the dinosaurs are shunted off into a corner. A few years ago, Ham proudly shared images of an exhibit he planned showing Nephilim giants battling a dinosaur in a Minoan-inspired arena in the cyclopean style of the Mycenaeans. To complain that the documentary unfairly focused on the dinosaurs is to admit that the claim is insupportable and ridiculous; otherwise, he should be proudly embracing the imaginary history of Nephilim and dinosaurs that he trumpets. I thought his museum was all about presenting the so-called “truth.”

More telling, though, was Ham’s projection at the end of a Cincinnati Enquirer op-ed piece complaining about the PBS film: “This is a reminder that those who oppose the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum often take selected pieces of information and weave a false story for their propaganda purposes.”

You mean like your dinosaur battling Nephilim in a Mycenaean-Minoan amphitheater?

The warrant for that entire exhibit is selective cherry-picking of ancient information and modern fringe history, wrapped up in apocryphal Jewish texts that aren’t part of the canonical Bible. For example, the use of Mycenaean-style cyclopean architecture derives from Pausanias’s claim that the Cyclopes built the Mycenaean ruins because they were so large that no human could have constructed them.

I have previously reported that Ham’s pre-Flood history has little to do with the Bible and much to do with nineteenth and twentieth century fringe history books. The Ark Encounter refers to a global cult of serpent worship, which is not a biblical concept but one found in John Bathurst Deane’s 1830 book Serpent Worship. Similarly, the Ark Encounter envisions a pre-Flood world based on Ignatius Donnelly’s Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, complete with Mexican-style pyramids. Worst of all, the vicious Nephilim and their rampages as depicted in the Ark Encounter are nowhere to be found in Genesis 6:1-4 but rather in the apocryphal books of Enoch and Jubilees.

The museum calls such use of extra-biblical stories a “plausible backstory,” but it’s really just popular mystery-mongering bullshit from all your favorite paperback ancient mysteries books dressed up as God’s Word.

52 Comments

Dingy Denier

2/20/2020 09:26:32 am

"The museum calls such use of extra-biblical stories a “plausible backstory,” but it’s really just popular mystery-mongering bullshit from all your favorite paperback ancient mysteries books dressed up as God’s Word."

The whole biblical ark narrative and fundamentalist fantasy is bullshit! But, as P.T. Barnum purportedly said: "There's a sucker born every minute."

Kent

2/20/2020 12:52:20 pm

The idea that "we can't use stuff that isn't in the Bible as sources" is just silly. It's applying not just a religious test but a BIBLICAL test to scholarship and implies that Christians are obligated to be bound by what Jews consider canonical.

As we all know, the Bible is completely factual and historically accurate.

Just wondering

2/20/2020 04:00:43 pm

Whom were you quoting?

Good Book is also based on Ancient Calendar

2/21/2020 03:27:14 am

The number forty is to be found in a great many instances in the Old Testament; for instance, at the end of forty days Noah sent out a raven from the ark. Isaac and Esau were each forty years old when they married. Forty days were fulfilled for the embalming of Jacob. The spies were forty days in search of the land of Canaan. The Israelites wandered forty years in the wilderness. The land "had rest" forty years on three occasions. The land was delivered into the hand of the Philistines forty years. Eli judged Israel forty years. King David reigned forty years. King Solomon reigned forty years. Goliath presented himself forty days. The rain was upon the earth forty days at the time of the deluge. Moses was on the mount forty days and forty nights on each occasion.

Jesus fasted "forty days and forty nights" in the Judean desert. Forty days was the period from the resurrection of Jesus to the ascension of Jesus.

Gusg

2/22/2020 12:26:48 pm

Museums like this one are supported by crazy right-wing Christian Trump voters — so much for the idea that there are equal numbers of liberals and conservatives who believe in pseudoscience! Oops!

Brian

2/20/2020 09:53:52 am

I'm still somehow astounded at the tenacity of all this nonsense. How can these boobs continue to exist and suck money out of other boobs' pockets year after year?

The calmest, quietest, most devastating destruction of all this religious nonsense is H.L. Mencken's "Memorial Service," which can be read at http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/comment/menckengods.htm.

But now, because of the internet, I'm sure there's somebody somewhere eager to revive the worship of Huitzilpochtli, if he could just get hold of 50,000 youths and maidens to sacrifice.

Dominus Vobiscum Didjeridoo

2/20/2020 12:58:27 pm

What do you mean "revive"? Fifty thousand is a rounding error in the annual number of missing children and abortions. We're still getting the job done.

Ark Ark

2/20/2020 10:06:28 am

Story of the Ark = survival of the hero akin to Moses in ark of the bulrushes. It's really the womb.

2/20/2020 10:14:25 am

The "rain" signifies the fertilisation, but of course that was cognate with something else (hint, hint)

2/20/2020 11:18:09 am

And thus spake the Lord: "I shall rain down on thee a golden shower..."

Jr. Anthony Warren

2/20/2020 12:43:58 pm

And the animals represent the pairs of chromosomes. Forty days and forty nights. Forty is five times eight and both five and eight are sacred to Venus. Forty is a pentagonal pyramidal number so it relates to the pyramids.

So lonely.

Forty

2/20/2020 12:49:22 pm

Betcha you'll never know the real significance of 40

Nine

2/20/2020 01:24:56 pm

The ruling aristocracy of certain ancient cultures (including Egyptian) claimed ancestry from 9 specific gods (the ennead). This reverence for the ennead (nine) points to the ultimate possibility that some among the ancients did reckon each 9th part of the year (or each term of 40 days) in reference to the dominion of a specific god (9 per year).

NINE

2/20/2020 01:32:04 pm

Passages in the book of Genesis do further point to the possibility that the ancients did once time track 40 days in an unbroken cycle. Of considerable significance is that the author of Genesis has the flood of Noah occurring 1656 years from the epoch of creation. This number of years (1656) happens to exactly be divisible by 9 years. Furthermore, the number of days in 1656 years happens to be divisible by 40 days (plus 1 day).

Timmy

2/20/2020 02:37:22 pm

"...Forty days and forty nights..." / "...Ali Baba and the forty thieves..."

Oh my god! Islam and Judaism are the same thing. The numbers never lie.

2/20/2020 05:38:49 pm

The day represents the Sun and the night represents the Moon. It's all astronomical you see.

So lonely.

David Evans

2/21/2020 06:28:02 am

The animals represent the fact that you need one of each sex to procreate. There is no reason to think the ancients knew anything about chromosomes.

"Forty is a pentagonal pyramidal number"
You'll have to spell that out. I can't see it. Anyway the Egyptian pyramids are not pentagonal.

Matt

2/21/2020 08:11:21 pm

(plus 1 day)... so not really then.

Plus One Day

2/22/2020 02:29:17 am

When you work it out, it's good enough

Who's Nitpicking 1656 Years

2/22/2020 08:40:46 am

It ain't even 3 days between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
No "alleluyah"

Bezalel

2/22/2020 10:40:01 am

Your mistake is using “between”
Friday is one day
Saturday 2
Sunday is 3rd day
In 33 CE Friday was April 3 and Nisan 14. This date was grafted into the history of a very long running calendar using cycles (multiples) of:
272 days
273 days
313 days
323 days
322 days
233 days
353 days
433 days
584 days
861 days
2137 days
2338 days
13527 days
A few others.

“Jesus” did not live, nor did he die on 3rd April 33 CE. Entire story was invented and backdated later to conform to the cyclic lunar-solar-stellar calendar referenced, and to incorporate the earthquake that occurred on 3rd April for effect.
This was done to validate a new Roman mytho-religion with hero, and to substantiate the running myth of Solomon’s temple, revived by the Cistercians near 6/25/1115, still perpetuated by the Freemasons.
Tiny example:

4/3/33 is 272*1663 days after 10/30/1207 bc “Joshua’s eclipse”
4/3/33 = 273*5074 days after 10/12/3761BCE creation of “Adam”
4/5/33=273*3754 after 5/26/2774 BCE death of “Enoch”
4/3/33 = 322x 40 after 12/28/4BCE and 322*1185 after 7/27/1013BCE death of “Saul”
4/5/33 = 323*41 after 1/1/4BCE and 323*2 after 6/29/31CE death of mythical John the Baptist.
4/3/33=313*3623 after 7/14/3073BCE “methuselah”
4/5/33 = 2338*279 after 5/11/1754BCE (Iyar 17) death of “Noah”
4/3/33 13527*27 after 4/25/968BCE Solomon’s temple date ala Edwin Thiele

4/5/33=233*2411 after 3/28/1506 BCE death of ”Jacob”
5/13/33 (“ascension”) = 323*40 after 12/28/4BCE
Saul, Joshua, Moses, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Solomon, Adam, Seth, Jesus, etc etc are also entirely mythic characters, created to fit the calendar.

313*7 = 6 years
272*47 ~ 70 years
426*6 = 7 years
233*58 ~ 37 years
861*14 ~ 33 years ala John Dee
322 = 687-365 (mars versus earth orbits)
584 days = Venus cycle
13527 = eclipse cycle and 1/700th grand cycle of 9468900 days (25925 earth years give or take 3 days)
2338 days = earth-mars-Venus syzygy and 1/4050th grand cycle
433 days = chandler wobble
377*31 ~32 years ~ 2338*5
322*490 = 343*460 ~ 432 years

This is just the tip of this dick, so open wide bitch.

Do your work this isn’t that difficult
This can be figured out.
5th grade math and a little astronomy.

Our calendar remains the most important rubric of knowledge and guide for human life. Myths are created to fit inside it so we don’t forget it. Astronomer/Priests in the past worked it out. Druids.

The big 3 western religions are inventions.

3 days not invented

2/22/2020 11:06:36 am

The 3 days are modelled on Hosea

After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence

Midol Ranger

2/22/2020 11:16:11 am

Like the constipated accountant you worked it out with a pencil.

2/22/2020 11:37:47 am

Myths are invented
Religions are invented
3 day differences are not invented, they are a natural outcome of combining lunar and solar calendar cycles over long periods.
Hebrew, Julian and Gregorian.

Hosea is invented bulshhhhhhhit just like the other prophets and patriarchs.
Astronomical cycles are real, regular and reliable.

Religion?
No.
No.
And no.

Inventions and inventions

2/22/2020 12:20:07 pm

The New Testament is modelled on the Old Testament no matter how much Rorschach number crunching is applied.

2/24/2020 11:20:03 pm

You didn’t read.

Bran The Blessed

2/26/2020 10:29:24 am

The arithmetic here is underwhelming. I hink the ancients would be very disappointed in the way internet nutters have such a bad grasp of simple mathematics.

Jr. Time Lord

2/28/2020 06:28:49 am

The "3 Days" happens twice a year. When the Sun reaches the Summer Solstice the personified Sun has his head cut off and lies dead for 3 days before picking up his head and walking away. When the Sun reaches the Winter Solstice another symbolic death occurs. The Sun appears to rise in the same spot for 3 days. This is why we have zombie Jesus.

3/5/2020 10:37:01 am

Long lost very interesting conjecture:
Robert G. Haliburton
“Festival of the dead” 1867 or so:

Origin of Osiris/Isis legend and others Is holdover from the ancient cultures of the southern hemisphere where the month of November contained the mythical three days, which was a stellar and lunar phenomenon based on the Pleiades which culminates at midnight near the 17th of Athyr (near 17 November). Here the sun (later adopted as the murdered Osiris by Egypt) is in Scorpio and if there is a full moon (Isis) it’s in Taurus. Osiris was placed in coffin/ark and floated on the river until Isis found him, similar to the ark of Noah and the little “ark” of mythical Moses when he was put on the river.

Took Isis 14 days to find Osiris which is symbolic of the 14 days between full Moon and new Moon, which travels backward across the night sky through Taurus and Orion in the process.

Freemasonry incorporated this legend into the death of Hiram Abiff, who was killed by 3 dudes and buried 14 days before being discovered...timing was near the completion of Solomon’s temple in 962 BCE.

17 Heshvan (later Hebrew calendar: 3rd day after the full moon, which normally happens on the 14th/15th of every Hebrew month) was beginning of flood/ark and also the completion of Solomon’s temple.

The Roman Christian calendar later adopted/incorporated October 31 November 1 and November 2 as an additional symbolic three day period, but the origin is (all conjectured by Haliburton) stellar, and based on the Pleiades. Note in the southern hemisphere November is a spring month.

David Childress

2/20/2020 12:42:27 pm

Obviously the story of the ark is a re-telling of of the panspermia alien transport of life to this planet. Despite the absence of any kind of proof or even the slightest hint of logic, I can say this with absolute confidence because that is the tone of voice I am currently using.

Patrick Leary

2/20/2020 01:44:44 pm

The photo looks like the Nephilim are trying to fight dinosaurs and get freaky with human women at the same time. Looks a little too PG for a Christian museum unless you are really into the PG-13 Old Testament scene I guess.

2/20/2020 03:19:03 pm

"Come, let us make our father drunk with wine!"

"And he went into his daughters and he knew them."

That's incest boning for those of you in Rio Linda.

Wink Martindale

2/20/2020 03:55:32 pm

"Daughter Incest"!

Ding, ding, ding, the judges have announced THAT'S A BINGO! for our lucky Joe/Kent/AmericanNegro Word Bingo winner Mrs. Earlene Tupper of Omaha, Nebraska. And the prize is a $10 gift card for Subway sandwiches, enjoy, Earlene!!!

Time for the next round....

Hansen

2/20/2020 04:06:02 pm

Mrs. Tupper got damn lucky to draw a game card that specifically required daughter incest. The vast majority of Kent's comments usually involve men and juvenile males.

2/20/2020 05:47:23 pm

In the sense of Anthony Warren and Jim, yes. Still not sure which is which. But I've read recently that they're both...

So lonely. :)

If you want to read about Jim getting Anthony Warren drunk with wine and Anthony Warren going into Jim and knowing him, you're going to have to write your own Star Trek fanfic. Not my scene. I stick with the Bible. It's a good book. Some say THE good book.

Is chemical castration legal in all states yet/

2/20/2020 08:19:48 pm

don't let them get you down negrokent because the world needs probation officers and elementary school guards and sex crimes investigators and people like you help to ensure that there is always room in the budget for hiring more and more people for those jobs. You have value in the system

Mogimbo

2/21/2020 04:19:34 am

How big was the subsidy Ark Encounter got from the state of Kentucky? Kinda huge, I think. How many, say, science teachers would the same amount have funded?

2/22/2020 11:46:19 am

Despite our Constitutional duties for doing the opposite, this half-backward country is filled with idiots who don’t want science publicly funded.
Instead these moronic children believe and attempt to enforce the subservience of science to religious precepts.

2/22/2020 09:26:33 pm

Who exactly do you think has a Constitutional duty to publicly fund science?

3/7/2020 09:23:49 pm

As said previously
Suck less at reading.
It is your constitutional duty to WANT science to be publicly funded.
It is my constitutional duty and all rational Citizens’ constitutional duty to want science to be publicly funded.

Science benefits the human race because it teaches how to distinguish between reality and unreality.

Why do you hate humanity?
God is angry with you.

2/21/2020 04:26:53 am

Noah's Ark is quite simply the zodiac. The giant stowed away on the ark is Orion.

So Lonely

2/21/2020 07:57:40 am

So lonely.

2/22/2020 11:53:35 am

Let's see if the zodiac has the required properties to be the Ark:
Made of wood - nope
300 cubits long - nope
Allows humans and animals to board it - nope
Grounded on a mountaintop -nope

Am I being too literal here?

2/22/2020 12:07:55 pm

Astronomical cycles: real
Calendar: attempt at reality
Zodiac: invention
Ark: invention
Noah: invention

Jewish calendar - It all depends

2/22/2020 02:35:32 pm

The Old Testament and the sacred number of 40 built into its religious history shows Judea to have originally observed a primitive calendar. The Book of Jubilees shows the Judeans to have been undecided about which calendar they chose to observe.

Truth

2/22/2020 02:35:48 pm

Anthony Warren: So lonely.

Of course

2/22/2020 02:38:34 pm

The Gospels parroted the emphasis of the original 40 day calendar. It's unclear if the authors of the Gospels actually knew the 40 days referred to an ancient calendar.

2/23/2020 01:07:16 pm

@David Evans,

DING, DING, DING...We have a winner. You have pointed to the key difference in all of the arc stories. Actual construction.

Construct the Sumerian version and end up with a cube.

Construct the biblical version and end up with an obelisk transport.

Construct this version and end up with a pyramid, or the Royal Arch... Depending upon how you connect the dots.

The underlying astronomy stays the same.

Underlying astronomy

2/23/2020 03:56:19 pm

How boring.
Referring to supplemental stuff of no value
The driving force is always politics and politics was depicted through religion

2/28/2020 06:38:33 am

UNDERLYING ASTRONOMY
2/23/2020 03:56:19 pm
"How boring.
Referring to supplemental stuff of no value"

Talk to me when the lights go out permanently, or when you're lost. There's not just a calendar there or building instructions. The keys to dominate world trade and survey the globe.

Hanslune

2/24/2020 01:29:30 am

The full title of the Deane book is:

The worship of the serpent traced throughout the world, and its traditions referred to the events in Paradise, by John Deane 1830

Those with google play will find it here:

https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=MGuwY3u0sLkC&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA1

steineker link

2/25/2020 10:56:40 am

Parthenogenesis is a natural form of asexual reproduction in which growth and development of embryos occur without fertilization by sperm. In animals, parthenogenesis means development of an embryo from an unfertilized egg cell. In plants parthenogenesis is a component process of apomixis.

Parthenogenesis = Virgin Birth

A virgin birth is an example of Macro Evolution. Why? In a female her sex chromosome is x. If she produces a male the chromosome had to change from x and form a y Males are xy Females are xx

Many debate whether the virgin birth genes have made it up to humans. Many scholars say that is not possible. Funny we are only talking about 4 base pairs that make up DNA.

The point here is that a virgin birth of any plant or animal is not mentioned in Genesis.

The religious scholars can't say it is a result of sin. It is not mentioned after the fall.

Moreover, Jesus birth is an evolutionary origin.