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March 2009 issue
Features
Story by
William H. Jennings
Two museums, two worlds
A visit reveals opposing views of Earth's beginnings

Editor’s note: This article offers Jennings’ observations from his recent tour of the museums. Professor of religion, emeritus, at Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pa., he is the author of Storms Over Genesis: Biblical Battleground in America’s Wars of Religion (Fortress Press, 2007).

An animatronic 40-foot-long sauropod
An animatronic 40-foot-long sauropod dinosaur overlooks the Creation Museum’s main hall.
In rural Kentucky, just south of Cincinnati, two museums beckon visitors like me who are intrigued with the origins of the Earth.

The Creation Museum, which opened in May 2007, is an impressive place — 70,000 square feet put together at a cost of $27 million with private funding. Young-earth creationist in focus, its brochure says it offers “a walk through the history of the Bible” through 160 exhibits. Two dates often are displayed: 4,004 B.C., creation; and 2,348 B.C., the great flood that produced the fossils.

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