Documentary
2024 / 110 minutes
RATING: 7/10

Got doubts about whether the biblical Flood really happened, or really covered the whole of the Earth? Then The Ark and the Darkness is for you. The documentary starts off with a bang, the opening credits showcasing what the world might have looked like as the Flood’s waters rose. The most haunting image is the last one, of a wolf bounding up a rocky terrain, trying to find somewhere high enough to escape the rising seas.

Then the experts arrive to do the heavy lifting. Much of the Church is embarrassed by the Flood. It’s a Bible passage often ignored or even rejected because many Christians think Science has disproven it. The implications go far beyond these few chapters because if someone chooses Science over the Bible here, where does it stop? What about when Science proclaims we evolved? Or that death came before Man ever showed up? Shucks, we now even have Science tellings us guys can become girls. And the kicker is, Science also tells us that the dead don’t rise. So if Science is your ultimate guide to what’s true, then your Savior did not rise, and your faith is futile (1 Cor. 15:17). So, as Dr. John Sanford puts it, “What is at stake is, Heaven or Hell.”

But what if God’s infallible unerring eyewitness account is your guide? What The Ark and the Darkness sets out to show is that the Bible is trustworthy, and that ideology blinds the scientists who say otherwise. There is more than the secular way to do Science and the facts, as this documentary details, fit well with the Bible’s Flood account. Those with eyes to see will be amazed at what Science really says when it isn’t being twisted towards godless ends.

So, the short CGI scenes, showing the deluge, are striking, but the film’s real value is in what the experts are saying. Some of the evidences they present for the Flood include:

• Polystrate fossils – Some fossilized trees extend upwards right through strata that is said to have been laid down over millions of years. But if it really took that long for the layers to build up and bury the tree, the tree would have rotted away long before. The better explanation is that these layers were put down rapidly over a short period of time during the Flood
• Bended and folded rock layers representing millions of years – Rocks don’t bend; they shatter. So these layers must have still been soft when they were bent, which again doesn’t make sense if they were laid down over millions of years. It does make sense if they were laid down rapidly.
• Elastic tissue in dinosaur fossils – Recently, soft tissue has been found in dinosaurs that are supposed to be millions of years old. That doesn’t make sense. It does make sense if the dinosaur tissue isn’t nearly that old.
• Hundreds of Flood traditions around the world – You’d expect an event that reduced the planet to just one family to be talked about and passed on to their children and children’s children. And it was: there are worldwide flood traditions in cultures around the world. Lots of things get changed, but the gist isl there.

That’s just the tip of what they tackle.

Caution

I was struck by how many times variations of the phrase “…exactly as the Bible suggests…” pop up. The word “exactly” is the problem here, because it gives the impression that we know it happened just so. The followup “suggests” technically takes back that certainty, but still leave much of the same impression. We do know some things for certain: that God created in 6 days, for example. And that the waters covered the Earth. But what went down under those Flood waters? Well, here’s a really interesting film exploring all that might have happened. But maybe it wasn’t exactly so. So a little more humility would have helped things, with more “might haves”s instead of “exactly”s. There’s some irony here, because talking too confidently is the evolutionists‘ typical sin – secular scientists speak as if they know this and that, when the sort of science they are doing is not the reproducible sort, but is instead more and less informed guesses.

Caution #2 also relates to being too certain by half. At around the 95 minute mark, as the film is concluding, three minutes are devoted to a dispensational take on the Earth’s last days. It’s presented as if that’s the one official orthodox Christian take on the end of the Earth, and it most certainly is not. So you may as well stop it at 95 minutes to get the group discussion going a little sooner.

Conclusion

The picture on the promotional material of a drowning dinosaur had me wondering whether this would be an amazing CGI visual treat showing the Flood liked we’d never seen it before. Turns out, there is a little bit of that, but this is more of a telling film with all sorts of experts chiming in. That makes this a wonderful resource for anyone who wants to know how the Flood might have, in geological terms, manifested.

But it also means this isn’t really a family movie night sort of show. Too many talking heads.

You can buy it on DVD at GenesisApologetics.com/ark or you can watch it for free below.