Ark Encounter nest in them. Much of the wood used to build the Ark Encounter was sourced from renewable forests or trees infested by beetles. During construction, former President Jimmy Carter toured the Ark Encounter, accepting an invitation from LeRoy Troyer, president of the Troyer Group. Ark Encounter opened on July 7, 2016, a date (7/7) chosen to correspond with Genesis 7:7: "And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood." AiG also announced that, for the first 40 days and 40 nights of Ark Encounter's operation – an
Philistine captivity of the Ark which was 'volunteered' to take the Ark (vv. 10b-12). The text explicitly ascribes the plague to "Yahweh's hand" (1 Samuel 5:6). In Ashdod, when the Ark was placed in the temple of Dagon, the statue of Dagon was found prostrate in front of the Ark the next morning; after the statue of Dagon was restored to its place, it was again found prostrate the next morning, and this time its head and hands had also been broken off. Leithart provides a number of parallels between the Philistine captivity of the Ark and the Plagues of Egypt in the Book of