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{{Short description|Vessel in the Genesis flood narrative}}<!--Before modifying, check the discussion in the talk page titled, "Fictional? --> | |||
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'''Noah's Ark''' ({{langx|he|תיבת נח}}; ]: ''Tevat Noaḥ'')<ref group="Notes" name="Ark">The word "ark" in modern English comes from Old English ''aerca'', meaning a chest or box. (See Cresswell 2010, p.22) The Hebrew word for the vessel, ''teva'', occurs twice in the ], in the flood narrative (] 6–9) and in the ], where it refers to the basket in which ] places the infant ]. (The word for the ], ''aron'', is quite different.) The Ark is built to save Noah, his family, and representatives of all animals from a divinely-sent flood intended to wipe out all life, and in both cases, the ''teva'' has a connection with ] from waters. (See Levenson 2014, p.21)</ref> is the boat in the ] through which ] spares ], his family, and examples of all the world's animals from a global deluge.{{sfn|Bailey|1990|p=63}} The story in Genesis is based on earlier ]s originating in ], and is repeated, with variations, in the ], where the Ark appears as ''Safinat ]'' ({{langx|ar|سَفِينَةُ نُوحٍ}} "Noah's ship") and ''al-fulk'' (Arabic: الفُلْك). The myth of the global flood that destroys all life begins to appear in the ] period (20th–16th centuries BCE).<ref name="t984">{{cite book | last=Chen | first=Y. S. | title=The Primeval Flood Catastrophe | publisher=Oxford University Press, USA | publication-place=Oxford, United Kingdom | year=2013 | isbn=978-0-19-967620-0 | oclc=839396707 | page=2}}</ref> The version closest to the biblical story of Noah, as well as its most likely source, is that of ] in the ].{{sfn|Nigosian|2004|p=40}} | |||
'''Noah's Ark''' (]: תיבת נח, ''Tevat Noach''; ]: سفينة نوح, ''Safina Nuh'') is a large vessel featured in the ]<ref>The term "myth" is used here strictly in its technical, academic sense, and not to imply any judgement about the veracity of any modern religious beliefs concerning these narratives.</ref> of ]. ]s that include the Ark are found in the ] (] chapters 6 through 9) and the ] (]s 11 and 71). | |||
Early Christian and Jewish writers, such as ], believed that Noah's Ark existed. Unsuccessful ] have been made from at least the time of ] (c. 275–339 CE). Believers in the Ark continue to search for it in modern times, but no scientific evidence that the Ark existed has ever been found,<ref name="Cline 2009" /> nor is there scientific evidence for a global flood.<ref>{{Cite news |author=Lorence G. Collins |date=2009 |title=Yes, Noah's Flood May Have Happened, But Not Over the Whole Earth |language=en |work=NCSE |url=https://ncse.com/library-resource/yes-noahs-flood-may-have-happened-not-over-whole-earth |url-status=live |access-date=22 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180626054743/https://ncse.com/library-resource/yes-noahs-flood-may-have-happened-not-over-whole-earth |archive-date=26 June 2018}}</ref> The boat and the natural disaster as described in the Bible would have been contingent upon physical impossibilities and extraordinary anachronisms.<ref name="Moore1983">{{cite journal |last=Moore |first=Robert A. |year=1983 |title=The Impossible Voyage of Noah's Ark |url=https://ncse.com/cej/4/1/impossible-voyage-noahs-ark |url-status=live |journal=Creation Evolution Journal |volume=4 |pages=1–43 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160717074346/https://ncse.com/cej/4/1/impossible-voyage-noahs-ark |archive-date=17 July 2016 |access-date=10 July 2016 |number=1}}</ref> Some researchers believe that a real (though localized) flood event in the ] could potentially have inspired the oral and later written narratives; a Persian Gulf flood, or a ] 7,500 years ago has been proposed as such a historical candidate.<ref name="RyanOthers1997a">{{Cite journal |last1=Ryan |first1=W. B. F. |last2=Pitman|first2=W. C.|last3=Major|first3=C. O. |last4=Shimkus |first4=K. |last5=Moskalenko |first5=V. |last6=Jones|first6=G. A. |last7=Dimitrov |first7=P. |last8=Gorür |first8=N. |last9=Sakinç |first9=M. |date=1997 |title=An abrupt drowning of the Black Sea shelf |url=http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~billr/BlackSea/Ryan_et_al_MG_1997.pdf |journal=Marine Geology |volume=138|issue=1–2|pages=119–126|doi=10.1016/s0025-3227(97)00007-8|access-date=23 December 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304104301/http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~billr/BlackSea/Ryan_et_al_MG_1997.pdf|archive-date=4 March 2016|url-status=dead|citeseerx=10.1.1.598.2866 |bibcode=1997MGeol.138..119R |s2cid=129316719 | issn=0025-3227 }}</ref><ref name="RyanOthers2003a">{{cite journal |last1=Ryan |first1=W. B. |last2=Major |first2=C. O. |last3=Lericolais |first3=G. |last4=Goldstein |first4=S. L. |year=2003 |title=Catastrophic flooding of the Black Sea |journal=Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences |volume=31 |issue=1 |pages=525–554 |doi= 10.1146/annurev.earth.31.100901.141249|bibcode=2003AREPS..31..525R }}</ref> | |||
The Genesis narrative tells how ], grieved by the wickedness of mankind,<ref>Gen 6:6. Few details are provided in ''Genesis'', but deuterocanonical works such as '']'' and '']'' assert that this wickedness that was offensive to God included widespread ] and ], among other immoralities.</ref> decided to destroy the corrupted world. However, "Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD", so God instructs Noah to build the Ark and take on board his family and representatives of the animals and birds. The flood rises to cover the Earth, but at its height "God remembered Noah", the waters abate, and dry land appears. The story ends with Noah offering an animal sacrifice and entering into a ] with God. God promises never to do it again, displaying a rainbow as a guarantee. | |||
==Description== | |||
The story has been subject to extensive elaborations in ], ] and ], ranging from hypothetical solutions to practical problems (e.g. waste disposal and the problem of lighting the interior), through to theological interpretations (e.g. the Ark as the precursor of the Church in offering salvation to mankind).<ref>{{cite book|author=Schaff, P|year=1890|url=http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf102.iv.XV.26.html|title=St. Augustin's City of God and Christian Doctrine, Chapter 26.—That the Ark Which Noah Was Ordered to Make Figures In Every Respect Christ and the Church|publisher=The Christian Literature Publishing Company|accessdate=2007-06-27}}</ref> By the 19th century, the discoveries of geologists, archaeologists and biblical scholars had led most scientists<ref>Plimer, Ian (1994) "Telling Lies for God: reason versus creationism" (Random House)</ref><ref name="Browne"/><ref name="young">{{cite web | last = Young | first = Davis A. | authorlink = | title = History of the Collapse of "Flood Geology" and a Young Earth | work = | publisher = | year = 1995 | url = http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/p82.htm | format = | doi = | accessdate = 2008-11-01}}</ref> and many Christians<ref name="Huxley-1890">'Notwithstanding diligent search, I have been unable to discover that the universality of the Deluge has any defender left, at least among those who have so far mastered the rudiments of natural knowledge as to be able to appreciate the weight of evidence against it. For example, when I turned to the "Speaker's Bible," published under the sanction of high Anglican authority, I found the following judicial and judicious deliverance, the skilful wording of which may adorn, but does not hide, the completeness of the surrender of the old teaching', Thomas Huxley, , Collected Essays, volume 4, pages 217-218 (1890)</ref> to abandon a literal interpretation of the Ark story, but ] today continue to take the Ark as test-case for their understanding of the Bible, and explore the region of the ], where Genesis says Noah's Ark came to rest. | |||
The structure of the Ark (and the chronology of the flood) is homologous with the Jewish Temple and with Temple worship.{{sfn|Blenkinsopp|2011|p=139}} Accordingly, Noah's instructions are given to him by God (Genesis 6:14–16): the ark is to be 300 ]s long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high (approximately {{convert|134|*|22|*|13|m|ft|abbr=on|disp=or}}).{{sfn|Hamilton|1990|pp=280–281}} These dimensions are based on a numerological preoccupation with the number 60, the same number characterizing the vessel of the Babylonian flood hero.{{sfn|Bailey|1990|p=63}} | |||
Its three internal divisions reflect the three-part universe imagined by the ancient Israelites: heaven, the earth, and the underworld.{{sfn|Kessler|Deurloo|2004|p=81}} Each deck is the same height as the Temple in Jerusalem, itself a microcosmic model of the universe, and each is three times the area of the court of the tabernacle, leading to the suggestion that the author saw both Ark and ] as serving for the preservation of human life.{{sfn|Wenham|2003|p=44}}{{sfn|Batto|1992|p=95}} It has a door in the side, and a ''tsohar'', which may be either a roof or a ].{{sfn|Hamilton|1990|pp=280–281}} It is to be made of ] "''goper''", a word which appears nowhere else in the Bible, but thought to be a loan word from the ] ''gupru''<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Longman |first=Tremper |title=The lost world of the flood: mythology, theology, and the deluge debate |last2=Walton |first2=John H. |date=2018 |publisher=IVP Academic, an imprint of InterVarsity Press |isbn=978-0-8308-8782-8 |location=Downers Grove, IL}}</ref> – and divided into ''qinnim'', a word which always refers to birds' nests elsewhere in the Bible, leading some scholars to emend this to ''qanim'', reeds.{{sfn|Hamilton|1990|pp=281}} The finished vessel is to be smeared with ''koper'', meaning ] or ]; in Hebrew the two words are closely related, ''kaparta'' ("smeared") ... ''bakopper''.{{sfn|Hamilton|1990|pp=281}} Bitumen is more likely option as ''"koper"'' is thought to be a loanword from the Akkadian "''kupru''", meaning bitumen.<ref name=":0" /> | |||
==Narrative== | |||
==Origins== | |||
], ''The Deluge'', ], the ].]] | |||
===Mesopotamian precursors=== | |||
The story of Noah's Ark, according to chapters 6 to 9 in the Book of Genesis,<ref>.</ref> begins with God observing mankind's sinful ways and deciding to flood the earth and destroy all life. However, God found one good man, Noah, "a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time", and decided that he would save him. God instructs Noah to make an ark for ] and for representatives of the world's animals and birds. | |||
{{Main|Flood myth}} | |||
For well over a century, scholars have said that the Bible's story of Noah's Ark is based on older Mesopotamian models.{{sfn|Kvanvig|2011|p=210}} Because all these flood stories deal with events that allegedly happened at the dawn of history, they give the impression that the myths themselves must come from very primitive origins, but the myth of the global flood that destroys all life only begins to appear in the ] (20th–16th centuries BCE).{{sfn|Chen|2013|pp=3–4}} The reasons for this emergence of the typical Mesopotamian flood myth may have been bound up with the specific circumstances of the end of the ] around 2004 BCE and the restoration of order by the ].{{sfn|Chen|2013|p=253}} | |||
Nine versions of the Mesopotamian flood story are known, each more or less adapted from an earlier version. In the oldest version, inscribed in the Sumerian city of ] around 1600 BCE, the hero is King ]. This story, the ], probably derives from an earlier version. The Ziusudra version tells how he builds a boat and rescues life when the gods decide to destroy it. This basic plot is common in several subsequent flood stories and heroes, including Noah. Ziusudra's Sumerian name means "he of long life." In Babylonian versions, his name is ], but the meaning is the same. In the Atrahasis version, the flood is a river flood.<ref name="Cline">{{cite book |last=Cline |first=Eric H. |year=2007 |title=From Eden to Exile: Unraveling Mysteries of the Bible |publisher=National Geographic |isbn=978-1-4262-0084-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bJW-zhffwk4C&q=From+Eden+to+Exile%3A+Unraveling+Mysteries+of+the+Bible}}</ref>{{rp|20–27}} | |||
Noah and his family and the animals entered the Ark, and "on the same day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened, and the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights". The flood covered even the highest mountains to a depth of more than 6 metres (20 ft), and all creatures died; only Noah and those with him on the Ark were left alive. | |||
The version closest to the biblical story of Noah is that of ] in the '']''.{{sfn|Nigosian|2004|p=40}} A complete text of Utnapishtim's story is contained on a clay tablet dating from the seventh century BCE, but fragments of the story have been found from as far back as the 19th century BCE.{{sfn|Nigosian|2004|p=40}} The last known version of the Mesopotamian flood story was written in ] in the third century BCE by a Babylonian priest named ]. From the fragments that survive, it seems little changed from the versions of 2,000 years before.{{sfn|Finkel|2014|pp=89–101}} | |||
]'s illustrated edition of the ].]] | |||
At the end of 150 days the Ark came to rest on the ]. For 150 days again the waters receded, and the hilltops emerged. Noah sent out a ] which "went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth". Next, Noah sent a ] out, but it returned having found nowhere to land. After a further seven days, Noah again sent out the dove, and it returned with an ] leaf in its beak, and he knew that the waters had subsided. Noah waited seven days more and sent out the dove once more, and this time it did not return. Then he and his family and all the animals left the Ark, and Noah made a sacrifice to God, and God resolved that he would never again curse the ground because of man, nor destroy all life on it in this manner. Man in turn was instructed never to eat any animal which had not been drained of its blood.<ref></ref> | |||
The parallels between Noah's Ark and the arks of Babylonian flood heroes Atrahasis and Utnapishtim have often been noted. Atrahasis's Ark was circular, resembling an enormous '']'', with one or two decks.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Nova: Secrets of Noah's Ark|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/secrets-of-noahs-ark/|date=7 October 2015|website=www.pbs.org|language=en-US|access-date=17 May 2020}}</ref> Utnapishtim's ark was a ] with six decks of seven compartments, each divided into nine subcompartments (63 subcompartments per deck, 378 total). Noah's Ark was rectangular with three decks. A progression is believed to exist from a circular to a cubic or square to rectangular. The most striking similarity is the near-identical deck areas of the three arks: 14,400 cubits<sup>2</sup>, 14,400 cubits<sup>2</sup>, and 15,000 cubits<sup>2</sup> for Atrahasis, Utnapishtim, and Noah, only 4% different. ] concluded, "the iconic story of the Flood, Noah, and the Ark as we know it today certainly originated in the landscape of ancient Mesopotamia, modern Iraq."{{sfn|Finkel|2014|loc=chpt.14}} | |||
In order to remember this promise, God put a ] in the clouds, saying, "Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting ] between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth." | |||
Linguistic parallels between Noah's and Atrahasis' arks have also been noted. The word used for "pitch" (sealing tar or resin) in Genesis is not the normal Hebrew word, but is closely related to the word used in the Babylonian story.{{sfn|McKeown|2008|p=55}} Likewise, the Hebrew word for "ark" (''tēvāh'') is nearly identical to the Babylonian word for an oblong boat (''ṭubbû''), especially given that "v" and "b" are the same letter in Hebrew: ] (ב).{{sfn|Finkel|2014|loc=chpt.14}} | |||
==The Ark in later traditions== | |||
=== In Rabbinic tradition === | |||
]. Painting by ].]] | |||
The story of Noah and the Ark was subject to much discussion in later Jewish ]. Noah's failure to warn others of the coming flood was widely seen as casting doubt on his righteousness—was he perhaps only righteous by the lights of his own evil generation? According to one tradition, he had in fact passed on God's warning, planting cedars one hundred and twenty years before the Deluge so that the sinful could see and be urged to amend their ways. In order to protect Noah and his family, God placed lions and other ferocious animals to guard them from the wicked who mocked them and offered them violence. According to one ], it was God, or the ]s, who gathered the animals to the Ark, together with their food. As there had been no need to distinguish between clean and unclean animals before this time, the clean animals made themselves known by kneeling before Noah as they entered the Ark. A differing opinion said that the Ark itself distinguished clean from unclean, admitting seven of the first and two of the second. | |||
However, the causes for God or the gods sending the flood differ in the various stories. In the Hebrew myth, the flood inflicts God's judgment on wicked humanity. The Babylonian '']'' gives no reasons, and the flood appears the result of divine caprice.<ref name="May Metzger">May, Herbert G., and Bruce M. Metzger. ''The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha''. 1977.</ref> In the Babylonian ] version, the flood is sent to reduce human overpopulation, and after the flood, other measures were introduced to limit humanity.<ref>{{cite book|editor1=Stephanie Dalley |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0YHfiCz4BRwC&q=flood|title=Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, The Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others| date=2000 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160424054145/https://books.google.com/books?id=0YHfiCz4BRwC#v=onepage&q=flood&f=false |archive-date=24 April 2016 |pages= 5–8| publisher=OUP Oxford | isbn=978-0-19-953836-2 }}</ref><ref>Alan Dundes, ed., {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160514162849/https://books.google.com/books?id=E__dnnQwGDwC&pg=PA62#v=onepage&q=Gilgamesh%2C%20flood&f=false |date=14 May 2016 }}, pp. 61–71.</ref><ref>J. David Pleins, {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160624184753/https://books.google.com/books?id=PX0fIE5IU8gC&pg=PA102#v=onepage&q=ziusudra%20flood%20story&f=false |date=24 June 2016 }}, pp. 102–103.</ref> | |||
Noah was engaged both day and night in feeding and caring for the animals, and did not sleep for the entire year aboard the Ark. The animals were the best of their species, and so behaved with utmost goodness. They abstained from procreation, so that the number of creatures that disembarked was exactly equal to the number that embarked. The raven created problems, refusing to go out of the Ark when Noah sent it forth and accusing the Patriarch of wishing to destroy its race, but as the commentators pointed out, God wished to save the raven, for its descendants were destined to feed the prophet ]. | |||
===Composition=== | |||
Refuse was stored on the lowest of the Ark's three decks, humans and clean beasts on the second, and the unclean animals and birds on the top. A differing opinion placed the refuse in the utmost storey, from where it was shovelled into the sea through a trapdoor. Precious stones, bright as midday, provided light, and God ensured that food was kept fresh. The giant ], king of ], was among those saved, but owing to his size had to remain outside, Noah passing him food through a hole cut into the wall of the Ark.<ref name="JE Noah"/><ref name="Ark of Noah"/><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=218&letter=F|title=Jewish Encyclopedia: The Flood|author=Hirsch, EG, Muss-Arnolt, W & Hirschfeld, H|year=2002|publisher=JewishEncyclopedia.com|accessdate=2007-06-27}}</ref> '' | |||
{{main|Genesis flood narrative#Composition}} | |||
A consensus among scholars indicates that the ] (the first five books of the Bible, beginning with Genesis) was the product of a long and complicated process that was not completed until after the ].{{sfn|Enns|2012|p=23}} Since the 18th century, the flood narrative has been analysed as a paradigm example of the combination of two different versions of a story into a single text, with one marker for the different versions being a consistent preference for different names "Elohim" and "Yahweh" to denote God.<ref>Richard Elliot Friedman (1997 ed.), ''Who Wrote the Bible'', p. 51.</ref> | |||
==Religious views== | |||
=== In Christian tradition === | |||
===Rabbinic Judaism=== | |||
]'' (1493).]] | |||
{{Main|Noah in rabbinic literature}} | |||
Early Christian writers discovered elaborate allegorical meanings for Noah and the Ark. In the ] those saved by the Ark from the waters of the Flood are said to prefigure the salvation of God's Elect through baptism,<ref>"...God's patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water, aptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you". .</ref> and the ] rite of ] still asks God, "who of thy great mercy didst save Noah", to receive into the Church the infant about to be baptised. Early Christian artists frequently depicted Noah standing in a small box on the waves, symbolising God saving the Church as it persevered through turmoil, and St. ] (354–430), in '']'', demonstrated that the dimensions of the Ark corresponded to the dimensions of the human body, which is the body of Christ, which is the Church.<ref>{{cite book|author=Schaff, P|year=1890|url=http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf102.iv.XV.26.html|title=St. Augustin's City of God and Christian Doctrine, Chapter 26.—That the Ark Which Noah Was Ordered to Make Figures In Every Respect Christ and the Church|publisher=The Christian Literature Publishing Company|accessdate=2007-06-27}}</ref> St. ] (c. 347–420) called the raven, which was sent forth and did not return, the "foul bird of wickedness" expelled by baptism;<ref>{{cite book|author=Schaff, P|year=1892|title=Jerome: The Principal Works of St. Jerome, Letter LXIX. To Oceanus.|url=http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf206.v.LXIX.html|publisher=The Christian Literature Publishing Company|accessdate=2007-06-27}}</ref> more enduringly, the dove and olive branch came to symbolize the ] and the hope of ] and, eventually, peace. | |||
The ]ic ] ], ], and ] relate that, while Noah was building the Ark, he attempted to warn his neighbors of the coming deluge, but was ignored or mocked. God placed lions and other ferocious animals to protect Noah and his family from the wicked who tried to keep them from the Ark. According to one ], it was God, or the ]s, who gathered the animals and their food to the Ark. As no need existed to distinguish between clean and unclean animals before this time, the clean animals made themselves known by kneeling before Noah as they entered the Ark.{{Citation needed|date=June 2018}} A differing opinion is that the Ark itself distinguished clean animals from unclean, admitting seven pairs each of the former and one pair each of the latter.<ref name="Sefaria.org">{{Cite web|title=Sanhedrin 108b:7–16|url=https://www.sefaria.org/Sanhedrin.108b.7|access-date=13 October 2021|website=www.sefaria.org}}</ref>{{Primary source inline|date=October 2021}} | |||
According to Sanhedrin 108b, Noah was engaged both day and night in feeding and caring for the animals, and did not sleep for the entire year aboard the Ark.<ref>Avigdor Nebenzahl, ''Tiku Bachodesh Shofer: Thoughts for ]'', Feldheim Publishers, 1997, p. 208.</ref> The animals were the best of their kind and behaved with utmost goodness. They did not procreate, so the number of creatures that disembarked was exactly equal to the number that embarked. The raven created problems, refusing to leave the Ark when Noah sent it forth, and accusing the patriarch of wishing to destroy its race, but as the commentators pointed out, God wished to save the raven, for its descendants were destined to feed the prophet ].<ref name="Sefaria.org" />{{Primary source inline|date=October 2021}} | |||
St. ], (d. 235), seeking to demonstrate that "the ark was a symbol of the Christ who was expected", stated that the vessel had its door on the east side,<ref>Christ at the Second Coming would supposedly appear in the east.</ref> that the bones of Adam were brought aboard together with gold, frankincense and myrrh, and that the Ark floated to and fro in the four directions on the waters, making the sign of the cross, before eventually landing on Mount Kardu "''in the east, in the land of the sons of Raban, and the Orientals call it Mount Godash; the Armenians and Persians call it Ararat''".<ref>{{cite web|author=Knight, K|year=2007|title=Fragments from Commentaries on Various Books of Scripture|url=http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0502.htm|publisher=|accessdate=2007-06-27}}</ref> | |||
According to one tradition, refuse was stored on the lowest of the Ark's three decks, humans and clean beasts on the second, and the unclean animals and birds on the top. A differing interpretation described the refuse as being stored on the topmost deck, from where it was shoveled into the sea through a trapdoor. Precious stones, as bright as the noon sun, provided light, and God ensured the food remained fresh.<ref name="JE Noah"/><ref name="Ark of Noah"/><ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Hirsch |editor-first=E. G. |editor2-last=Muss-Arnolt |editor2-first=W. |editor3-last=Hirschfeld |editor3-first=H. |editor-link3=Hartwig Hirschfeld|editor-link1=Emil G. Hirsch |editor-link2=William Muss-Arnolt |title=Jewish Encyclopedia |year=1906 |publisher=JewishEncyclopedia.com |chapter=The Flood |chapter-url=http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=218&letter=F }}</ref> In an unorthodox interpretation, the 12th-century Jewish commentator ] interpreted the ark as a vessel that remained underwater for 40 days, after which it floated to the surface.<ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130524092028/http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=9597&st=&pgnum=123 |date=24 May 2013 }}. HebrewBooks.org.</ref> | |||
On a more practical plane, Hippolytus explained that the ark was built in three stories, the lowest for wild beasts, the middle for birds and domestic animals, and the top level for humans, and that the male animals were separated from the females by sharp stakes to help maintain the prohibition against cohabitation aboard the vessel.<ref>{{cite web|author=Knight, K|year=2007|title=Fragments from Commentaries on Various Books of Scripture|url=http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0502.htm|publisher=|accessdate=2007-06-27}}</ref> Similarly dwelling on practical matters, ] (c. 182–251), responding to a critic who doubted that the Ark could contain all the animals in the world, countered with a learned argument about cubits, holding that Moses, the traditional author of the book of Genesis, had been brought up in ] and would therefore have used the larger Egyptian cubit. He also fixed the shape of the Ark as a truncated pyramid, rectangular rather than square at its base, and tapering to a square peak one cubit on a side; it was not until the 12th century that it came to be thought of as a rectangular box with a sloping roof.<ref name="Cohn"/> | |||
=== |
===Christianity=== | ||
]'' (1493)]] | |||
], 1304–77, the Moroccan world-traveller who passed by the mountain of al-Judi, near ], resting place of the Ark in Islamic tradition.]] | |||
]'s German Bible]] | |||
The ] (composed around the end of the first century AD<ref>''The Early Christian World,'' Volume 1, p.148, ]</ref>) compared Noah's salvation through water to Christian salvation through baptism.<ref>{{bibleverse|1Pt|3:20–21}}</ref> ] (died 235) sought to demonstrate that "the Ark was a symbol of the ] who was expected", stating that the vessel had its door on the east side—the direction from which Christ would appear at the ]—and that the bones of ] were brought aboard, together with gold, ], and ] (the symbols of the ]). Hippolytus furthermore stated that the Ark floated to and fro in the four directions on the waters, making the sign of the cross, before eventually landing on Mount Kardu "in the east, in the land of the sons of Raban, and the Orientals call it Mount Godash; the ] call it Ararat".<ref name="Knight, K 2007">{{cite web |author = Hippolytus |title = Fragments from the Scriptural Commentaries of Hippolytus |url = http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0502.htm |publisher = New Advent |access-date = 27 June 2007 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070417130437/http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0502.htm |archive-date = 17 April 2007 |url-status = live |df = dmy-all}}</ref> On a more practical plane, Hippolytus explained that the lowest of the three decks was for wild beasts, the middle for birds and domestic animals, and the top for humans. He says male animals were separated from females by sharp stakes to prevent breeding.<ref name="Knight, K 2007"/> | |||
The early ] and theologian ] (''circa'' 182–251), in response to a critic who doubted that the Ark could contain all the animals in the world, argued that Moses, the traditional author of the book of Genesis, had been brought up in ] and would therefore have used the larger Egyptian cubit. He also fixed the shape of the Ark as a truncated ], square at its base, and tapering to a square peak one cubit on a side; only in the 12th century did it come to be thought of as a rectangular box with a sloping roof.{{sfn|Cohn|1996|p=38}} | |||
Noah (]) is one of the five principal ], generally mentioned in connection with the fate of those who refuse to listen to the teachings of Allah. References are scattered through the '']'', with the fullest account at ] 11:27–51, entitled "Hud". The flood was sent by ] in answer to Noah's prayer that this evil generation should be destroyed; yet as Noah was righteous he continued to preach, and seventy ] were converted and entered the Ark with him, bringing the total aboard to 78 humans (these seventy plus the eight members of Noah's own family). The seventy had no offspring, and all of post-flood humanity is descended from Noah's three sons. A ] (or a grandson, according to some authorities; named either 'Canaan' or 'Yam' depending on the source) was among the idolators, and was drowned when he failed to heed the warnings to board the ark. | |||
Early Christian artists depicted Noah standing in a small box on the waves, symbolizing God saving the Christian Church in its turbulent early years. ] (354–430), in his work '']'', demonstrated that the dimensions of the Ark corresponded to the dimensions of the human body, which according to Christian doctrine is the body of Christ and in turn the body of the Church.<ref name="Schaff, P 1890">{{cite book |last=St. Augustin |editor-last=Schaff |editor-first=Philip |title=Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers |trans-title=St. Augustin's City of God and Christian Doctrine |series=1 |volume=2 |orig-year=c. 400 |year=1890 |publisher=The Christian Literature Publishing Company |chapter=Chapter 26:That the Ark Which Noah Was Ordered to Make Figures In Every Respect Christ and the Church |chapter-url=http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf102.iv.XV.26.html }}</ref> ] ({{Circa|347–420|lk=no}}) identified the raven, which was sent forth and did not return, as the "foul bird of wickedness" expelled by ];<ref>{{cite book |last=Jerome |editor=Schaff, P |title=Niocene and Post-Niocene Fathers: The Principal Works of St. Jerome |series=2 |volume=6 |orig-year=c. 347–420 |year=1892 |publisher=The Christian Literature Publishing Company |chapter=Letter LXIX. To Oceanus. |chapter-url=http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf206.v.LXIX.html }}</ref> more enduringly, the dove and olive branch came to symbolize the ] and the hope of ] and eventually, peace.<ref name="Cohn"/> The olive branch remains a secular and religious ] today. | |||
In contrast to the Jewish tradition, which uses a term which can be translated as a "box" or "chest" to describe the Ark, surah 29:14 refers to it as a ''safina'', an ordinary ], and surah 54:13 as "a thing of boards and nails". ], a contemporary of Muhammad, wrote that Noah was in doubt as to what shape to make the Ark, and that Allah revealed to him that it was to be shaped like a bird's belly and fashioned of ] wood. Noah then planted a tree, which in 20 years had grown enough to provide him all the wood he needed<ref></ref>. | |||
===Gnosticism=== | |||
The Persian ] ]'s '']'' (c. 915) includes numerous details about Noah's Ark found nowhere else; for instance, he says that the first creature aboard was the ], and the last was the ], by means of whom Satan came aboard. He also relates that when ]' apostles expressed a desire to learn about the Ark from an eye-witness, he responded by temporarily resurrecting Noah's son Ham from the dead, who told them more: to deal with the excessive dung, Noah had miraculously caused a pair of hogs to come out of the elephant's tail, and to deal with a stowaway rat, Noah caused a pair of cats to come from the lion's nose<ref></ref>. | |||
According to the '']'', a 3rd-century ] text, Noah is chosen to be spared by the evil ] when they try to destroy the other inhabitants of the Earth with the great flood. He is told to create the ark then board it at a location called Mount Sir, but when his wife ] wants to board it as well, Noah attempts to not let her. So she decides to use her divine power to blow upon the ark and set it ablaze, therefore Noah is forced to rebuild it.<ref>{{cite book|author1=]|author2=]|title=The Gnostic Bible|publisher=]|chapter=The Reality of the Rulers (The Hypostasis of the Archons)|url=http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/Hypostas-Barnstone.html|date=30 June 2009|access-date=6 February 2022}}</ref> | |||
===Mandaeism=== | |||
Abdallah ibn 'Umar al-], writing in the 13th century, gives the length of the Ark as 300 ] (157 m, 515 ft) by 50 (26.2 m, 86 ft) in width, 30 (15.7 m, 52 ft) in height, and explains that in the first of the three levels wild and domesticated animals were lodged, in the second the human beings, and in the third the birds. On every plank was the name of a prophet. Three missing planks, symbolising three prophets, were brought from Egypt by Og, son of Anak, the only one of the giants permitted to survive the Flood. The body of ] was carried in the middle to divide the men from the women. ''Sura'' 11:41 says: "And he said, 'Ride ye in it; in the Name of God it moves and stays!'" takes this to mean that Noah said, "In the Name of God!" when he wished the Ark to move, and the same when he wished it to stand still. | |||
In Book 18 of the ], a ], Noah and his family are saved from the Great Flood because they were able to build an ark or ''kawila'' (or ''kauila'', a ] term; it is cognate with Syriac ''kēʾwilā'', which is attested in the ] New Testament, such as ]:38 and ]:27).<ref name="Häberl 2022">{{cite book | last=Häberl | first=Charles | url=https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/9781800856271 | title=The Book of Kings and the Explanations of This World: A Universal History from the Late Sasanian Empire | location=Liverpool | publisher=Liverpool University Press | date=2022 | isbn=978-1-80085-627-1 | page=215| doi=10.3828/9781800856271 | doi-broken-date=1 November 2024 }}</ref> | |||
===Islam=== | |||
Noah spent five or six months aboard the Ark, at the end of which he sent out a raven. But the raven stopped to feast on ], and so Noah cursed it and sent out the dove, which has been known ever since as the friend of mankind. Masudi writes that God commanded the earth to absorb the water, and certain portions which were slow in obeying received salt water in punishment and so became dry and arid. The water which was not absorbed formed the seas, so that the waters of the flood still exist. | |||
{{Main|Noah in Islam}} | |||
] to write a continuation of ] famous history of the world, ]. Like the ], the ] were concerned with legitimizing their right to rule, and Hafiz-i Abru's ''A Collection of Histories'' covers a period that included the time of ] himself.]] | |||
] | |||
In contrast to the Jewish tradition, which uses a term that can be translated as a "box" or "]" to describe the Ark, surah 29:15 of the Quran refers to it as a {{lang|ar-Latn|safina}}, an ordinary ship; surah 7:64 uses ''fulk,''<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Christys |first1=Ann |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1053611250 |title=Die Interaktion von Herrschern und Eliten in imperialen Ordnungen des Mittelalters |date=2018 |others=Wolfram Drews |isbn=978-3-11-057267-4 |publisher=] GmbH |location=Berlin |pages=114–124 |chapter=Educating the Christian Elite in Umayyad Córdoba |oclc=1053611250}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Freidenreich |first=David M. |date=2003 |title=The Use of Islamic Sources in Saadiah Gaon's Tafsīr of the Torah |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/56/article/390127 |journal=Jewish Quarterly Review |volume=93 |issue=3 |pages=353–395 |doi=10.1353/jqr.2003.0009 |s2cid=170764204 |issn=1553-0604}}</ref> and surah 54:13 describes the Ark as "a thing of boards and nails". ], a contemporary of ], wrote that Noah was in doubt as to what shape to make the Ark and that Allah revealed to him that it was to be shaped like a bird's belly and fashioned of ] wood.<ref>{{cite book|last=Baring-Gould|first=Sabine|title=Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets and Other Old Testament Characters from Various Sources|publisher=James B. Millar and Co., New York|year=1884|chapter=Noah|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=05BuCM6U4DgC&q=eutychius+noah&pg=PA113|page=113}}</ref> | |||
The medieval scholar Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Husayn |
The medieval scholar ] (died 956) wrote that Allah commanded the Earth to absorb the water, and certain portions which were slow in obeying received ] in punishment and so became ]. The water which was not absorbed formed the seas, so that the waters of the flood still exist. Masudi says the ark began its voyage at ] in central ] and sailed to ], circling the ] before finally traveling to ], which surah 11:44 gives as its final resting place. This mountain is identified by tradition with a hill near the town of ] on the east bank of the ] in the province of ] in northern Iraq, and Masudi says that the spot could be seen in his time.<ref name="JE Noah">{{cite book|editor-last=McCurdy|editor-first=J. F.|editor-link=J. Frederic McCurdy|editor2-last=Bacher|editor2-first=W.|editor3-last=Seligsohn|editor3-first=M.|display-editors=3 |editor4-last=Hirsch|editor4-first=E. G.|title=Jewish Encyclopedia|year=1906|publisher=JewishEncyclopedia.com|chapter=Noah|chapter-url=http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=318&letter=N&search=noah}}</ref><ref name="Ark of Noah">{{cite book|editor-last=McCurdy|editor-first=J. F.|editor2-last=Jastrow|editor2-first=M. W.|editor3-last=Ginzberg|editor3-first=L.|display-editors=3 |editor4-last=McDonald|editor4-first=D.B.|editor-link2=Marcus Jastrow|title=Jewish Encyclopedia|year=1906|publisher=JewishEncyclopedia.com|chapter=Ark of Noah|chapter-url=http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=1780&letter=A}}</ref>{{bsn|date=April 2023}} | ||
]]] | |||
Noah left the Ark on the tenth day of '']'', and he and his family and companions built a town at the foot of Mount Judi named ''Thamanin'' ("eighty"), from their number. Noah then locked the Ark and entrusted the keys to Shem. ] (1179–1229) mentions a ] built by Noah which could be seen in his day, and ] passed the mountain on his travels in the 14th century. Modern Muslims, although not generally active in searching for the Ark, believe that it still exists on the high slopes of the mountain.<ref name="Ark of Noah">{{cite web|author=Jastrow, M, McCurdy, JF, Jastrow, M, Ginzberg, L & McDonald, DB|year=2002|url=http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=1780&letter=A|title=Jewish Encyclopedia: Ark of Noah|publisher=JewishEncyclopedia.com|accessdate=2007-06-27}}</ref><ref name="JE Noah">{{cite web|url=http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=318&letter=N&search=noah|title=Jewish Encyclopedia: Noah|author=McCurdy, JF, Bacher, W, Seligsohn, M, Hirsch, EG, & Montgomery, MW|year=2002|publisher=JewishEncyclopedia.com|accessdate=2007-06-27}}</ref> | |||
===Baháʼí Faith=== | |||
=== In other traditions === | |||
The ] regards the Ark and the Flood as symbolic.<ref>From a letter written on behalf of ], 28 October 1949: ''Baháʼí News'', No. 228, February 1950, p. 4. Republished in {{harvnb|Compilation|1983|p=508}}</ref> In Baháʼí belief, only Noah's followers were spiritually alive, preserved in the "ark" of his teachings, as others were spiritually dead.<ref name=BahaiArk>{{cite web|first= Brent|last= Poirier|title= The Kitab-i-Iqan: The key to unsealing the mysteries of the Holy Bible|url= http://bahai-library.com/poirier_iqan_unsealing_bible|access-date= 25 June 2007|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110707205604/http://bahai-library.com/poirier_iqan_unsealing_bible|archive-date= 7 July 2011|url-status= live|df= dmy-all}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last= Shoghi Effendi|author-link= Shoghi Effendi|year= 1971|title= Messages to the Baháʼí World, 1950–1957|publisher= Baháʼí Publishing Trust|location= Wilmette, Illinois, USA|isbn= 978-0-87743-036-0|url= http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/se/MBW/|page= 104|access-date= 10 August 2008|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20081023220446/http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/se/MBW/|archive-date= 23 October 2008|url-status= live}}</ref> The Baháʼí scripture '']'' endorses the Islamic belief that Noah had numerous companions on the ark, either 40 or 72, as well as his family, and that he taught for 950 (symbolic) years before the flood.<ref>From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer, 25 November 1950. Published in {{harvnb|Compilation|1983|p=494}}</ref> The Baháʼí Faith was founded in 19th century Persia, and it recognizes divine messengers from both the Abrahamic and the Indian traditions. | |||
The ] of the southern Iraqi marshes practice a religion that was possibly influenced in part by early followers of ]. They regard Noah as a prophet, while rejecting Abraham (and Jesus) as false prophets. In the version given in their scriptures, the ark was built of ] from ] and was cubic in shape, with a length, width and height of 30 ''gama'' (the length of an arm); its final resting place is said to be ]. | |||
===Ancient accounts=== | |||
The religion of the ] of the ] mountains of northern Iraq blends indigenous and Islamic beliefs. According to their ], the Deluge occurred not once, but twice. The original Deluge is said to have been survived by a certain Na'umi, father of Ham, whose ark landed at a place called Ain Sifni, in the region of ]. Some time after this came the second flood, upon the Yezidis only, which was survived by Noah, whose ship was pierced by a rock as it floated above Mount ], then went on to land on Mount Judi as described in Islamic tradition. | |||
Multiple Jewish and Christian writers in the ancient world wrote about the ark. The first-century historian ] reports that the Armenians believed that the remains of the Ark lay "in Armenia, at the mountain of the Cordyaeans", in a location they called the Place of Descent ({{langx|grc|αποβατηριον}}). He goes on to say that many other writers of "barbarian histories", including ], ], and ] mention the flood and the Ark.<ref>{{cite wikisource |last1=Josephus |first1=Flavius |author-] |wslink=The Antiquities of the Jews/Book I#Chapter 3|title=The Antiquities of the Jews, Book I |orig-year=94 AD |chapter=3|quote=Now all the writers of barbarian histories make mention of this flood, and of this ark; among whom is Berosus the Chaldean. For when he is describing the circumstances of the flood, he goes on thus: "It is said there is still some part of this ark in Armenia, at the mountain of the Cordyaeans; and that some people carry off pieces of the bitumen, which they take away, and use chiefly as amulets for the averting of mischiefs." Hieronymus the Egyptian also, who wrote the Phoenician Antiquities, and Mnaseas, and a great many more, make mention of the same. Nay, Nicolaus of Damascus, in his ninety-sixth book, hath a particular relation about them; where he speaks thus: "There is a great mountain in Armenia, over Minyas, called Baris, upon which it is reported that many who fled at the time of the Deluge were saved; and that one who was carried in an ark came on shore upon the top of it; and that the remains of the timber were a great while preserved. This might be the man about whom Moses the legislator of the Jews wrote.}}</ref> | |||
According to ], Noah had a "]" named ] who was not allowed aboard the Ark, and who instead attempted to colonise Ireland with 54 persons, all of whom were then wiped out in the ]. | |||
In the fourth century, ] wrote about Noah's Ark in his '']'', saying "Thus even today the remains of Noah's ark are still shown in Cardyaei."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Williams |first1=Frank |title=The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis |date=2009 |isbn=978-90-04-17017-9 |page=48|publisher=BRILL }}</ref> Other translations render "Cardyaei" as "the country of the Kurds".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Montgomery |first1=John Warwick |title=The Quest For Noahs Ark |date=1974 |isbn=0-87123-477-7 |page=77}}</ref> | |||
The ] regards the Ark and the Flood as symbolic.<ref>From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi, October 28, 1949: Bahá'í News, No. 228, February 1950, p. 4. Republished in {{cite book |author = Compilations |editor = Hornby, Helen (Ed.) |year = 1983 |title = Lights of Guidance: A Bahá'í Reference File |publisher = Bahá'í Publishing Trust, New Delhi, India |isbn = 8185091463 |url = http://bahai-library.com/?file=hornby_lights_guidance| pages = 508}}</ref> In Bahá'í belief, only Noah's followers were spiritually alive, preserved in the ark of his teachings, as others were spiritually dead.<ref>{{cite web | first = Brent | last = Poirier | title = The Kitab-i-Iqan: The key to unsealing the mysteries of the Holy Bible | url = http://bahai-library.com/essays/iqan.bible.html|accessdate=2007-06-25}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author= Shoghi Effendi |authorlink = Shoghi Effendi |year = 1971 |title = Messages to the Bahá'í World, 1950–1957 |publisher = Bahá'í Publishing Trust |location = Wilmette, Illinois, USA |isbn = 0877430365 |url = http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/se/MBW/ | pages = 104}}</ref> The Bahá'í scripture '']'' endorses the Islamic belief that Noah had a large number of companions, either 40 or 72, besides his family on the Ark, and that he taught for 950 (symbolic) years before the flood.<ref>From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer, November 25, 1950. Published in {{cite book |author = Compilations |editor = Hornby, Helen (Ed.) |year = 1983 |title = Lights of Guidance: A Bahá'í Reference File |publisher = Bahá'í Publishing Trust, New Delhi, India |isbn = 8185091463 |url = http://bahai-library.com/?file=hornby_lights_guidance| pages = 494}}</ref> | |||
] mentioned Noah's Ark in one of his sermons in the fourth century, saying ""Do not the mountains of Armenia testify to it, where the Ark rested? And are not the remains of the Ark preserved there to this very day for our admonition?<ref>{{cite book |last1=Montgomery |first1=John Warwick |title=The Quest For Noahs Ark |date=1974 |isbn=0-87123-477-7 |page=78 }}</ref> | |||
==The Ark in post-Renaissance scholarship == | |||
==Historicity== | |||
] | |||
] from 1771 describes the Ark as factual. It also attempts to explain how the Ark could house all living animal types: "... Buteo and ] have proved geometrically, that, taking the common ] as a foot and a half, the ark was abundantly sufficient for all the animals supposed to be lodged in it ... the number of species of animals will be found much less than is generally imagined, not amounting to a hundred species of ]."<ref name="EB1911">{{cite EB1911|wstitle= Ark |volume= 02 |last= Cook |first= Stanley Arthur |author-link= Stanley Arthur Cook | pages = 548–550; see page 549 | quote= Noah's Ark... }}</ref> It also endorses a supernatural explanation for the flood, stating that "many attempts have been made to account for the deluge by means of natural causes: but these attempts have only tended to discredit philosophy, and to render their authors ridiculous".<ref>{{cite EB1911|wstitle= Deluge, The |volume= 07 |last=Cheyne |first= Thomas Kelly |author-link= Thomas Kelly Cheyne | pages = 976–979 }}</ref> | |||
The 1860 edition attempts to solve the problem of the Ark being unable to house all animal types by suggesting a local flood, which is described in the 1910 edition as part of a "gradual surrender of attempts to square scientific facts with a literal interpretation of the Bible" that resulted in "the ']' and the rise of the modern scientific views as to the origin of species" leading to "scientific comparative mythology" as the frame in which Noah's Ark was interpreted by 1875.<ref name="EB1911"/> | |||
=== From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment === | |||
===Ark's geometry=== | |||
The ] saw a continued speculation that might have seemed familiar to Origen and Augustine. Yet at the same time, a new class of scholarship arose, one which, while never questioning the literal truth of the Ark story, began to speculate on the practical workings of Noah's vessel from within a purely naturalistic framework. Thus in the 15th century, Alfonso Tostada gave a detailed account of the logistics of the Ark, down to arrangements for the disposal of dung and the circulation of fresh air, and the noted 16th-century ] Johannes Buteo calculated the ship's internal dimensions, allowing room for Noah's grinding mills and smokeless ovens, a model widely adopted by other commentators.<ref name="Cohn">{{cite book|first=Norman|last=Cohn|authorlink=Norman Cohn|title=Noah's Flood: The Genesis Story in Western Thought|location=New Haven & London|publisher=Yale University Press|year=1996|isbn=0-300-06823-9}}</ref> | |||
].<ref>{{cite web |publisher = ] |url = http://art.thewalters.org/detail/23266 |title = Cameo with Noah's Ark |access-date = 10 December 2013 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20131213133855/http://art.thewalters.org/detail/23266 |archive-date = 13 December 2013 |url-status = dead }}</ref> From the ].]] | |||
In Europe, the ] saw much speculation on the nature of the Ark that might have seemed familiar to early theologians such as ] and ]. At the same time, however, a new class of scholarship arose, one which, while never questioning the literal truth of the ark story, began to speculate on the practical workings of Noah's vessel from within a purely naturalistic framework. In the 15th century, Alfonso Tostada gave a detailed account of the logistics of the Ark, down to arrangements for the disposal of dung and the circulation of fresh air. The 16th-century ] ] calculated the Ark's internal dimensions, allowing room for Noah's grinding mills and smokeless ovens, a model widely adopted by other commentators.<ref name=Cohn>{{harvnb|Cohn|1996|p=}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=August 2024}} | |||
], a curator at the British Museum, came into the possession of a ] tablet. He translated it and discovered an hitherto unknown Babylonian version of the story of the great flood. This version gave specific measurements for an unusually large ] (a type of rounded boat). His discovery lead to the production of a television documentary and a book summarizing the finding. A scale replica of the boat described by the tablet was built and floated in Kerala, India.{{sfn|Finkel|2014|}}{{Page needed|date=August 2024}} | |||
By the 17th century, it was becoming necessary to reconcile the exploration of the ] and increased awareness of the global distribution of ] with the older belief that all life had sprung from a single point of origin on the slopes of Mount Ararat. The obvious answer was that man had spread over the continents following the destruction of the ] and taken animals with him, yet some of the results seemed peculiar: why had the natives of North America taken rattlesnakes, but not horses, wondered Sir ] in 1646? "How America abounded with Beasts of prey and noxious Animals, yet contained not in that necessary Creature, a Horse, is very strange".<ref name="Cohn"/> | |||
===Searches for Noah's Ark=== | |||
Browne, who was among the first to question the notion of ], was a medical doctor and amateur scientist making this observation in passing. Biblical scholars of the time such as ] (1547–1606) and ] (c.1601–80) were also beginning to subject the Ark story to rigorous scrutiny as they attempted to harmonise the biblical account with ] knowledge. The resulting hypotheses were an important impetus to the study of the geographical distribution of plants and animals, and indirectly spurred the emergence of ] in the 18th century. Natural historians began to draw connections between climates and the animals and plants adapted to them. One influential theory held that the biblical Ararat was striped with varying climatic zones, and as climate changed, the associated animals moved as well, eventually spreading to repopulate the globe. There was also the problem of an ever-expanding number of known species: for Kircher and earlier natural historians, there was little problem finding room for all known animal species in the Ark, but by the time ] (1627–1705) was working, just several decades after Kircher, their number had expanded beyond biblical proportions. Incorporating the full range of animal diversity into the Ark story was becoming increasingly difficult,<ref name="Browne">{{cite book|first=Janet|last=Browne|authorlink=E. Janet Browne|title=The Secular Ark: Studies in the History of Biogeography|year=1983|location=New Haven & London|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=0-300-02460-6}}</ref> and by the middle of the 18th century few natural historians could justify a literal interpretation of the Noah's Ark narrative.<ref name="young">{{cite web | last = Young | first = Davis A. | authorlink = | title = History of the Collapse of "Flood Geology" and a Young Earth | work = | publisher = | year = 1995 | url = http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/p82.htm | format = | doi = | accessdate = 2008-07-18}}</ref> | |||
] | |||
{{Main|Searches for Noah's Ark}} | |||
] have been made from at least the time of ] (c. 275 – 339 CE) to the present day.<ref name="Oxford University Press"/> In the 1st century, Jewish historian ] claimed the remaining pieces of Noah's Ark had been found in Armenia, at the mountain of the Cordyaeans, which is understood to be Mount Ararat in ].<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Landing-Place of Noah's Ark: Testimonial, Geological and Historical Considerations: Part Four – Associates for Biblical Research |url=https://biblearchaeology.org/research/contemporary-issues/4112-the-landingplace-of-noahs-ark-testimonial-geological-and-historical-considerations-part-four |access-date=27 April 2023 |website=biblearchaeology.org}}</ref> Today, the practice of seeking the remains of the Ark is widely regarded as ].<ref name="Oxford University Press">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ystMAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA582|title=The Oxford Companion to Archaeology|last1=Fagan|first1=Brian M.|last2=Beck|first2=Charlotte|publisher=]|year=1996|isbn=978-0195076189|location=]|author1-link=Brian M. Fagan|access-date=17 January 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160208073258/https://books.google.com/books?id=ystMAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA582|archive-date=8 February 2016|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Cline 2009">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zwNIDHSPsSMC&pg=PA72|title=Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction|last=Cline|first=Eric H.|pages=71–75|publisher=]|year=2009|isbn=978-0199741076}}</ref><ref name="Feder 2010">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RlRz2symkAsC&pg=PA195|title=Encyclopedia of Dubious Archaeology: From Atlantis to the Walam Olum|last=Feder|first=Kenneth L.|publisher=]|year=2010|isbn=978-0313379192|location=]|author1-link=Kenneth Feder|access-date=17 January 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160208073258/https://books.google.com/books?id=RlRz2symkAsC&pg=PA195|archive-date=8 February 2016|url-status=live|page=195}}</ref> Various locations for the ark have been suggested but have never been confirmed.<ref name="Mayell-2004">{{cite web|url=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/0427_040427_noahsark.html|title=Noah's Ark Found? Turkey Expedition Planned for Summer|last=Mayell|first=Hillary|date=27 April 2004|publisher=National Geographic Society|access-date=29 April 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100414031733/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/0427_040427_noahsark.html|archive-date=14 April 2010|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="Lovgren-2004">Stefan Lovgren (2004). {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120125030621/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/09/0920_040920_noahs_ark.html |date=25 January 2012 }} – National Geographic</ref> Search sites have included the ], a site on ], and ], both in ], but geological investigation of possible remains of the ark has only shown natural sedimentary formations.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/Sutton%20Hoo%2014.pdf|last=Collins|first=Lorence G.|title=A supposed cast of Noah's ark in eastern Turkey|year=2011|access-date=26 October 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305191940/http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/Sutton%20Hoo%2014.pdf|archive-date=5 March 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> While biblical literalists often maintain the Ark's existence in archaeological history, its scientific feasibility, along with that of the deluge, has been contested.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Review of John Woodmorappe's "Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study"|url=http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/woodmorappe-review.html|access-date=6 April 2021|website=www.talkorigins.org}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=The Impossible Voyage of Noah's Ark {{!}} National Center for Science Education|url=https://ncse.ngo/impossible-voyage-noahs-ark|access-date=6 April 2021|website=ncse.ngo|language=en}}</ref> | |||
== Var in Zoroastrianism == | |||
] in ] 15: British Library Add. MS. 4,707.]] | |||
In ] 29 and 37,<ref>{{Cite web |title=AVESTA: VENDIDAD (English): Fargard 2: Yima (Jamshed) and the deluge. |url=https://www.avesta.org/vendidad/vd2sbe.htm |access-date=2024-12-05 |website=www.avesta.org}}</ref> mythical Iranian king Yīmā, was ordered by ] to build a subterranean enclosure known as Var, which had a function similar to Noah’s Ark, he was instructed to gather plants, animals, and humans with some exceptions,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wolff |first=Fritz |title=Avesta: the sacred books of the Parsen |publisher=]}}</ref> | |||
==Cultural legacy: Noah's Ark replicas == | |||
=== The Ark and science in the 19th century === | |||
] of ].]] | |||
In the modern era, individuals and organizations have sought to reconstruct Noah's ark using the dimensions specified in the Bible, ]<ref name="Antonson">{{cite book |last1=Antonson |first1=Rick |title=Full Moon over Noah's Ark: An Odyssey to Mount Ararat and Beyond |date=12 April 2016 |publisher=] |isbn=978-1-5107-0567-8 |language=English}}</ref> ] was completed in 2012 to this end, while the ] was finished in 2016.<ref name="Thomas">{{cite book |last1=Thomas |first1=Paul |title=Storytelling the Bible at the Creation Museum, Ark Encounter, and Museum of the Bible |date=16 April 2020 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-0-567-68714-2 |page=23 |language=en}}</ref> | |||
==See also== | |||
{{seealso|Flood geology}} | |||
{{Portal|Religion|Christianity|Islam|Judaism|Mythology}} | |||
In 1862 William Thompson, later ], calculated the ] at between 24 and 400 million years. His calculations, based on the best scientific knowledge of the time, were based on almost a century of steady advances in the scientific study of ], and for the remainder of the 19th century, discussion was not about whether Kelvin was right or wrong, but about just how many millions were involved.<ref>Dalrymple, G. Brent, 1991, ''The Age of the Earth'', Stanford University Press, pp 14–17, ISBN 0-8047-2331-1</ref> Scientific ] had a profound impact on attitudes towards the Biblical Flood and Ark story: without the support of the ], which placed the Creation and the Flood and Ark very precisely in history, the historicity of the Ark itself was undermined. The influential 1889 volume of theological essays '']'', which is usually held to mark a stage in the acceptance of a more critical approach to scripture, took the stance that the gospels could be relied on as completely historical, but the earlier chapters of Genesis should not be taken literally.<ref></ref> | |||
{{div col}} | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] of the ] in ], ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* The ] in ], Iraq | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
{{div col end}} | |||
==Notes== | |||
{{seealso|Documentary hypothesis}} | |||
{{reflist |group="Notes"}} | |||
] were beginning to examine the origins of the Bible itself. The Noah's Ark story played a central role in the new theories, largely because it seemed to contain two stories, closely intertwined. It states twice over, for example, that God was angered with His creation, but the reasons given in each telling are slightly different; we are told that there was a single pair of each animal aboard, but also that there were seven pairs of the clean animals; that the source of the water was rain, but also that it came from the "windows of Heaven" and the "fountains of the Deep"; that the rains lasted forty days, but that the waters rose for 150. Using the newly developed tools of ], scholars discovered in the Ark narrative two complete, coherent, parallel stories. This, they decided, was how the entire Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) had been written: the work of many authors over many centuries, combining separate sources into a single whole.<ref>{{cite book|last=Speiser|first=E. A.|authorlink=E. A. Speiser|title=Genesis|series=The ]|year=1964|publisher=Doubleday|isbn=0-385-00854-6|pages=XXI}}</ref> | |||
==References== | |||
{{seealso|Deluge (mythology)}} | |||
The 19th century also saw the growth of Middle Eastern archaeology. One of the most remarkable of their discoveries was a Mesopotamian story which paralleled the story of Noah's Ark in great detail. The story came in several versions, but the closest to Genesis 6-9 was found in a 7th century BC Babylonian copy of the '']'': the hero Gilgamesh meets the immortal man ], who tells how the god ] warned him to build a vessel in which to save his family, his friends, and his wealth and cattle from a great flood which the gods planned to use to destroy all life on earth.<ref></ref> | |||
===Citations=== | |||
==Popular 20/21st century interpretations== | |||
{{Reflist|2}} | |||
===Bibliography=== | |||
The story of Noah's Ark continues to be told today within the Christian community, though there exists a broad spectrum of interpretations of the narrative describing it (from literal to allegorical), as with the ]. | |||
{{Refbegin}} | |||
*{{cite book|last = Bailey|first = Lloyd R.|chapter = Ark|title = Mercer Dictionary of the Bible|publisher = Mercer University Press|year = 1990|isbn = 9780865543737|chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=goq0VWw9rGIC&q=Mercer+Dictionary+of+the+Bible+Cosmology&pg=PA176|pages=63–64}} | |||
*{{cite book |last=Batto |first=Bernard Frank |title=Slaying the Dragon: Mythmaking in the Biblical Tradition |publisher=Westminster John Knox Press |year=1992 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eWrDOxHQ7-oC&q=ark&pg=PA68|isbn=9780664253530 }} | |||
*{{citation |last=Blenkinsopp |first=Joseph |title=Creation, Un-creation, Re-creation: A Discursive Commentary on Genesis 1–11 |year= 2011|publisher= A&C Black |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B12qwOSMD20C |isbn=9780567372871}} | |||
*{{cite book|first=Norman|last=Cohn|author-link=Norman Cohn|title=Noah's Flood: The Genesis Story in Western Thought|location=New Haven & London|publisher=]|year=1996|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MZ7g-BIfXu0C&q=Noah%27s+Flood%3A+The+Genesis+Story+in+Western+Thought|isbn=978-0-300-06823-8}} | |||
*{{cite book|author=Compilation|editor-last=Hornby|editor-first=Helen|year= 1983|title= Lights of Guidance: A Baháʼí Reference File |publisher= Baháʼí Publishing Trust, New Delhi, India|isbn= 978-81-85091-46-4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MZ7g-BIfXu0C&q=Noah%27s+Flood%3A+The+Genesis+Story+in+Western+Thought}} | |||
*{{citation |last=Enns |first=Peter |title=The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn't Say about Human Origins |year=2012 |publisher=Baker Books |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BNxeoqoTg-YC |isbn=9781587433153}} | |||
*{{citation |last=Finkel |first=Irving L. |author-link= Irving Finkel|title=The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood |year=2014 |publisher=Hodder & Stoughton |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lScWAwAAQBAJ&q=tablet&pg=PT274|isbn=9781444757071 }} | |||
*{{cite book|last=Hamilton|first=Victor P.|title=The book of Genesis: Chapters 1–17|publisher=Eerdmans|year=1990|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WW31E9Zt5-wC&q=Genesis&pg=PR3|isbn=9780802825216}} | |||
*{{cite book|last1=Kessler|first1=Martin|last2=Deurloo|first2=Karel Adriaan|title=A commentary on Genesis: The Book of Beginnings|publisher=Paulist Press|year=2004|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mBWeLCTgT0QC&q=A+commentary+on+Genesis:+the+book+of+beginnings+Martin+Kessler,+Karel+Adriaan+Deurloo|isbn=9780809142057}} | |||
*{{citation |last1=Kvanvig |first1=Helge |title=Primeval History: Babylonian, Biblical, and Enochic: An Intertextual Reading |year=2011 |publisher=BRILL |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e1hnJYbShWMC|isbn=978-9004163805}} | |||
*{{cite book |last=McKeown |first=James |title=Genesis |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-gqTTl1iPr8C&q=westermann+tabernacle+ark&pg=PA65 |series=Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary |year=2008 |publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company |isbn=978-0-8028-2705-0 |page=398 }} | |||
*{{citation |last=Nigosian |first=S.A. |title=From Ancient Writings to Sacred Texts: The Old Testament and Apocrypha |year=2004 |publisher=JHU Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gpAAKpmMHYoC|isbn=9780801879883}} | |||
*{{cite book|last=Wenham|first=Gordon|chapter=Genesis|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2Vo-11umIZQC&q=Eerdmans+Genesis+his+rise+to+be+ruler+of+all+Egypt&pg=PA34|editor=James D. G. Dunn |editor2=John William Rogerson|title=Eerdmans Bible Commentary|publisher=Eerdmans|year=2003|isbn=9780802837110 }} | |||
{{Refend}} | |||
===Further reading=== | |||
===Biblical literalist interpretations=== | |||
{{Further reading cleanup|date=August 2024}} | |||
'''Commentaries on Genesis''' | |||
{{Refbegin}} | |||
*{{cite book|last=Towner|first=Wayne Sibley|title=Genesis|publisher=Westminster John Knox Press|year=2001|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6ONdsoa7MHUC&q=Genesis+Wayne+Sibley+Towner|isbn=9780664252564 }} | |||
*{{cite book|last=Von Rad|first=Gerhard|title=Genesis: A Commentary|publisher=Westminster John Knox Press|year=1972|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IbuBa8Qy3AwC&q=Genesis:+A+Commentary+Gerhard+Von+Rad|isbn=9780664227456 }} | |||
*{{cite book|last=Whybray|first=R. N.|chapter=Genesis|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3surkLVdw3UC&q=4.+Genesis+Whybray+Genesis+and+the+Pentateuch&pg=PA38|editor=John Barton|title=Oxford Bible Commentary|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2001|isbn=9780198755005|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordbiblecomme0000unse}} | |||
{{Refend}} | |||
'''General''' | |||
] and ] tend to trust in traditions regarding the composition of the Bible and generally accept the traditional belief that the Ark narrative was written by ] some time between the 16th century BC and late 13th century BC and describes a real event which took place in the 3rd millennium before ].<ref>Literalists and Fundamentalists rely on the internal biblical ] to count backwards from the relatively secure dates in the historical books (largely the ], where events such as the destruction of ] by the ]ns can be verified from non-biblical sources) to the genealogies contained in Genesis 5 and 11. ], using this method in the 17th century, arrived at 2349 BC, and this date still has acceptance among many. A more recent ] scholar, Gerhard F. Hasel, summarising the current state of thought in the light of the various Biblical manuscripts (the ] text in ], various manuscripts of the Greek ]), and differences of opinion over their correct interpretation, demonstrated that this method of analysis can date the flood only within a range between 3402 and 2462 BC.{{cite journal|url=http://www.grisda.org/origins/07053.htm|title=THE MEANING OF THE CHRONOGENEALOGIES OF GENESIS 5 AND 11|author=Hasel, GF|year=1980|journal=Origins|volume=7|issue=2|pages=53–70|accessdate=2007-06-27}} Non-Fundamentalist, non-literalist and liberal Christian opinions, based on different sources and methodologies, lead to dates outside even this bracket—the ]ical ], for example, providing a date equivalent to 2309 BC.</ref> | |||
{{Refbegin}} | |||
*{{citation |last=Bandstra |first=Barry L. |title=Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible |year=2008 |publisher=Wadsworth/ Cengage Learning |location=Belmont, CA |isbn=978-0495391050 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vRY9mTUZKJcC&q=%22not+really+contradictory%22&pg=PA61 |edition=4th |pages=61–63 }} | |||
Biblical literalists explain apparent contradiction in the Ark narrative as the result of the ] conventions adopted by an ancient text: thus the confusion over whether Noah took seven pairs or only one pair of each clean animal into the Ark is explained as resulting from the author (Moses) first introducing the subject in general terms—seven pairs of clean animals—and then later, with much repetition, specifying that these animals entered the Ark in twos. Literalists claim the Biblical raven could have flown over the Flood for two weeks, suggesting that it could have rested on carrion or plant material floating on the waters.<ref>Several Creationist websites give encyclopedic answers to the many questions asked about the Ark: see, for example, , and links in the See Also section of this article.</ref> | |||
*{{cite EB1911|wstitle= Noah |volume= 19 |last= Bennett |first= William Henry |author-link= William Henry Bennett | page = 722}} | |||
*{{citation |last=Best |first=Robert |title=Noah's Ark And the Ziusudra Epic: Sumerian Origins of the Flood Myth|publisher = Eerdmans |year= 1999 |isbn=978-09667840-1-5}} | |||
===Liberal and non-Fundamentalist interpretations=== | |||
*{{cite book|first= Janet|last= Browne|author-link= Janet Browne|title= The Secular Ark: Studies in the History of Biogeography|year= 1983|location= New Haven & London|publisher= Yale University Press|isbn= 978-0-300-02460-9|page=276}} | |||
*{{cite book|last=Brueggemann|first=Walter|title=Reverberations of Faith: a Theological Handbook of Old Testament Themes | |||
Non-Fundamentalist and ] typically view the Ark and flood narrative very differently to Biblical literalists and Fundamentalists. As early as the 19th century the view that the flood was merely local and did not cover the earth was well established within mainstream Christianity.<ref name="Huxley-1890"/> This interpretation remains popular and important among more liberal Christians who retain a belief in the ] of the Ark and the flood narrative<ref>Hugh Ross, </ref><ref>Rich Deem, </ref><ref></ref> as it is commonly used to explain how the Ark could have carried all the animal life necessary,<ref>'So, the animal species rescued via the ark were nephesh, particularly those in the category of basar, living within the reach of the flood's devastation. They may have numbered in the hundreds and probably did not exceed a few thousand. The ark, then, would have been adequate to house them and their food, and eight people could have cared for them, as well as for themselves, for many months', Hugh Ross, </ref> and how it could have survived the flood itself.<ref name="bibleapologetics.wordpress.com"></ref> | |||
|publisher=Westminster John Knox|year=2002|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dBJQ71RIpdMC&q=theological+handbook+of+Old+Testament+themes|isbn=9780664222314}} | |||
*{{cite book|last1=Campbell|first1=Antony F.|last2=O'Brien|first2=Mark A.|title=Sources of the Pentateuch: Texts, Introductions, Annotations|publisher=Fortress Press|year=1993|url=https://archive.org/details/sourcesofpentate0000camp|url-access=registration|quote=Sources of the bible.|isbn=9781451413670 }} | |||
Doublets and apparent contradictions in the text are typically explained by non-Fundamentalist Christians as the product of standard ] ].<ref>MacGrath, James F, '</ref><ref>Kitchen, Kenneth, 'The Old Testament in its Context: 1 From the Origins to the Eve of the Exodus', Theological Students' Fellowship Bulletin 59, Spring 1971</ref>, whilst the sending of the raven and dove are understood as historical references to authentic ancient nautical practice.<ref>Bromiley, Geoffrey W (editor), International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Revised edition, Eerdmans:1979</ref><ref>Keener, Craig S (editor), The Bible Background Commentary-NT, International Varsity Press:1993</ref><ref>Marcus, David, 'The Mission of The Raven (Gen. 8:7)', Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society, 29:2002</ref> | |||
*{{cite book|last=Carr|first=David M.|title=Reading the Fractures of Genesis|publisher=Westminster John Knox Press|year=1996|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8UJctZxFHikC&q=Reading+the+fractures+of+Genesis:+historical+and+literary+approaches|isbn=9780664220716}} | |||
*{{cite book|last=Clines|first=David A.|title=The Theme of the Pentateuch|publisher=Sheffield Academic Press|year=1997|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z45ullcFRG8C&q=Clines+Theme+of+the+Pentateuch|isbn=9780567431967}} | |||
More liberal Christians such as the ] see the Ark narrative as essentially ] and non-historical.<ref>Reverend Kathleen McTigue, , February 23, 2003</ref> | |||
*{{cite book|last=Davies|first=G. I.|chapter=Introduction to the Pentateuch|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3surkLVdw3UC&q=Oxford+Bible+Commentary+Introduction+to+the+Pentateuch&pg=PA12|editor=John Barton|title=Oxford Bible Commentary|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1998|isbn=9780198755005|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordbiblecomme0000unse}} | |||
*{{cite book|title=Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary|editor=Douglas, J. D. |editor2=Tenney, Merrill C.|year=2011|publisher=Zondervan|location=Grand Rapids, Mich.|isbn=978-0310229834|edition=Revised|others=revised by Moisés Silva}} | |||
==The Ark in Muslim interpretations== | |||
*{{cite book|last1=Kugler|first1=Robert|last2=Hartin|first2=Patrick|title=The Old Testament between theology and history: a critical survey|publisher=Eerdmans|year=2009|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L8WbXbPjxpoC&q=Robert+Kugler,+Patrick+Hartin|isbn=9780802846365}} | |||
*{{cite book|last1=Levin|first1=Christoph L.|title=The Old testament: A Brief Introduction|publisher=Princeton University Press|year=2005|url=https://archive.org/details/oldtestamentbrie00levi|url-access=registration|quote=The Old testament: a brief introduction Christoph Levin.|isbn=978-0691113944}} | |||
Muslims maintain the Quran to be a reliable historical account, including its account of Noah's Ark and the Deluge. Muslim interpreters such as ] have asserted, on the basis of the Quran, that the deluge it describes was not worldwide, but a regional one that only punished the tribe that rejected Noah (Nuh).<ref></ref> | |||
*{{cite book|title=The Old Testament: A Brief Introduction|author=Levin, C.|date=2005|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=9780691113944|url=https://archive.org/details/oldtestamentbrie00levi|url-access=registration}} | |||
*{{cite book|last=Longman|first=Tremper|title=How to Read Genesis|publisher=InterVarsity Press|year=2005|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SKEJ3kT7S2kC&q=How+to+read+Genesis+Tremper+Longman|isbn=9780830875603}} | |||
==Searches for Noah's Ark== | |||
*{{cite book|last=McEntire|first=Mark|title=Struggling with God: An Introduction to the Pentateuch|publisher=Mercer University Press|year=2008|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VwOs9f1FpmsC&q=william+propp+exodus+1-18&pg=PA87|isbn=9780881461015}} | |||
{{main|Searches for Noah's Ark}} | |||
*{{cite book|last=Ska|first=Jean-Louis|title=Introduction to Reading the Pentateuch|publisher=Eisenbrauns|year=2006|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7cdy67ZvzdkC&q=Introduction+to+reading+the+Pentateuch+Jean+Louis+Ska|isbn=9781575061221}} | |||
] (pictured here) has been searched for remains of Noah's ark. Recently Mount ] in ], over 300 km (200 miles) away, has been under investigation.]] | |||
*{{cite book|last=Van Seters|first=John|title=Prologue to History: The Yahwist As Historian in Genesis|publisher=Westminster John Knox Press|year=1992|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zRl8aj_KiM4C|isbn=9780664221799}} | |||
*{{cite book|last=Van Seters|first=John|chapter=The Pentateuch|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=owwhpmIVgSAC&q=The+Hebrew+Bible+today:+an+introduction+to+critical+issues|editor=Steven L. McKenzie |editor2=Matt Patrick Graham|title=The Hebrew Bible Today: An Introduction to Critical Issues|publisher=Westminster John Knox Press|year=1998|isbn=9780664256524}} | |||
] feel that finding the Ark would validate their views on a whole range of matters, from ] to ]. "If the flood of Noah indeed wiped out the entire human race and its civilization, as the Bible teaches, then the Ark constitutes the one remaining major link to the pre-flood World. No significant artifact could ever be of greater antiquity or importance... tremendous potential impact on the creation-evolution (including theistic evolution) controversy."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.icr.org/article/209/|title=Noah's Ark the Search Goes On|publisher=Institute for Creation Research|author=Morris, John|year=2007|accessdate=2007-06-27}}</ref> Non-Fundamentalist Christians typically believe the discovery of the Ark is unimportant to the historicity of the Genesis flood narrative, and that the Ark cannot be found as it would have long since been ] or ] for other projects.<ref>"I believe that the remains of the ark will never be found simply because the timbers of the ark would have been too valuable for the ancients to leave lying around." Ross, Hugh, </ref><ref></ref> Searches have concentrated on ] in Turkey itself, although ''Genesis'' actually refers only to the ]; the ], near but not on Ararat, and much more accessible, attracted attention in the 1980s and 1990s. | |||
*{{cite book|last=Van Seters|first=John|title=The Pentateuch: A Social-science Commentary|publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group|year=2004|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T-Vi9eK_vS0C&q=Sources+of+the+bible&pg=PA7|isbn=9780567080882}} | |||
*{{cite book|last=Walsh|first=Jerome T.|title=Style and Structure in Biblical Hebrew Narrative|publisher=Liturgical Press|year=2001|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hGeXrcQTZ2kC&q=style+and+structure+in+biblical+hebrew+narrative|isbn=9780814658970}} | |||
==Critical evaluation== | |||
*{{cite book|first= Lloyd R.|last= Bailey|title= Noah, the Person and the Story|url= https://archive.org/details/noahpersonstoryi0000bail|url-access= registration|year= 1989|location= South Carolina|publisher= ]|isbn= 978-0-87249-637-8}} | |||
===Seaworthiness=== | |||
*{{cite book|last1=Campbell|first1=Antony F.|last2=O'Brien|first2=Mark A.|title=Sources of the Pentateuch: Texts, Introductions, Annotations|publisher=Fortress Press|year=1993|url=https://archive.org/details/sourcesofpentate0000camp|url-access=registration|quote=Sources of the bible.|isbn=9781451413670}} | |||
*{{cite book|title=Sources of the Pentateuch: Texts, Introductions, Annotations|author1=Campbell, A. F.|author2=O'Brien, M. A.|date=1993|publisher=Fortress Press|isbn=9781451413670|url=https://archive.org/details/sourcesofpentate0000camp|url-access=registration}} | |||
Biblical literalist websites seem to agree that the Ark was approximately 450 ] (137 ]) long.<ref></ref> This is considerably larger than the ], at 329 feet (100.28 metres) the largest ]-] vessel built in ]. The Wyoming and similar ships of her ] suffered chronic leaking, warping, and hull separation due to ], despite reinforcement with ] bracing.<ref></ref><ref>Isaak, Mark, '', second edition, 1998</ref> "The construction and use histories of these ships indicated that they were already pushing or had exceeded the practical limits for the size of wooden ships".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sultan/archeology2.html|title=Asia's Undersea Archeology|author=Gould, R|year=2001|publisher=Public Broadcasting System|accessdate=2007-06-27}}</ref> In response to the claim that the Ark had to be ], literalist websites cite various studies which, in their view, indicate that Noah's Ark was seaworthy,<ref></ref> including a paper from the Korea Association of Creation Research demonstrating that the dimensions, shape, and structural materials of the Ark are realistic and that the Ark 'had a superior level of safety in high winds and waves compared with the other hull forms studied'.<ref>S.W. Hong, S.S. Na, B.S. Hyun, S.Y. Hong, D.S. Gong, K.J. Kang, S.H. Suh, K.H. Lee, and Y.G. Je, 'Safety Investigation of Noah’s Ark in a Seaway', Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal 8(1):26–35, 1994</ref><ref></ref><ref></ref> In this regard, some literalist ] cite the ] ] ']s', or 'baochuan' (the largest of which are claimed to be 400 to 600 ft long), as examples of large seagoing wooden vessels:<ref></ref><ref></ref> however, the actual size of these ships is disputed,<ref>, Evan Hadingham, Sultan's Lost Treasures, NOVA, ]</ref><ref name=Gould>, ], ], ] article</ref> and one explanation for their size is that the largest treasure ships were merely used by the ] and imperial bureaucrats to travel along the relatively calm ].<ref></ref> | |||
*{{cite book |last=Cline|first=Eric H.|title= Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction |publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2009|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zwNIDHSPsSMC&pg=PA72|isbn=9780199741076}} | |||
*{{cite book|last=Cotter|first=David W.|title=Genesis|publisher=]|year=2003|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6lCVzr4cT9QC&q=Genesis+David+W.+Cotter|isbn=9780814650400}} | |||
===Practicality=== | |||
*{{cite book | |||
|last = Cresswell | |||
Could the Ark have been constructed from timber as described in the Genesis narrative, and still support its own weight?<ref> 'It would have been about 450ft long, and experts say it would have broken apart'</ref><ref> 'the odds are that the technology of the time and the reputed material (gopher wood or shittim wood = ?acacia) would have made such a structure too flimsy for the purpose'</ref> Were the technology and materials available to Noah to make the Ark's construction possible?<ref>, 'Many writers (e.g., Kenneth Feder, Frauds, Myths, and Mysticism, Mayfield, 1990) point out that the construction of the Ark, given the conditions stated in the Bible, would probably have been impossible'</ref> Ark-believers claim that there is ample evidence for ancient timber vessels comparable in size and construction to the Ark:<ref></ref> ] was among the first to argue that the Ark was smaller than the ], a ] built in the 3rd century BC during the reign of ] of ] (180 feet in length), and the giant ] ] built by ].<ref>'For measuring the ark by the vulgar cubit, it did not exceed the capacity of that vessel built by Hiero of Syracuse, or the ship of Ptolemy Philo-pater', Raleigh, Sir Walter, 'The History of the World', Book 1, in 'The Works of Sir Walter Ralegh, Kt', volume II, 1829, page 213</ref> The Tessarakonteres (420 feet long, and recognized as a historical vessel by standard historical authorities),<ref>''Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World,'' Lionel Casson 1994</ref><ref>, Chapter 7 of ''Ships and Seafaring in Ancient Times'', Lionel Casson, University of Texas Press; 1st University edition, March 1994 ISBN-10: 029271162X.</ref> remained a common point of comparison to the Ark throughout the 19th century among Flood-apologists, naval historians, nautical engineers, and ]s.<ref>'Ancient History boasts of many large vessels, which prove the possibility of the size of Noah's Ark… PLUTARCH, in his life of DEMETRIUS, relates that PTOLOMEY PHILOPATER constructed a galley, of the same length, with forty ranges or heights of oars, navigated by four hundred sailors, and four thousand galley slaves, which could contain three thousand fighting men on its decks', Radford, William, 'On the construction of the Ark, as adapted to the naval architecture of the present day, &c.', 1840, pages 21-22</ref><ref>'Mr. A. HENDERSON has communicated to the Institution of Civil Engineers a paper on "Ocean Steamers," wherein he made some calculations respecting the comparative bulk of the most famous vessels of antiquity and of our own times. Thus, a ship constructed by Ptolemus Philopater was 420 feet long, 56 broad, and 72 high from the keel to the prow, and it was manned by 4000 rowers, 400 servants, and 2820 marines. It was estimated, therefore, that this vessel had a tonnage of 6445 tons, builder's measurement, and an external bulk of 830,700 cubic feet. Noah's ark would have a tonnage of 11,905, and a bulk of 1,580,000 cubic feet', Timbs, John, 'The Year-book of Facts in Science and Art', 1854, page 42</ref><ref>Van Rensselaer, Cortlandt (editor), 'A ship was constructed for Ptolemy Philopater, which was 420 feet long, 56 feet broad, and 72 feet deep, and of 6,445 tons burthen', The Presbyterian Magazine, volume IV, 1854, page 93</ref><ref>'Very large vessels — their seaworthiness.', 'By old law, the tonnage of Noah's Ark was 11,905 tons, and calculated on this estimate, her external bulk would be about 1,580,277 cubic feet ; the ship built 2000 years ago at Alexandria, by Ptolemaens Philopater, 6445 tons', Report Of The Twenty-Fourth Meeting Of The British Association For The Advancement Of Science', 1855, page 154</ref> Other ancient ships commonly used as points of comparison by modern Ark apologists are the giant ] ] of ] (206-311 ft), the ] (377 ft), ] (341 ft), and ] (229 ft),<ref></ref><ref></ref> the historicity of which is accepted by standard historical authorities.<ref>'It is estimated that the obelisk barge may have been over ninety-five metres in length and thirty-two metres wide', </ref><ref>' was over 300 feet long'', Casson, Lionel, 'Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World', 1995, page 342</ref><ref>'Athenaios does not indicate his sources for the second ship, but it must have been an eye-witness or a person who obtained measurements and other details from a contemporary', Sarton, George, 'Hellenistic Science and Culture in the Last Three Centuries B.C.', 1993, page 121</ref><ref>'Similar techniques were used in the gigantic Lake Nemi ships of the early first century AD', McGrail, Sean, 'Boats of the World: From the Stone Age to Medieval Times', 2004, page 157</ref><ref>'Archaeology Italian archaeologists and engineers drain Lake Nemi near Rome to recover two giant barges that had been built by Roman emperor Caligula', Bunch, Bryan and Hellemans, Alexander, 'The History of Science and Technology', 2004, page 513</ref><ref>'Atop one of these was erected a lighthouse that used as its foundation the giant ship that had been built to transport the obelisk of Heliopolis from Egypt to Rome under the reign of Caligula', Aldrete, Gregory, 'Daily Life in the Roman City: Rome, Pompeii, and Ostia', 2004, page 206</ref> | |||
|first = Julia | |||
|chapter = Ark | |||
===Capacity and logistics=== | |||
|title = Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins | |||
|publisher = Oxford University Press | |||
According to Ark dimensions commonly accepted by Biblical literalists, the Ark would have had a gross ] of about 1.5 million ] (40,000 m³), a ] a little less than half that of the ] at about 22,000 tons, and total ] of around 100,000 ] (9,300 m²).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.biblestudy.org/basicart/sizeark.html|title=How Big was Noah's Ark|publisher=|author=Mendez, AC|accessdate=2007-06-27}}</ref> The question of whether it could have carried two (or more) specimens of the various species (including those now extinct), plus food and fresh water, is a matter of much debate, even bitter dispute, between Biblical literalists and their opponents. While some Biblical literalists hold that the Ark could have held all known species, a more common position today is that the Ark contained "]" rather than species—for instance, a male and female of the cat "kind" rather than representatives of ]s, ]s, ]s, etc.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/re1/chapter2.asp|title=Variation and natural selection versus evolution|author=Sarfati, J|year=2007|publisher=|accessdate=2007-06-27}}</ref> The many questions associated with a Biblical literalist interpretation include whether eight humans could have cared for the animals while also sailing the Ark, how the special dietary needs of some of the more exotic animals could have been catered for, how the creatures could have been prevented from preying on each other, questions of lighting, ], and ], ], the survival and germination of seeds, the position of ] and saltwater fish, the question of what the animals would have eaten immediately after leaving the Ark, how they travelled (or were gathered) from all over the world to board the Ark and how they could have returned to their far-flung habitats across the Earth's bare, flood-devastated terrain, and how two or a few members of a species could have provided enough ] to avoid ] and reconstitute a healthy population. Numerous Biblical literalist websites, while claiming that none of these problems is insurmountable, give varying answers on how to resolve them. | |||
|year = 2010 | |||
|isbn = 978-0199547937 | |||
==See also== | |||
|chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=J4i3zV4vnBAC | |||
{{portal|Religion|P_religion_world.svg}} | |||
}} | |||
* ] | |||
*{{cite book |last=Dalrymple |first=G. Brent |title=The Age of the Earth |year=1991 |publisher=Stanford University Press |isbn=978-0-8047-2331-2 }} | |||
* ] | |||
*{{cite journal |last= Emerton |first= J. A. |editor-last= Joosten |editor-first=J. |year= 1988 |title= An Examination of Some Attempts to Defend the Unity of the Flood Narrative in Genesis: Part II |journal= ] |volume= XXXVIII |issue= 1 }} | |||
*] | |||
*{{cite book|last=Gooder|first=Paula|title=The Pentateuch: A Story of Beginnings|publisher=T&T Clark|year=2005|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=49XpvvO-Oq0C&q=The+Pentateuch+Paula+Gooder|isbn=9780567084187}} | |||
* ] | |||
*{{cite web |url=http://www.news.wisc.edu/16176 |title=Reason or Faith? Darwin Expert Reflects |first=Gwen |last=Evans |date=3 February 2009 |work=UW-Madison News |publisher=University of Wisconsin-Madison |access-date=18 June 2010}} | |||
* ] | |||
*{{cite book |last1=Knight |first1=Douglas A. |editor1= Watson E. Mills |title=Mercer Dictionary of the Bible |publisher= Mercer University Press |location=Macon, Georgia |isbn=978-0-86554-402-4 |chapter=Cosmology |year= 1990 |chapter-url= https://books.google.com/books?id=goq0VWw9rGIC&q=Mercer+Dictionary+of+the+Bible+Cosmology&pg=PA176 }} | |||
* ] | |||
*{{cite book | |||
|last1=Levenson | |||
==Notes== | |||
|first1=Jon D. | |||
{{reflist|2}} | |||
|chapter=Genesis: introduction and annotations | |||
|editor1-last=Berlin | |||
==References== | |||
|editor1-first=Adele | |||
*{{cite book|first=Lloyd R.|last=Bailey|title=Noah, the Person and the Story|year=1989|location=South Carolina|publisher=University of South Carolina Press|isbn=0-87249-637-6}} | |||
|editor2-last=Brettler | |||
*{{cite book | author=Tigay, Jeffrey H., | title=The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic | location= | publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia | year=1982 | isbn=0-8122-7805-4}} | |||
|editor2-first=Marc Zvi | |||
*{{cite book|first=John|last=Woodmorappe|title=Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study |location=El Cajon, CA|publisher=Institute for Creation Research|year=1996|isbn=0-932766-41-2}} | |||
|title= The Jewish Study Bible | |||
|publisher= Oxford University Press | |||
|year=2014 | |||
|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yErYBAAAQBAJ | |||
|isbn=9780199393879 | |||
}} | |||
*{{cite web|url=http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html|title=Problems with a Global Flood|last=Isaak|first=M.|year=1998|publisher=]|access-date=29 March 2007|quote=Isaak no a geologist}} | |||
*{{cite web|url= http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html#CD|title=Index to Creationist Claims, Geology|first=Mark|last=Isaak|publisher=]|date=5 November 2006|access-date= 2 November 2010 }} | |||
* {{Cite web |last=Lippsett |first=Lonny |date=2009 |title=Noah's Not-so-big Flood: New evidence rebuts controversial theory of Black Sea deluge |url=https://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/noahs-not-so-big-flood/ |access-date=5 February 2021 |website=Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution |language=en-US}} | |||
*{{cite web|url=http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/geocolumn/|title=The Geologic Column and its Implications for the Flood|first=Glenn|last=Morton|publisher=]|access-date= 2 November 2010|date=17 February 2001|quote=Morton Not a Geologist}} | |||
*{{cite book |last1=Nicholson |first1=Ernest W. |title=The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century: the legacy of Julius Wellhausen |publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2003|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=opBBTHT13yoC&q=The+Pentateuch+in+the+twentieth+century:+the+legacy+of+Julius+Wellhausen|isbn=9780199257836}} | |||
*{{cite book |last= Numbers |first= Ronald L. |author-link= Ronald Numbers |title= The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design, Expanded Edition |publisher= Harvard University Press |year= 2006 |pages= |isbn= 978-0-674-02339-0 |title-link= The Creationists }} | |||
*{{cite journal |last=Parkinson |first=William|date=January–February 2004|title=Questioning 'Flood Geology': Decisive New Evidence to End an Old Debate|journal=NCSE Reports|volume=24|issue=1|url=http://ncse.com/rncse/24/1/questioning-flood-geology|access-date=2 November 2010}} | |||
*{{cite book |last=Plimer |first=Ian |title=Telling Lies for God: Reason vs Creationism |year=1994 |publisher=Random House Australia |isbn=978-0-09-182852-3 |page=303 }} | |||
*{{cite journal|last=Schadewald|first=Robert J.|date=Summer 1982 |title= Six Flood Arguments Creationists Can't Answer |journal= Creation/Evolution Journal |volume= 3 |issue= 3 |pages= 12–17 |url= http://ncse.com/cej/3/3/six-flood-arguments-creationists-cant-answer |access-date= 16 November 2010 }} | |||
*{{cite journal|url=http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/cre-error.html |last=Schadewald|first=Robert|year=1986|title=Scientific Creationism and Error|journal=Creation/Evolution|volume=6|issue=1|pages=1–9|access-date=29 March 2007}} | |||
*{{citation|url=http://ncse.com/rncse/23/1/my-favorite-pseudoscience |first=Eugenie C. |last=Scott|title=My Favorite Pseudoscience|volume= 23|issue= 1|date=January–February 2003}} | |||
*{{cite book|last= Speiser|first= E. A.|author-link= E. A. Speiser|title= Genesis|url= https://archive.org/details/genesis00spei|url-access= registration|series= The ]|year= 1964|publisher= Doubleday|isbn= 978-0-385-00854-9 }} | |||
*{{cite book |last1= Stewart |first1= Melville Y. |title= Science and Religion in Dialogue |year= 2010 |publisher= Wiley-Blackwell |location= Malden, MA |isbn= 978-1-4051-8921-7 |pages= 123|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AaGhngEACAAJ}} | |||
*{{cite book|author= Tigay, Jeffrey H. |title= The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic|location=Philadelphia |publisher= ], Philadelphia|year= 1982|isbn= 0865165467 }} | |||
*{{cite book|last=Van Seters|first=John|title=The Pentateuch: A Social-Science commentary|publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group|year=2004|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T-Vi9eK_vS0C&pg=PA7|isbn=0567080889 }} | |||
*{{cite book |last=Wenham |first=Gordon |editor1-last=Hess |editor1-first=Richard S. |editor2-last=Tsumura |editor2-first=David Toshio |title=I Studied Inscriptions From Before the Flood |format=Google Books |series=Sources for Biblical and Theological Study |volume=4 |year=1994 |publisher=Eisenbrauns |isbn=978-0-931464-88-1 |page=480 |chapter=The Coherence of the Flood Narrative |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g5MGVP6gAPkC }} | |||
*{{cite book |last=Young |first=Davis A. |title=The Biblical Flood: A Case Study of the Church's Response to Extrabiblical Evidence |date=March 1995 |publisher=Eerdmans Pub Co |location= Grand Rapids, MI |isbn=978-0-8028-0719-9 |page=340 }} | |||
*{{cite book |last1= Young |first1= Davis A. |last2= Stearley |first2= Ralph F. |title= The Bible, Rocks, and Time: Geological Evidence for the Age of the Earth |year= 2008 |publisher= IVP Academic |location= Downers Grove, Ill. |isbn= 978-0-8308-2876-0 }} | |||
{{Refend}} | |||
==External links== | ==External links== | ||
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{{NIE poster|Ark|Noah's Ark}} | ||
* {{Commons category-inline}} | |||
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* The calendar(s) used in the flood narrative | |||
* Professional ship designers consider Noah's Ark design. | |||
* at World Wide Flood | |||
* at ] | |||
* Response to the above | |||
* at ] | |||
* Comparison of equivalent lines in six ancient versions of the flood story | |||
* | |||
* at ] | |||
*, adapted from the book ''The Biblical Flood'' by Davis A. Young | |||
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* | |||
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{{Noah's Ark}} | ||
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Latest revision as of 01:16, 8 January 2025
For other uses, see Noah's Ark (disambiguation). Not to be confused with Ark of the Covenant. Vessel in the Genesis flood narrative
Noah's Ark (Hebrew: תיבת נח; Biblical Hebrew: Tevat Noaḥ) is the boat in the Genesis flood narrative through which God spares Noah, his family, and examples of all the world's animals from a global deluge. The story in Genesis is based on earlier flood myths originating in Mesopotamia, and is repeated, with variations, in the Quran, where the Ark appears as Safinat Nūḥ (Arabic: سَفِينَةُ نُوحٍ "Noah's ship") and al-fulk (Arabic: الفُلْك). The myth of the global flood that destroys all life begins to appear in the Old Babylonian Empire period (20th–16th centuries BCE). The version closest to the biblical story of Noah, as well as its most likely source, is that of Utnapishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Early Christian and Jewish writers, such as Flavius Josephus, believed that Noah's Ark existed. Unsuccessful searches for Noah's Ark have been made from at least the time of Eusebius (c. 275–339 CE). Believers in the Ark continue to search for it in modern times, but no scientific evidence that the Ark existed has ever been found, nor is there scientific evidence for a global flood. The boat and the natural disaster as described in the Bible would have been contingent upon physical impossibilities and extraordinary anachronisms. Some researchers believe that a real (though localized) flood event in the Middle East could potentially have inspired the oral and later written narratives; a Persian Gulf flood, or a Black Sea Deluge 7,500 years ago has been proposed as such a historical candidate.
Description
The structure of the Ark (and the chronology of the flood) is homologous with the Jewish Temple and with Temple worship. Accordingly, Noah's instructions are given to him by God (Genesis 6:14–16): the ark is to be 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high (approximately 134×22×13 m or 440×72×43 ft). These dimensions are based on a numerological preoccupation with the number 60, the same number characterizing the vessel of the Babylonian flood hero.
Its three internal divisions reflect the three-part universe imagined by the ancient Israelites: heaven, the earth, and the underworld. Each deck is the same height as the Temple in Jerusalem, itself a microcosmic model of the universe, and each is three times the area of the court of the tabernacle, leading to the suggestion that the author saw both Ark and tabernacle as serving for the preservation of human life. It has a door in the side, and a tsohar, which may be either a roof or a skylight. It is to be made of gopher wood "goper", a word which appears nowhere else in the Bible, but thought to be a loan word from the Akkadian gupru – and divided into qinnim, a word which always refers to birds' nests elsewhere in the Bible, leading some scholars to emend this to qanim, reeds. The finished vessel is to be smeared with koper, meaning pitch or bitumen; in Hebrew the two words are closely related, kaparta ("smeared") ... bakopper. Bitumen is more likely option as "koper" is thought to be a loanword from the Akkadian "kupru", meaning bitumen.
Origins
Mesopotamian precursors
Main article: Flood mythFor well over a century, scholars have said that the Bible's story of Noah's Ark is based on older Mesopotamian models. Because all these flood stories deal with events that allegedly happened at the dawn of history, they give the impression that the myths themselves must come from very primitive origins, but the myth of the global flood that destroys all life only begins to appear in the Old Babylonian period (20th–16th centuries BCE). The reasons for this emergence of the typical Mesopotamian flood myth may have been bound up with the specific circumstances of the end of the Third Dynasty of Ur around 2004 BCE and the restoration of order by the First Dynasty of Isin.
Nine versions of the Mesopotamian flood story are known, each more or less adapted from an earlier version. In the oldest version, inscribed in the Sumerian city of Nippur around 1600 BCE, the hero is King Ziusudra. This story, the Sumerian flood myth, probably derives from an earlier version. The Ziusudra version tells how he builds a boat and rescues life when the gods decide to destroy it. This basic plot is common in several subsequent flood stories and heroes, including Noah. Ziusudra's Sumerian name means "he of long life." In Babylonian versions, his name is Atrahasis, but the meaning is the same. In the Atrahasis version, the flood is a river flood.
The version closest to the biblical story of Noah is that of Utnapishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh. A complete text of Utnapishtim's story is contained on a clay tablet dating from the seventh century BCE, but fragments of the story have been found from as far back as the 19th century BCE. The last known version of the Mesopotamian flood story was written in Greek in the third century BCE by a Babylonian priest named Berossus. From the fragments that survive, it seems little changed from the versions of 2,000 years before.
The parallels between Noah's Ark and the arks of Babylonian flood heroes Atrahasis and Utnapishtim have often been noted. Atrahasis's Ark was circular, resembling an enormous quffa, with one or two decks. Utnapishtim's ark was a cube with six decks of seven compartments, each divided into nine subcompartments (63 subcompartments per deck, 378 total). Noah's Ark was rectangular with three decks. A progression is believed to exist from a circular to a cubic or square to rectangular. The most striking similarity is the near-identical deck areas of the three arks: 14,400 cubits, 14,400 cubits, and 15,000 cubits for Atrahasis, Utnapishtim, and Noah, only 4% different. Irving Finkel concluded, "the iconic story of the Flood, Noah, and the Ark as we know it today certainly originated in the landscape of ancient Mesopotamia, modern Iraq."
Linguistic parallels between Noah's and Atrahasis' arks have also been noted. The word used for "pitch" (sealing tar or resin) in Genesis is not the normal Hebrew word, but is closely related to the word used in the Babylonian story. Likewise, the Hebrew word for "ark" (tēvāh) is nearly identical to the Babylonian word for an oblong boat (ṭubbû), especially given that "v" and "b" are the same letter in Hebrew: bet (ב).
However, the causes for God or the gods sending the flood differ in the various stories. In the Hebrew myth, the flood inflicts God's judgment on wicked humanity. The Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh gives no reasons, and the flood appears the result of divine caprice. In the Babylonian Atrahasis version, the flood is sent to reduce human overpopulation, and after the flood, other measures were introduced to limit humanity.
Composition
Main article: Genesis flood narrative § CompositionA consensus among scholars indicates that the Torah (the first five books of the Bible, beginning with Genesis) was the product of a long and complicated process that was not completed until after the Babylonian exile. Since the 18th century, the flood narrative has been analysed as a paradigm example of the combination of two different versions of a story into a single text, with one marker for the different versions being a consistent preference for different names "Elohim" and "Yahweh" to denote God.
Religious views
Rabbinic Judaism
Main article: Noah in rabbinic literatureThe Talmudic tractates Sanhedrin, Avodah Zarah, and Zevahim relate that, while Noah was building the Ark, he attempted to warn his neighbors of the coming deluge, but was ignored or mocked. God placed lions and other ferocious animals to protect Noah and his family from the wicked who tried to keep them from the Ark. According to one Midrash, it was God, or the angels, who gathered the animals and their food to the Ark. As no need existed to distinguish between clean and unclean animals before this time, the clean animals made themselves known by kneeling before Noah as they entered the Ark. A differing opinion is that the Ark itself distinguished clean animals from unclean, admitting seven pairs each of the former and one pair each of the latter.
According to Sanhedrin 108b, Noah was engaged both day and night in feeding and caring for the animals, and did not sleep for the entire year aboard the Ark. The animals were the best of their kind and behaved with utmost goodness. They did not procreate, so the number of creatures that disembarked was exactly equal to the number that embarked. The raven created problems, refusing to leave the Ark when Noah sent it forth, and accusing the patriarch of wishing to destroy its race, but as the commentators pointed out, God wished to save the raven, for its descendants were destined to feed the prophet Elijah.
According to one tradition, refuse was stored on the lowest of the Ark's three decks, humans and clean beasts on the second, and the unclean animals and birds on the top. A differing interpretation described the refuse as being stored on the topmost deck, from where it was shoveled into the sea through a trapdoor. Precious stones, as bright as the noon sun, provided light, and God ensured the food remained fresh. In an unorthodox interpretation, the 12th-century Jewish commentator Abraham ibn Ezra interpreted the ark as a vessel that remained underwater for 40 days, after which it floated to the surface.
Christianity
The First Epistle of Peter (composed around the end of the first century AD) compared Noah's salvation through water to Christian salvation through baptism. Hippolytus of Rome (died 235) sought to demonstrate that "the Ark was a symbol of the Christ who was expected", stating that the vessel had its door on the east side—the direction from which Christ would appear at the Second Coming—and that the bones of Adam were brought aboard, together with gold, frankincense, and myrrh (the symbols of the Nativity of Christ). Hippolytus furthermore stated that the Ark floated to and fro in the four directions on the waters, making the sign of the cross, before eventually landing on Mount Kardu "in the east, in the land of the sons of Raban, and the Orientals call it Mount Godash; the Armenians call it Ararat". On a more practical plane, Hippolytus explained that the lowest of the three decks was for wild beasts, the middle for birds and domestic animals, and the top for humans. He says male animals were separated from females by sharp stakes to prevent breeding.
The early Church Father and theologian Origen (circa 182–251), in response to a critic who doubted that the Ark could contain all the animals in the world, argued that Moses, the traditional author of the book of Genesis, had been brought up in Egypt and would therefore have used the larger Egyptian cubit. He also fixed the shape of the Ark as a truncated pyramid, square at its base, and tapering to a square peak one cubit on a side; only in the 12th century did it come to be thought of as a rectangular box with a sloping roof.
Early Christian artists depicted Noah standing in a small box on the waves, symbolizing God saving the Christian Church in its turbulent early years. Augustine of Hippo (354–430), in his work City of God, demonstrated that the dimensions of the Ark corresponded to the dimensions of the human body, which according to Christian doctrine is the body of Christ and in turn the body of the Church. Jerome (c. 347–420) identified the raven, which was sent forth and did not return, as the "foul bird of wickedness" expelled by baptism; more enduringly, the dove and olive branch came to symbolize the Holy Spirit and the hope of salvation and eventually, peace. The olive branch remains a secular and religious symbol of peace today.
Gnosticism
According to the Hypostasis of the Archons, a 3rd-century Gnostic text, Noah is chosen to be spared by the evil Archons when they try to destroy the other inhabitants of the Earth with the great flood. He is told to create the ark then board it at a location called Mount Sir, but when his wife Norea wants to board it as well, Noah attempts to not let her. So she decides to use her divine power to blow upon the ark and set it ablaze, therefore Noah is forced to rebuild it.
Mandaeism
In Book 18 of the Right Ginza, a Mandaean text, Noah and his family are saved from the Great Flood because they were able to build an ark or kawila (or kauila, a Mandaic term; it is cognate with Syriac kēʾwilā, which is attested in the Peshitta New Testament, such as Matthew 24:38 and Luke 17:27).
Islam
Main article: Noah in IslamIn contrast to the Jewish tradition, which uses a term that can be translated as a "box" or "chest" to describe the Ark, surah 29:15 of the Quran refers to it as a safina, an ordinary ship; surah 7:64 uses fulk, and surah 54:13 describes the Ark as "a thing of boards and nails". Abd Allah ibn Abbas, a contemporary of Muhammad, wrote that Noah was in doubt as to what shape to make the Ark and that Allah revealed to him that it was to be shaped like a bird's belly and fashioned of teak wood.
The medieval scholar Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Husayn Masudi (died 956) wrote that Allah commanded the Earth to absorb the water, and certain portions which were slow in obeying received salt water in punishment and so became dry and arid. The water which was not absorbed formed the seas, so that the waters of the flood still exist. Masudi says the ark began its voyage at Kufa in central Iraq and sailed to Mecca, circling the Kaaba before finally traveling to Mount Judi, which surah 11:44 gives as its final resting place. This mountain is identified by tradition with a hill near the town of Jazirat ibn Umar on the east bank of the Tigris in the province of Mosul in northern Iraq, and Masudi says that the spot could be seen in his time.
Baháʼí Faith
The Baháʼí Faith regards the Ark and the Flood as symbolic. In Baháʼí belief, only Noah's followers were spiritually alive, preserved in the "ark" of his teachings, as others were spiritually dead. The Baháʼí scripture Kitáb-i-Íqán endorses the Islamic belief that Noah had numerous companions on the ark, either 40 or 72, as well as his family, and that he taught for 950 (symbolic) years before the flood. The Baháʼí Faith was founded in 19th century Persia, and it recognizes divine messengers from both the Abrahamic and the Indian traditions.
Ancient accounts
Multiple Jewish and Christian writers in the ancient world wrote about the ark. The first-century historian Josephus reports that the Armenians believed that the remains of the Ark lay "in Armenia, at the mountain of the Cordyaeans", in a location they called the Place of Descent (Ancient Greek: αποβατηριον). He goes on to say that many other writers of "barbarian histories", including Nicolaus of Damascus, Berossus, and Mnaseas mention the flood and the Ark.
In the fourth century, Epiphanius of Salamis wrote about Noah's Ark in his Panarion, saying "Thus even today the remains of Noah's ark are still shown in Cardyaei." Other translations render "Cardyaei" as "the country of the Kurds".
John Chrysostom mentioned Noah's Ark in one of his sermons in the fourth century, saying ""Do not the mountains of Armenia testify to it, where the Ark rested? And are not the remains of the Ark preserved there to this very day for our admonition?
Historicity
The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica from 1771 describes the Ark as factual. It also attempts to explain how the Ark could house all living animal types: "... Buteo and Kircher have proved geometrically, that, taking the common cubit as a foot and a half, the ark was abundantly sufficient for all the animals supposed to be lodged in it ... the number of species of animals will be found much less than is generally imagined, not amounting to a hundred species of quadrupeds." It also endorses a supernatural explanation for the flood, stating that "many attempts have been made to account for the deluge by means of natural causes: but these attempts have only tended to discredit philosophy, and to render their authors ridiculous".
The 1860 edition attempts to solve the problem of the Ark being unable to house all animal types by suggesting a local flood, which is described in the 1910 edition as part of a "gradual surrender of attempts to square scientific facts with a literal interpretation of the Bible" that resulted in "the 'higher criticism' and the rise of the modern scientific views as to the origin of species" leading to "scientific comparative mythology" as the frame in which Noah's Ark was interpreted by 1875.
Ark's geometry
In Europe, the Renaissance saw much speculation on the nature of the Ark that might have seemed familiar to early theologians such as Origen and Augustine. At the same time, however, a new class of scholarship arose, one which, while never questioning the literal truth of the ark story, began to speculate on the practical workings of Noah's vessel from within a purely naturalistic framework. In the 15th century, Alfonso Tostada gave a detailed account of the logistics of the Ark, down to arrangements for the disposal of dung and the circulation of fresh air. The 16th-century geometer Johannes Buteo calculated the Ark's internal dimensions, allowing room for Noah's grinding mills and smokeless ovens, a model widely adopted by other commentators.
Irving Finkel, a curator at the British Museum, came into the possession of a cuneiform tablet. He translated it and discovered an hitherto unknown Babylonian version of the story of the great flood. This version gave specific measurements for an unusually large coracle (a type of rounded boat). His discovery lead to the production of a television documentary and a book summarizing the finding. A scale replica of the boat described by the tablet was built and floated in Kerala, India.
Searches for Noah's Ark
Main article: Searches for Noah's ArkSearches for Noah's Ark have been made from at least the time of Eusebius (c. 275 – 339 CE) to the present day. In the 1st century, Jewish historian Flavius Josephus claimed the remaining pieces of Noah's Ark had been found in Armenia, at the mountain of the Cordyaeans, which is understood to be Mount Ararat in Turkey. Today, the practice of seeking the remains of the Ark is widely regarded as pseudoarchaeology. Various locations for the ark have been suggested but have never been confirmed. Search sites have included the Durupınar site, a site on Mount Tendürek, and Mount Ararat, both in eastern Turkey, but geological investigation of possible remains of the ark has only shown natural sedimentary formations. While biblical literalists often maintain the Ark's existence in archaeological history, its scientific feasibility, along with that of the deluge, has been contested.
Var in Zoroastrianism
In Videvdad 29 and 37, mythical Iranian king Yīmā, was ordered by Ahura Mazdā to build a subterranean enclosure known as Var, which had a function similar to Noah’s Ark, he was instructed to gather plants, animals, and humans with some exceptions,
Cultural legacy: Noah's Ark replicas
In the modern era, individuals and organizations have sought to reconstruct Noah's ark using the dimensions specified in the Bible, Noah's Ark replicas and derivatives Johan's Ark was completed in 2012 to this end, while the Ark Encounter was finished in 2016.
See also
- Biblical literalism
- Book of Noah
- Dwyfan and Dwyfach
- Gilgamesh flood myth
- İlandağ of the Lesser Caucasus in Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan
- List of topics characterized as pseudoscience
- Manu (Hinduism)
- Noah's Ark replicas and derivatives
- The Sinjar Mountains in Nineveh Governorate, Iraq
- Sons of Noah
- Wives aboard Noah's Ark
- Ziusudra
Notes
- The word "ark" in modern English comes from Old English aerca, meaning a chest or box. (See Cresswell 2010, p.22) The Hebrew word for the vessel, teva, occurs twice in the Torah, in the flood narrative (Book of Genesis 6–9) and in the Book of Exodus, where it refers to the basket in which Jochebed places the infant Moses. (The word for the Ark of the Covenant, aron, is quite different.) The Ark is built to save Noah, his family, and representatives of all animals from a divinely-sent flood intended to wipe out all life, and in both cases, the teva has a connection with salvation from waters. (See Levenson 2014, p.21)
References
Citations
- ^ Bailey 1990, p. 63.
- Chen, Y. S. (2013). The Primeval Flood Catastrophe. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, USA. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-19-967620-0. OCLC 839396707.
- ^ Nigosian 2004, p. 40.
- ^ Cline, Eric H. (2009). Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. pp. 71–75. ISBN 978-0199741076.
- Lorence G. Collins (2009). "Yes, Noah's Flood May Have Happened, But Not Over the Whole Earth". NCSE. Archived from the original on 26 June 2018. Retrieved 22 August 2018.
- Moore, Robert A. (1983). "The Impossible Voyage of Noah's Ark". Creation Evolution Journal. 4 (1): 1–43. Archived from the original on 17 July 2016. Retrieved 10 July 2016.
- Ryan, W. B. F.; Pitman, W. C.; Major, C. O.; Shimkus, K.; Moskalenko, V.; Jones, G. A.; Dimitrov, P.; Gorür, N.; Sakinç, M. (1997). "An abrupt drowning of the Black Sea shelf" (PDF). Marine Geology. 138 (1–2): 119–126. Bibcode:1997MGeol.138..119R. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.598.2866. doi:10.1016/s0025-3227(97)00007-8. ISSN 0025-3227. S2CID 129316719. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 23 December 2014.
- Ryan, W. B.; Major, C. O.; Lericolais, G.; Goldstein, S. L. (2003). "Catastrophic flooding of the Black Sea". Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences. 31 (1): 525–554. Bibcode:2003AREPS..31..525R. doi:10.1146/annurev.earth.31.100901.141249.
- Blenkinsopp 2011, p. 139.
- ^ Hamilton 1990, pp. 280–281.
- Kessler & Deurloo 2004, p. 81.
- Wenham 2003, p. 44.
- Batto 1992, p. 95.
- ^ Longman, Tremper; Walton, John H. (2018). The lost world of the flood: mythology, theology, and the deluge debate. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, an imprint of InterVarsity Press. ISBN 978-0-8308-8782-8.
- ^ Hamilton 1990, pp. 281.
- Kvanvig 2011, p. 210.
- Chen 2013, pp. 3–4.
- Chen 2013, p. 253.
- Cline, Eric H. (2007). From Eden to Exile: Unraveling Mysteries of the Bible. National Geographic. ISBN 978-1-4262-0084-7.
- Finkel 2014, pp. 89–101.
- "Nova: Secrets of Noah's Ark". www.pbs.org. 7 October 2015. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
- ^ Finkel 2014, chpt.14.
- McKeown 2008, p. 55.
- May, Herbert G., and Bruce M. Metzger. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha. 1977.
- Stephanie Dalley, ed. (2000). Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, The Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others. OUP Oxford. pp. 5–8. ISBN 978-0-19-953836-2. Archived from the original on 24 April 2016.
- Alan Dundes, ed., The Flood Myth Archived 14 May 2016 at the Wayback Machine, pp. 61–71.
- J. David Pleins, When the Great Abyss Opened: Classic and Contemporary Readings of Noah's Flood Archived 24 June 2016 at the Wayback Machine, pp. 102–103.
- Enns 2012, p. 23.
- Richard Elliot Friedman (1997 ed.), Who Wrote the Bible, p. 51.
- ^ "Sanhedrin 108b:7–16". www.sefaria.org. Retrieved 13 October 2021.
- Avigdor Nebenzahl, Tiku Bachodesh Shofer: Thoughts for Rosh Hashanah, Feldheim Publishers, 1997, p. 208.
- ^ McCurdy, J. F.; Bacher, W.; Seligsohn, M.; et al., eds. (1906). "Noah". Jewish Encyclopedia. JewishEncyclopedia.com.
- ^ McCurdy, J. F.; Jastrow, M. W.; Ginzberg, L.; et al., eds. (1906). "Ark of Noah". Jewish Encyclopedia. JewishEncyclopedia.com.
- Hirsch, E. G.; Muss-Arnolt, W.; Hirschfeld, H., eds. (1906). "The Flood". Jewish Encyclopedia. JewishEncyclopedia.com.
- Ibn Ezra's Commentary to Genesis 7:16 Archived 24 May 2013 at the Wayback Machine. HebrewBooks.org.
- The Early Christian World, Volume 1, p.148, Philip Esler
- 1Pt 3:20–21
- ^ Hippolytus. "Fragments from the Scriptural Commentaries of Hippolytus". New Advent. Archived from the original on 17 April 2007. Retrieved 27 June 2007.
- Cohn 1996, p. 38.
- St. Augustin (1890) . "Chapter 26:That the Ark Which Noah Was Ordered to Make Figures In Every Respect Christ and the Church". In Schaff, Philip (ed.). Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers [St. Augustin's City of God and Christian Doctrine]. 1. Vol. 2. The Christian Literature Publishing Company.
- Jerome (1892) . "Letter LXIX. To Oceanus.". In Schaff, P (ed.). Niocene and Post-Niocene Fathers: The Principal Works of St. Jerome. 2. Vol. 6. The Christian Literature Publishing Company.
- ^ Cohn 1996
- Marvin Meyer; Willis Barnstone (30 June 2009). "The Reality of the Rulers (The Hypostasis of the Archons)". The Gnostic Bible. Shambhala. Retrieved 6 February 2022.
- Häberl, Charles (2022). The Book of Kings and the Explanations of This World: A Universal History from the Late Sasanian Empire. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. p. 215. doi:10.3828/9781800856271 (inactive 1 November 2024). ISBN 978-1-80085-627-1.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of November 2024 (link) - Christys, Ann (2018). "Educating the Christian Elite in Umayyad Córdoba". Die Interaktion von Herrschern und Eliten in imperialen Ordnungen des Mittelalters. Wolfram Drews. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter GmbH. pp. 114–124. ISBN 978-3-11-057267-4. OCLC 1053611250.
- Freidenreich, David M. (2003). "The Use of Islamic Sources in Saadiah Gaon's Tafsīr of the Torah". Jewish Quarterly Review. 93 (3): 353–395. doi:10.1353/jqr.2003.0009. ISSN 1553-0604. S2CID 170764204.
- Baring-Gould, Sabine (1884). "Noah". Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets and Other Old Testament Characters from Various Sources. James B. Millar and Co., New York. p. 113.
- From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi, 28 October 1949: Baháʼí News, No. 228, February 1950, p. 4. Republished in Compilation 1983, p. 508
- Poirier, Brent. "The Kitab-i-Iqan: The key to unsealing the mysteries of the Holy Bible". Archived from the original on 7 July 2011. Retrieved 25 June 2007.
- Shoghi Effendi (1971). Messages to the Baháʼí World, 1950–1957. Wilmette, Illinois, USA: Baháʼí Publishing Trust. p. 104. ISBN 978-0-87743-036-0. Archived from the original on 23 October 2008. Retrieved 10 August 2008.
- From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer, 25 November 1950. Published in Compilation 1983, p. 494
- Josephus, Flavius. "3" . The Antiquities of the Jews, Book I – via Wikisource.
Now all the writers of barbarian histories make mention of this flood, and of this ark; among whom is Berosus the Chaldean. For when he is describing the circumstances of the flood, he goes on thus: "It is said there is still some part of this ark in Armenia, at the mountain of the Cordyaeans; and that some people carry off pieces of the bitumen, which they take away, and use chiefly as amulets for the averting of mischiefs." Hieronymus the Egyptian also, who wrote the Phoenician Antiquities, and Mnaseas, and a great many more, make mention of the same. Nay, Nicolaus of Damascus, in his ninety-sixth book, hath a particular relation about them; where he speaks thus: "There is a great mountain in Armenia, over Minyas, called Baris, upon which it is reported that many who fled at the time of the Deluge were saved; and that one who was carried in an ark came on shore upon the top of it; and that the remains of the timber were a great while preserved. This might be the man about whom Moses the legislator of the Jews wrote.
- Williams, Frank (2009). The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis. BRILL. p. 48. ISBN 978-90-04-17017-9.
- Montgomery, John Warwick (1974). The Quest For Noahs Ark. p. 77. ISBN 0-87123-477-7.
- Montgomery, John Warwick (1974). The Quest For Noahs Ark. p. 78. ISBN 0-87123-477-7.
- ^ Cook, Stanley Arthur (1911). "Ark" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 02 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 548–550, see page 549.
Noah's Ark...
- Cheyne, Thomas Kelly (1911). "Deluge, The" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 07 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 976–979.
- "Cameo with Noah's Ark". The Walters Art Museum. Archived from the original on 13 December 2013. Retrieved 10 December 2013.
- Finkel 2014.
- ^ Fagan, Brian M.; Beck, Charlotte (1996). The Oxford Companion to Archaeology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195076189. Archived from the original on 8 February 2016. Retrieved 17 January 2014.
- "The Landing-Place of Noah's Ark: Testimonial, Geological and Historical Considerations: Part Four – Associates for Biblical Research". biblearchaeology.org. Retrieved 27 April 2023.
- Feder, Kenneth L. (2010). Encyclopedia of Dubious Archaeology: From Atlantis to the Walam Olum. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. p. 195. ISBN 978-0313379192. Archived from the original on 8 February 2016. Retrieved 17 January 2014.
- Mayell, Hillary (27 April 2004). "Noah's Ark Found? Turkey Expedition Planned for Summer". National Geographic Society. Archived from the original on 14 April 2010. Retrieved 29 April 2010.
- Stefan Lovgren (2004). Noah's Ark Quest Dead in Water Archived 25 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine – National Geographic
- Collins, Lorence G. (2011). "A supposed cast of Noah's ark in eastern Turkey" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 26 October 2015.
- "Review of John Woodmorappe's "Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study"". www.talkorigins.org. Retrieved 6 April 2021.
- "The Impossible Voyage of Noah's Ark | National Center for Science Education". ncse.ngo. Retrieved 6 April 2021.
- "AVESTA: VENDIDAD (English): Fargard 2: Yima (Jamshed) and the deluge". www.avesta.org. Retrieved 5 December 2024.
- Wolff, Fritz. Avesta: the sacred books of the Parsen. K.J.Trübner.
- Antonson, Rick (12 April 2016). Full Moon over Noah's Ark: An Odyssey to Mount Ararat and Beyond. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-5107-0567-8.
- Thomas, Paul (16 April 2020). Storytelling the Bible at the Creation Museum, Ark Encounter, and Museum of the Bible. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 23. ISBN 978-0-567-68714-2.
Bibliography
- Bailey, Lloyd R. (1990). "Ark". Mercer Dictionary of the Bible. Mercer University Press. pp. 63–64. ISBN 9780865543737.
- Batto, Bernard Frank (1992). Slaying the Dragon: Mythmaking in the Biblical Tradition. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 9780664253530.
- Blenkinsopp, Joseph (2011), Creation, Un-creation, Re-creation: A Discursive Commentary on Genesis 1–11, A&C Black, ISBN 9780567372871
- Cohn, Norman (1996). Noah's Flood: The Genesis Story in Western Thought. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-06823-8.
- Compilation (1983). Hornby, Helen (ed.). Lights of Guidance: A Baháʼí Reference File. Baháʼí Publishing Trust, New Delhi, India. ISBN 978-81-85091-46-4.
- Enns, Peter (2012), The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn't Say about Human Origins, Baker Books, ISBN 9781587433153
- Finkel, Irving L. (2014), The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood, Hodder & Stoughton, ISBN 9781444757071
- Hamilton, Victor P. (1990). The book of Genesis: Chapters 1–17. Eerdmans. ISBN 9780802825216.
- Kessler, Martin; Deurloo, Karel Adriaan (2004). A commentary on Genesis: The Book of Beginnings. Paulist Press. ISBN 9780809142057.
- Kvanvig, Helge (2011), Primeval History: Babylonian, Biblical, and Enochic: An Intertextual Reading, BRILL, ISBN 978-9004163805
- McKeown, James (2008). Genesis. Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. p. 398. ISBN 978-0-8028-2705-0.
- Nigosian, S.A. (2004), From Ancient Writings to Sacred Texts: The Old Testament and Apocrypha, JHU Press, ISBN 9780801879883
- Wenham, Gordon (2003). "Genesis". In James D. G. Dunn; John William Rogerson (eds.). Eerdmans Bible Commentary. Eerdmans. ISBN 9780802837110.
Further reading
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Commentaries on Genesis
- Towner, Wayne Sibley (2001). Genesis. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 9780664252564.
- Von Rad, Gerhard (1972). Genesis: A Commentary. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 9780664227456.
- Whybray, R. N. (2001). "Genesis". In John Barton (ed.). Oxford Bible Commentary. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198755005.
General
- Bandstra, Barry L. (2008), Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible (4th ed.), Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/ Cengage Learning, pp. 61–63, ISBN 978-0495391050
- Bennett, William Henry (1911). "Noah" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 19 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 722.
- Best, Robert (1999), Noah's Ark And the Ziusudra Epic: Sumerian Origins of the Flood Myth, Eerdmans, ISBN 978-09667840-1-5
- Browne, Janet (1983). The Secular Ark: Studies in the History of Biogeography. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. p. 276. ISBN 978-0-300-02460-9.
- Brueggemann, Walter (2002). Reverberations of Faith: a Theological Handbook of Old Testament Themes. Westminster John Knox. ISBN 9780664222314.
- Campbell, Antony F.; O'Brien, Mark A. (1993). Sources of the Pentateuch: Texts, Introductions, Annotations. Fortress Press. ISBN 9781451413670.
Sources of the bible.
- Carr, David M. (1996). Reading the Fractures of Genesis. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 9780664220716.
- Clines, David A. (1997). The Theme of the Pentateuch. Sheffield Academic Press. ISBN 9780567431967.
- Davies, G. I. (1998). "Introduction to the Pentateuch". In John Barton (ed.). Oxford Bible Commentary. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198755005.
- Douglas, J. D.; Tenney, Merrill C., eds. (2011). Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary. revised by Moisés Silva (Revised ed.). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan. ISBN 978-0310229834.
- Kugler, Robert; Hartin, Patrick (2009). The Old Testament between theology and history: a critical survey. Eerdmans. ISBN 9780802846365.
- Levin, Christoph L. (2005). The Old testament: A Brief Introduction. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0691113944.
The Old testament: a brief introduction Christoph Levin.
- Levin, C. (2005). The Old Testament: A Brief Introduction. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691113944.
- Longman, Tremper (2005). How to Read Genesis. InterVarsity Press. ISBN 9780830875603.
- McEntire, Mark (2008). Struggling with God: An Introduction to the Pentateuch. Mercer University Press. ISBN 9780881461015.
- Ska, Jean-Louis (2006). Introduction to Reading the Pentateuch. Eisenbrauns. ISBN 9781575061221.
- Van Seters, John (1992). Prologue to History: The Yahwist As Historian in Genesis. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 9780664221799.
- Van Seters, John (1998). "The Pentateuch". In Steven L. McKenzie; Matt Patrick Graham (eds.). The Hebrew Bible Today: An Introduction to Critical Issues. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 9780664256524.
- Van Seters, John (2004). The Pentateuch: A Social-science Commentary. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 9780567080882.
- Walsh, Jerome T. (2001). Style and Structure in Biblical Hebrew Narrative. Liturgical Press. ISBN 9780814658970.
- Bailey, Lloyd R. (1989). Noah, the Person and the Story. South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-87249-637-8.
- Campbell, Antony F.; O'Brien, Mark A. (1993). Sources of the Pentateuch: Texts, Introductions, Annotations. Fortress Press. ISBN 9781451413670.
Sources of the bible.
- Campbell, A. F.; O'Brien, M. A. (1993). Sources of the Pentateuch: Texts, Introductions, Annotations. Fortress Press. ISBN 9781451413670.
- Cline, Eric H. (2009). Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199741076.
- Cotter, David W. (2003). Genesis. Liturgical Press. ISBN 9780814650400.
- Cresswell, Julia (2010). "Ark". Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199547937.
- Dalrymple, G. Brent (1991). The Age of the Earth. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-2331-2.
- Emerton, J. A. (1988). Joosten, J. (ed.). "An Examination of Some Attempts to Defend the Unity of the Flood Narrative in Genesis: Part II". Vetus Testamentum. XXXVIII (1).
- Gooder, Paula (2005). The Pentateuch: A Story of Beginnings. T&T Clark. ISBN 9780567084187.
- Evans, Gwen (3 February 2009). "Reason or Faith? Darwin Expert Reflects". UW-Madison News. University of Wisconsin-Madison. Retrieved 18 June 2010.
- Knight, Douglas A. (1990). "Cosmology". In Watson E. Mills (ed.). Mercer Dictionary of the Bible. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press. ISBN 978-0-86554-402-4.
- Levenson, Jon D. (2014). "Genesis: introduction and annotations". In Berlin, Adele; Brettler, Marc Zvi (eds.). The Jewish Study Bible. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199393879.
- Isaak, M. (1998). "Problems with a Global Flood". TalkOrigins Archive. Retrieved 29 March 2007.
Isaak no a geologist
- Isaak, Mark (5 November 2006). "Index to Creationist Claims, Geology". TalkOrigins Archive. Retrieved 2 November 2010.
- Lippsett, Lonny (2009). "Noah's Not-so-big Flood: New evidence rebuts controversial theory of Black Sea deluge". Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
- Morton, Glenn (17 February 2001). "The Geologic Column and its Implications for the Flood". TalkOrigins Archive. Retrieved 2 November 2010.
Morton Not a Geologist
- Nicholson, Ernest W. (2003). The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century: the legacy of Julius Wellhausen. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199257836.
- Numbers, Ronald L. (2006). The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design, Expanded Edition. Harvard University Press. pp. 624. ISBN 978-0-674-02339-0.
- Parkinson, William (January–February 2004). "Questioning 'Flood Geology': Decisive New Evidence to End an Old Debate". NCSE Reports. 24 (1). Retrieved 2 November 2010.
- Plimer, Ian (1994). Telling Lies for God: Reason vs Creationism. Random House Australia. p. 303. ISBN 978-0-09-182852-3.
- Schadewald, Robert J. (Summer 1982). "Six Flood Arguments Creationists Can't Answer". Creation/Evolution Journal. 3 (3): 12–17. Retrieved 16 November 2010.
- Schadewald, Robert (1986). "Scientific Creationism and Error". Creation/Evolution. 6 (1): 1–9. Retrieved 29 March 2007.
- Scott, Eugenie C. (January–February 2003), My Favorite Pseudoscience, vol. 23
- Speiser, E. A. (1964). Genesis. The Anchor Bible. Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-00854-9.
- Stewart, Melville Y. (2010). Science and Religion in Dialogue. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. p. 123. ISBN 978-1-4051-8921-7.
- Tigay, Jeffrey H. (1982). The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia. ISBN 0865165467.
- Van Seters, John (2004). The Pentateuch: A Social-Science commentary. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 0567080889.
- Wenham, Gordon (1994). "The Coherence of the Flood Narrative". In Hess, Richard S.; Tsumura, David Toshio (eds.). I Studied Inscriptions From Before the Flood (Google Books). Sources for Biblical and Theological Study. Vol. 4. Eisenbrauns. p. 480. ISBN 978-0-931464-88-1.
- Young, Davis A. (March 1995). The Biblical Flood: A Case Study of the Church's Response to Extrabiblical Evidence. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Pub Co. p. 340. ISBN 978-0-8028-0719-9.
- Young, Davis A.; Stearley, Ralph F. (2008). The Bible, Rocks, and Time: Geological Evidence for the Age of the Earth. Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic. ISBN 978-0-8308-2876-0.
External links
- Media related to Noah's Ark at Wikimedia Commons
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