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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}}
] (1780&ndash;1849), showing the animals boarding Noah's Ark two by two.]]


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&nbsp;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>
According to Abrahamic tradition, '''Noah's Ark''' was a ] built at ]'s command to save ], his family, and a core stock of the world's animals from the ]. The story is contained in the ], ] ]'s book of ], chapters 6 to 9 and in the ].


==Description==
According to the ], the Ark story told in Genesis may represent several originally quasi-independent sources, and the process of composition over many centuries may help to explain apparent confusion and repetition in the text. Many ] and ] reject this hypothesis, holding that the Ark story is true, that it has a single author, and that any perceived inadequacies can be explained rationally.
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" />
The Ark story told in Genesis has parallels in the ] of ], which tells how Ziusudra was warned by the gods to build a vessel in which to escape a flood which would destroy mankind. Less exact parallels are found in other cultures from around the world. Indeed, the ] is one of the most common folk stories throughout the world.


==Origins==
The Ark story has been subject to extensive elaborations in the various ]s, mingling theoretical solutions to practical problems (e.g. how Noah might have disposed of animal waste) with allegorical interpretations (e.g. the Ark as a precursor of the Church, offering salvation to mankind).
===Mesopotamian precursors===
{{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}}
By the beginning of the 18th century, the growth of ] and ] as sciences meant that few ] felt able to justify a literal interpretation of the Ark story. Nevertheless, ] continue to explore the region of the ], in north-eastern ] where the Bible says Noah's Ark came to rest.


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}}
==Narrative==
], ''The Deluge'', ], the ].]]


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}}
The story of Noah's Ark, according to chapters 6 to 9 in the Book of Genesis, begins with God observing man's evil behaviour 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 carry forth the lineage of man. God told Noah to make an ark, and to bring with him his wife, and his sons ], ], and ], and their wives. Additionally, he was told to bring examples of all animals and birds, male and female. In order to provide sustenance, he was told to bring and store food.<ref></ref>


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}}
When Noah completed the Ark, he and his family and the animals entered, and "the same day were all the fountains of the great deep 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 twenty feet, and all creatures on Earth died; only Noah and those with him on the Ark were left alive.<ref></ref>


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>
Finally, after about 220 days, the Ark came to rest on the ], and the waters receded for another forty days until the mountaintops emerged. Then 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, and never again would He destroy all life on it in this manner.<ref></ref>


===Composition===
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."<ref></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==
== The documentary hypothesis and the Ark ==
===Rabbinic Judaism===
] in ] 15: British Library Add. MS. 4,707]]
{{Main|Noah in rabbinic literature}}
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}}
The Ark narrative leaves an impression of occasional confusion: why does the story state twice over that mankind had grown corrupt but that Noah was to be saved (Gen 6:5&ndash;8; 6:11&ndash;13)? Was Noah commanded to take one pair of each clean animal into the Ark (Gen 6:19&ndash;20) or seven pairs (Gen 7:2&ndash;3)? Did the flood last forty days (Gen. 7:17) or a hundred and fifty days (Gen 7:24)? What happened to the raven that was sent out from the Ark at the same time as the dove and "went to and fro until the waters had subsided from the face of the earth" some two to three weeks later (Gen 8:7)? Why does the narrative appear to have two logical end-points (Gen 8:20&ndash;22 and 9:1&ndash;17)?<ref>See ], ''The Bible with Sources Revealed'', HarperSanFrancisco, ISBN 0-06-073065-X.</ref> Questions such as these are not unique to the Ark narrative, or to Genesis, and the attempt to find a solution has led to the emergence of what is currently the dominant school of thought on the textual analysis of the first five books of the Bible, the ].


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>
According to the hypothesis, the five books of the ]&mdash;Genesis, ], ], ] and ]&mdash;were edited together in the 5th century BC from four independent sources. The Ark narrative is believed to be made up of material from two of these, the ] and the ]. The Jahwist<ref></ref><sup>(link is dead)</sup> is the earlier of the two, composed in the ] from even earlier texts and traditions soon after the ] c. 920 BC. The Jahwist narrative is rather simpler than the Priestly story: God sends his flood (for forty days), Noah and his family and the animals are saved (seven pairs of each clean animal, a single pair for the unclean), Noah builds an altar and makes sacrifices, and God resolves never again to destroy the earth with a flood. The Jahwist source makes no mention of a covenant between God and Noah.


===Christianity===
The Priestly text<ref></ref><sup>(link is dead)</sup> is believed to have been composed by the Aaronid priests of the temple in Jerusalem after the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BC, with the specific purpose of countering certain points in the J and E texts. The material from the Priestly source contains far more detail than the Jahwist&mdash;for example, the instructions for the building of the Ark, and the detailed chronology&mdash;and also provides the vital theological core of the story, the covenant between God and Noah at Gen 9:1&ndash;17, which introduces the peculiarly Jewish method of ritual slaughter and forms the quid pro quo for God's promise not to destroy the world again. It is the Priestly source which gives us the raven (the Jahwist has the dove) and the rainbow, and which introduces the windows of heaven and the fountains of the deep (the Jahwist simply says that it rained). All four texts now making up the Pentateuch were edited into their present form following the return from the ] in the fifth century BC.<ref>This account is based on Friedman, op. cit., pp. 3-5.</ref>
]'' (1493)]]
]'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}}
The Ark story's theme of God's anger at man's wickedness, his decision to embark on a terrible vengeance, and his later regret, are typical of the Jahwist author or authors, who treat God as a humanlike figure who appears in person in the biblical narrative. The Priestly source, by contrast, normally presents God as distant and unapproachable except through the Aaronid priesthood. Thus, for example, the Jahwist source requires seven pairs of each clean animal to allow for Noah's sacrifices, while the Priestly source reduces this to a single pair, as no sacrifices can be made under priestly rules until the first priest (]) is created in the time of ].


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.
== Other flood accounts ==
{{main|Flood (mythology)}}
] tablet of the Gilgamesh epic in ]]]
===Mesopotamian flood stories===


===Gnosticism===
The majority of modern Biblical scholars accept the thesis that the Biblical flood story is linked to a cycle of ] with which it shares many features. The Mesopotamian flood-myth had a very long currency—the last known retelling dates from the 3rd century BC. A substantial number of the original ]ian, ] and ]n texts, written in ], have been recovered by archaeologists, but the task of recovering more tablets continues, as does the translation of extant tablets.
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===
The earliest of these extant tablets, the epic of ], can be dated by ] (scribal identification) to the reign of ]'s great-grandson, ] (1646&ndash;1626 BC). Written in Akkadian (the language of ancient ]), it tells how the god ] warns the hero Atrahasis ("Extremely Wise") of ] to dismantle his house (which is made of reeds) and build a boat to escape a flood with which the god ], angered by the noise of the cities, plans to wipe out mankind. The boat is to have a roof "like ]" (the underworld ocean of freshwater of which Enki is lord), upper and lower decks, and must be sealed with bitumen. Atrahasis boards the boat with his family and animals and seals the door. The storm and flood begin. Even the gods are afraid. "Bodies clog the river like dragonflies". After seven days the flood ends and Atrahasis offers sacrifices. Enlil is furious, but Enki, the friend of mankind, defies him - "I made sure life was preserved" - and eventually Enki and Enlil agree on other measures for controlling the human population. The story also exists in a later ]n version.<ref></ref>
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===
The story of ] is told in the ] in the fragmentary Eridu Genesis, which can be dated from its script to the late 17th century BC. It tells how Enki warns Ziusudra (meaning "he saw life", in reference to the gift of immortality given him by the gods), king of Shuruppak, of the gods' decision to destroy mankind with a flood&mdash;the passage describing why the gods have decided this is lost. Enki instructs Ziusudra to build a large boat&mdash;the text describing the instructions is also lost. After a flood of seven days, Ziusudra makes appropriate sacrifices and prostrations to ] (sky-god) and Enlil (chief of the gods), and is given eternal life in ], the Sumerian Eden.<ref></ref>
{{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 ] (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}}
The story of ] (a translation of "Ziusudra" into ]), an episode in the Babylonian ], is known from first millennium copies and is probably derived from the Atrahasis story.<ref></ref><ref>Tigay, pages 214-240, 239</ref> ], (the equivalent of Enlil), chief of the gods, wishes to destroy mankind with a flood. Utnapishtim, king of Shurrupak, is warned by the god ] (equivalent to Enki) to tear down his house of reeds and use the materials to build an ark and load it with gold, silver, and the seed of all living creatures and all his craftsmen. After a storm lasting seven days, and a further twelve days on the waters, the ship grounds on Mount Nizir; after seven more days Utnapishtim sends out a dove, which returns, then a swallow, which also returns, and finally a raven, which does not come back. Utnapishtim then makes offerings (by sevens) to the gods, and the gods smell the roasting meat and gather "like flies." Ellil is angry that any human has escaped, but Ea upbraids him, saying, "How couldst thou without thought send a deluge? On the sinner let his sin rest, on the wrongdoer rest his misdeed. Forbear, let it not be done, have mercy, ." Utnapishtim and his wife are then given the gift of immortality and sent to dwell "afar off at the mouth of the rivers".<ref></ref>


]]]
In the 3rd century BC ], a high priest of the temple of ] in Babylon, wrote a history of Mesopotamia in Greek for ] (323&ndash;261 BC). Berossus's ''Babyloniaka'' has not survived, but the 3rd/4th century Christian historian ] retells from it the legend of Xisuthrus, the Greek version of Ziusudra, and essentially the same story. Eusebius concludes that the vessel was still to be seen "in the Corcyræan Mountains of Armenia; and the people scrape off the bitumen, with which it had been outwardly coated, and make use of it by way of an alexipharmic and amulet."<ref></ref>


===Other flood stories=== ===Baháʼí Faith===
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.


===Ancient accounts===
] are widespread in world mythology, with examples available from practically every society. Noah's counterpart in ] was ], in ] a terrible flood was supposed to have left only one survivor, a saint named ] who was saved by ] in the form of a fish, and in ] myth the figure of ] saves a remnant of mankind from destruction by ice. Flood stories have been found also in the mythologies of many preliterate peoples, from areas distant from Mesopotamia and the Eurasian continent; the ] Indians legend is one example.<ref></ref> ]s point to these stories as evidence that the biblical deluge, and the Ark, represent real history; ] and ] suggest that legends such as the Chippewa have to be treated with great caution due to the possibility of contamination from contact with Christianity (and the desire to shape traditional material to fit the newly adopted religion), as well as a common need to explain natural disasters over which early societies had no control.


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>
==The Ark in later Abrahamic tradition==


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>
], 1304&ndash;77, the Moroccan world-traveller who passed by the mountain of al-Judi, near ], resting place of the Ark in Islamic tradition.]]


] 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>
=== In Rabbinic tradition ===
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&mdash;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.


==Historicity==
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. Yet Noah was lamed by the lion, rendering him unfit for priestly duties, and the sacrifice at the end of the voyage was therefore carried out by his son Shem. 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. Nevertheless, as the commentators pointed out, God wished to save the raven, for its descendants were destined to feed the prophet ].
] 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&ndash;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&ndash;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"/>
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 upmost story, 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&mdash;as he must have been, as his descendents are mentioned in later books of the Torah&mdash;but owing to his size had to remain outside, Noah passing him food through a hole cut into the wall of the Ark.<ref> and ; see also </ref>


===Ark's geometry===
=== In Christian tradition ===
].<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}}
Early Christian writers created elaborate allegorical meanings for Noah and the Ark. The ] (] 3:20–21), states that the salvation of those aboard the Ark through the waters of the Flood prefigures the Christian being saved through baptism. Early Christian artists also celebrated Noah in their work, frequently depicting Noah standing in a small box on the waves, which spoke of God saving the church as it persevered through turmoil.


], 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}}
St ] (354&ndash;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>Augustine of Hippo, from retrieved March 31, 2006.</ref> St ] (c. 347&ndash;420) called the raven, which was sent forth and did not return, the "foul bird of wickedness" expelled by baptism;<ref>Jerome, from retrieved March 31, 2006.</ref> more enduringly, the dove and olive branch came to symbolize the ] and the hope of ] and, eventually, peace.


===Searches for Noah's Ark===
On a more practical plane, ] (c. 182&ndash;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.<ref>Origen, ''Homilia in Genesim II.2'' (quoted in Cohn, p.38.)</ref> It was not until the 12th century that it came to be thought of as a rectangular box with a sloping roof.
]
{{Main|Searches for Noah's Ark}}
] have been made from at least the time of ] (c. 275 – 339&nbsp;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 ==
The equation of Ark and Church is still found in the ] rite of ], which asks God, "who of thy great mercy didst save Noah," to receive into the Church the infant about to be baptised.
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 ==
=== In Islamic tradition ===
] of ].]]
Noah (]) is one of the five principal ], generally mentioned in connection with the fate of those who refuse to listen to the Word. References are scattered through the ], with the fullest account at ] 11:27&ndash;51, entitled "Hud".
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>

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 ship, and surah 54:14 as "a thing of boards and nails". Surah 11:44 says it settled on ], identified by tradition with a hill near the town of Jazirat ibn Umar on the east bank of the ] in the province of ] in northern ], and Abd al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Husayn ] (d. 956) says that the spot where it came to rest could be seen in his time. Masudi also says that the Ark began its voyage at ] in central Iraq and sailed to ], where it circled the ], before finally travelling to Judi. Sura 11:41 says: "And he said, 'Ride ye in it; in the Name of God it moves and stays!'" Abdallah ibn 'Umar al-], writing in the 13th century, 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.

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 idolators 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 fourth son (or a grandson, according to some) named Canaan was among the idolators, and was drowned.

Baidawi gives the dimensions of the Ark as 300&nbsp;cubits by 50 by 30, 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.

Noah was five or six months aboard the Ark, at the end of which he sent out a raven. But the raven stopped to feast on carrion, 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.

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&ndash;1229) mentions a mosque 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>see sections on Islamic literature in and </ref>

==Biblical literalism and the Ark ==
]: ''The Return of the Dove to the Ark'' (1851)]]

Many Orthodox Jews and ] are believers in ], the concept that the Bible, as the word of God, is without error, but must be interpreted using ] in order to be understood correctly whenever there is no clear reason for any other reading. They also tend to trust in traditions regarding the composition of the Bible. Those who follow these ]s, therefore, generally accept the traditional Jewish belief that the Ark narrative in Genesis was written by ]. There is less agreement on when Moses lived, and thus on when the Ark story was written&mdash;various dates have been proposed ranging from the 16th century BC to the late 13th century BC.

For the date of the Flood, literalists rely on interpretation of 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, however, 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.<ref></ref> Other opinions, based on other sources and methodologies, lead to dates outside even this bracket&mdash;the ]ical ], for example, providing a date equivalent to 2309 BC.

The more recent the date, the more acute the contradiction which the Biblical account creates with conventional history and science. For example, archeological evidence shows a continous Egyptian civilization reaching back more than 5,000 years{{fact}}. And the oldest bristlecone pine is over 4,800 years old.

Literalists explain apparent contradiction in the Ark narrative as the result of the stylist 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&mdash;seven pairs of clean animals&mdash;and then later, with much repetition, specifying that these animals entered the Ark in twos. Literalists see nothing puzzling in the reference to a raven&mdash;why should Noah not release a raven?&mdash;nor do they see any sign of alternative endings.

Apart from questions of date, authorship, and textual integrity, literalists devote much attention to technical matters such as the identity of "gopher wood" and details of the Ark's construction. The following sets out some of the more commonly discussed topics:

*'']'': Gen 6:14 states that Noah built the Ark of גפר (''gofer'', more commonly ''gopher'') wood, a word not otherwise known in the Bible or in ]. The '']'' believes it was most likely a translation of the Babylonian "gushure iş erini" (cedar-beams), or the Assyrian "giparu" (reed).<ref></ref> The Greek ] (3rd&ndash;1st centuries BC) translated it as {{polytonic|ξύλων τετραγώνων}} ("''xylon tetragonon''"), "squared timber".<ref>Brenton, p.7</ref> Similarly, the Latin ] (5th century AD) rendered it as "lignis levigatis", or "smoothed (possibly planed) wood". Older English translations, including the ] (17th century), simply leave it untranslated. Many modern translations tend to favour ] (although the word for "cypress" in ] is ''erez''), on the basis of a misapplied etymology based on phonetic similarities, while others favour pine or cedar. Recent suggestions have included a lamination process, or a now-lost type of tree, or a mistaken transcription of the word ''kopher'' (]), but there is no consensus.<ref></ref>
*''Seaworthiness'': The Ark is described as 300&nbsp;]s long, the cubit being a unit of measurement from elbow to outstretched fingertip. Many different cubits were in use in the ancient world, but all were essentially similar, and literalist websites seem to agree that the Ark was approximately 450&nbsp;] (137&nbsp;]) in length. This is considerably longer than the largest wooden vessels ever built in historical times: according to certain sources, the early 15th-century Chinese admiral ] may have used junks 400&nbsp;feet (122&nbsp;m) long, but the schooner ''Wyoming'', launched in 1909 and the largest documented wooden-hulled cargo ship ever built, measured only 329.5&nbsp;feet (100&nbsp;m) and needed iron cross-bracing to counter warping and a steam pump to handle a serious leak problem.<ref></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></ref> Literalist scholars who accept these objections&mdash;not all do<ref></ref>&mdash;believe that Noah must have built the Ark using advanced post-19th century techniques such as ] construction.<ref></ref>
*''Capacity and logistics'': The Ark would have had a gross volume of about 1.5 million ] (40,000&nbsp;m³), a displacement a little less than half that of the ] at about 22,000 tons, and total floor space of around 100,000&nbsp;] (9,300&nbsp;m²).<ref> at </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 literalists and their opponents. While some literalists hold that the Ark could have held all known species, a more common position today is that the Ark contained "kinds" rather than species&mdash;for instance, a male and female of the cat "kind" rather than representatives of tigers, lions, cougars, etc.

The many associated questions 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, ventilation, and temperature control, hibernation, the survival and germination of seeds, the position of freshwater and saltwater fish, the question of what the animals would have eaten immediately after leaving the Ark, questions of lighting, ventilation, and temperature control, ], the survival and germination of seeds, the position of freshwater and saltwater fish, the question of what the animals would have eaten immediately after leaving the Ark, how they traveled 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. Finally comes the question of how two or a few members of a species could have provided enough genetic variety to avoid inbreeding and reconstitute a healthy population. The numerous literalist websites, while agreeing that none of these problems is insurmountable, give varying answers on how to resolve them.<ref></ref>

Some fundamentalist Christians, asserting that the world is only a few thousand years old, hold that dinosaurs shared it with humans, and therefore must also have been on the Ark. But this version adds the challenge of explaining how numerous additional species, many of them large and carnivorous, could have been carried on the Ark. Some evangelists theorize that the Ark carried baby animals, because they were smaller and presumably more manageable. But most baby mammals and birds, and possibly dinousars as well, require parental care and teaching.

==The Ark under scrutiny==
The ] saw a continued speculation that might have seemed familiar to Origen and Augustine: What of the ], which is unique, how could it come in as a pair? (A popular solution was that it contained male and female in itself.) And might the ]s, which by their nature lure sailors to their doom, have been permitted on board? (The answer was no; they swam outside.) And the ], which has no feet&mdash;did it therefore fly endlessly inside the Ark? 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>Cohn, loc. cit.</ref>

By the 17th century, it was becoming necessary to reconcile the exploration of the ] and increased awareness of the global distribution of species 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>Cohn, p.41</ref>

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&ndash;1606) and ] (c.1601&ndash;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 climactic 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 animals in the Ark, but by the time ] (1627&ndash;1705) was working, just several decades after Kircher, the number of known animals had expanded beyond biblical proportions. Incorporating the full range of animal diversity into the Ark story was becoming increasingly difficult, and by 1700 few natural historians could justify a literal interpretation of the Noah's Ark narrative.<ref>see Janet Browne, ''The Secular Ark: Studies in the History of Biogeography'', Yale University Press, New Haven & London, ISBN 0-300-02460-6.</ref>

==The search for Noah's Ark==
{{main|Searches for Noah's Ark}}
] (pictured here) has been searched for remains of Noah's ark. Recently Mount ] in ], over 300 km (200 miles) away, has been under investigation.]]

Believers in the historicity of the Genesis account 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></ref>

Searches have concentrated on ] itself, although Genesis actually refers only to the "]". The ] site, near but not on Ararat, and much more accessible, attracted attention in the 1980s and 1990s; In early 2004 a Honolulu businessman traveled to Washington DC to “announce with great fanfare” a planned expedition to investigate a site he called the ] but National Geographic later concluded it may have been an ineffective “stunt” to “persuade the Turkish government into granting him a permit” that “few expeditions have actually obtained.”<ref></ref>;and in 2006 there was brief flurry of interest when an expedition reported a potential site in Iran. Despite all these efforts, nothing concrete has been found, and the present state of play may be best summed up with the conclusion of the quote from the ]: "e have every reason to hope that proof will soon be forthcoming, but as of this writing, the search goes on."

==Science of Noah’s Ark==
As referenced in this article, most of the information about the ark and the flood is based on Genesis stories. Little evidence is available that either Noah’s Ark or a Global flood ever existed. However, scientists have focused on these points to refute the possibility of this myth:

'''The Ark'''

According to Genesis 6:15, the ark was approximately 450 feet long which would make it one of the largest wood ships ever built. In 1909, the schooner ] was built by the Percy & Small shipyard in Bath, Maine. Utilizing state-of-the-art shipbuilding technology, which would not have been available to Noah, she was the longest ship with a wood keel and hull ever built. And at 329 feet, the ship was approximately 120 feet shorter than Noah’s Ark. Percy & Small built six other schooners of 300 ft or more. <ref> </ref> Seagoing ships, by their nature, are subject to significant stress, and wood is not strong enough to prevent separation at each joint, thereby allowing for water to enter the hull. The Wyoming had 90 steel crossbraces to support the frame of the ship in the hope of reducing leakage.. Even while she was yet on the drawing boards the marine engineers who designed and built her knew from experience with shorter ships that the length of the Wyoming would exceed the structural limits of wood. Even utilizing the best marine engineering principles of the day, the steel bracing could not prevent the flexing and twisting that resulted in the separation of the hull planking. The Wyoming required constant pumping, as did her sister ships. The boat had leaked every day that it was in the water until it sank 14 years later during a storm when it foundered. {{fact}} It was reported that the Wyoming would snake (movement of the bow and stern from side to side in relation to the amidships) and hog (movement of the bow and stern up and down in relation to the amidships) while underway. The action of the waves, in even calm seas, caused the planking to be sprung beyond the capabilities of any caulking that could be devised.

Few other wood sailing ships were built greater than 300 feet in length. One ship, the Great Republic, built in 1853, was reported to be the longest wooden ship ever built with a length of 325 to 334 feet. This ship also had 90 steel or iron cross braces, each four inches wide, one inch thick and 36 feet long. Unfortunately, she sprung her hull in a storm off of Bermuda and was abandoned when the water in the hold reached 15 feet.

Given that relatively advanced shipbuilding techniques were able to build only marginally seaworthy ships, and ironworking sufficient to build cross braces was not available to Noah, there is little scientific evidence available that an Ark of that size is available..

'''The animals'''

According to Wilson and Perlman, 2000, 1.6 million species have been described to date. They estimate that there are probably 30-100 million total species of all organisms on the planet. <ref></ref> Given that the belief in Noah’s Ark presumes a belief in all of Genesis, all of those animals must have been in existence at that time, and for them to exist today, Noah would have need to “saved” them, according to the myth. Even eliminating sea-dwelling organisms, plants, and other non “air-breathing” animals, 50-100 thousand species would have had to been collected. Some biblical scholars insist that the interpretation of the accounts should be that only a representative of the genus of air-breathing animals were taken (using the word, “kind” of animals, as stated in Genesis), that would be anywhere from 5-15 thousand genera.{{fact}} However, the rate of ] of complex organisms, such as vertebrates, is anywhere from 10 to 100 thousand years, which indicates that it would be nearly impossible for 15,000 genera to evolve into 50-100 thousand species air-breathing species in just a few thousand years.

Moreover, the people living at that time gave names to each “kind” of animal which is roughly at the level of species <ref>Gould, Stephen Jay, 1980. A quahog is a quahog. In The panda's thumb, Norton, New York. </ref> Furthermore, the Creationist assumptions then mean that most of the species were left off the Ark (over 30-100 million). According to Genesis, "He blotted out every living thing that was upon the face of the ground". It becomes difficult to imagine how we have so many species so soon after a catastrophic flood. It would have also been nearly impossible for Noah, in seven days, to collect even a small portion of these species. Some species existed in polar regions (penguins and polar bears), some species on isolated islands in oceanic areas, and some species are only endemic to certain locations (such as Australian marsupials). Within the seven days time allocated to Noah according to the Genesis myth, there would not have been sufficient time to travel the earth to find all of the animals.

Additionally, only a small portion could fit on the Ark, no matter how it was constructed. The weight of the animals would have unbalanced the ship, causing it to founder in rough seas. Predators and prey would have to be separated and fed; therefore, additional weight would have to be supported in the ship. Finally, some creationists and biblical literalists accept fossils as being the remnants of organisms that perished in the flood. This belies the fact that dinosaurs and other extinct animals do not exist, so were not brought aboard the mythological ark.

'''The Flood'''

Analysis of the possibility of the flood can be broken into three sections:

#Where did all the water come from and where did it all go? Setting aside the possibility of sufficient water to cover 10,000 meter mountains, where presumably fossilized sea life would have been deposited by a global food, raising the water level of the world by only a few meters would have raised atmospheric pressures sufficiently high to raise oxygen and nitrogen concentrations to toxic levels. In addition, a “canopy” of water vapor, sufficient to induce rain for 40 days, would have superheated the water, raising it to the boiling point and thereby killing everything in the world (sterilizing it in effect). Water that would have come from beneath the ground (another proposal from Creationists) would also have been superheated by the earth’s core, which would have sterilized the earth also. In effect, most commonly cited methods for the water to come and go depend upon miracles that are not proven by geologic record, cannot happen as a result of physics, and have been dismissed by verifiable science. Therefore, a worldwide catastrophic flood requires reliance upon pseudoscience.
#Why is there no evidence of a flood? Simple problems such as the difference in substantial erosion of the Appalachian mountains versus the relatively minimal (geologically speaking) erosion of the Himalayans. There is a lack of flood evidence in Greenland ice cores. <ref> Johnsen, S. J., H. B. Clausen, W. Dansgaard, K. Fuhrer, N. Gundestrap, C. U. Hammer, P. Iversen, J. Jouzel, B. Stauffer, & J. P. Steffensen, 1992. Irregular glacial interstadials recorded in a new Greenland ice core. Nature 359: 311-313.</ref> Polar ice caps would have floated in a flood; in fact, some of the ice caps, such as over Greenland and Antarctica could not have reformed in the past 10,000 years because climatic conditions would not have allowed it. Other areas of analysis, tree ring, deep sea sediments, terrestrial sediments and soils, and other geological features lack any data that would show evidence of a global flood. <ref> Alley, R. B., D. A. Meese, C. A. Shuman, A. J. Gow, K.C. Taylor, P. M. Grootes, J. W. C. White, M. Ram, E. W. Waddington, P. A. Mayewski, & G. A. Zielinski, 1993. Abrupt increase in Greenland snow accumulation at the end of the Younger Dryas event. Nature 362: 527-529.</ref> <ref> Stuiver, Minze, et al, 1986. Radiocarbon age calibration back to 13,300 years BP and the 14 C age matching of the German Oak and US bristlecone pine chronologies. IN: Calibration issue / Stuiver, Minze, et al., Radiocarbon 28(2B): 969-979.,</ref>
#Why did plants survive? Assuming that Genesis ignores plants, there are currently over 300-500 thousand plant species on earth today. Most plants would be destroyed by submersion for even a few days. The several meters of sediment deposited by such a flood would have smothered any seeds or other plants. Salt water intrusion would also destroy most plants. It is conceivable that Noah collected seeds from plants, but as with collecting animals, plant species range all over the world, not ever plant would have seeds available on the seven days allowed to collect them, and most plants require the right environmental conditions to germinate.


==See also== ==See also==
{{Portal|Religion|Christianity|Islam|Judaism|Mythology}}
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==Notes== ==Notes==
{{reflist |group="Notes"}}
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== References == ==References==
*{{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|id=ISBN 0-87249-637-6}}
*{{cite book|first=Robert M.|last=Best|title=Noah's Ark and the Ziusudra Epic|year=1999|location=Fort Myers, Florida|publisher=Enlil Press|id=ISBN 0-9667840-1-4}}
*{{cite book|first=Sir Lancelot C.L.|last=Brenton|title=The Septuagint with Apocrypha: Greek and English (reprint)|year=1986|origyear=1851|location=Peabody|publisher=Hendrickson Publishers|id=ISBN 0-913573-44-2}}
*{{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|id=ISBN 0-300-02460-6}}
* {{cite book | author=Tigay, Jeffrey H., | title=The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic | location= | publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia | year=1982 | id=ISBN 0-8122-7805-4}}
*{{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|id=ISBN 0-300-06823-9}}
*{{cite book|first=Richard Elliot|last=Friedman|title=The Bible with Sources Revealed: A new view into the five books of Moses|year=2003|location=New York|publisher=Harper SanFrancisco|id=ISBN 0-06-073065-X}}
*{{cite book|first=Davis A.|last=Young|title=The Biblical Flood|location=Grand Rapids, MI|publisher=Eerdmans Publishing Co.|year=1995|id=ISBN 0-85364-678-0{{Please check ISBN|Calculated check digit (3) doesn't match given.}}}}
*{{cite book|first=John|last=Woodmorappe|title=Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study |location=El Cajon, CA|publisher=Institute for Creation Research|year=1996|id=ISBN 0-932766-41-2}}


==External links== ===Citations===
{{Reflist|2}}
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===Bibliography===
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ATTENTION! BEFORE CHANGING OR DELETING THIS ARTICLE'S CATEGORY LINKS BELOW, READ THIS:
*{{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===
Categorising a story as a myth does not necessarily imply that it is untrue. ] differ, but have overlapping aspects. Many English speakers understand the terms "myth" and "mythology" to mean ''fictitious'' or ''imaginary''. However, according to many dictionary definitions, these terms can also mean '''''a traditional story or narrative that embodies the belief or beliefs of a group of people''''', and this Misplaced Pages category should be understood in this sense only. The use of these terms in this category does '''not''' imply that any story so categorized is historically true or false or that any belief so embodied is itself either true or false.
{{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'''
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{{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 }}
*{{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}}
*{{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
|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 }}
*{{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}}
*{{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}}
*{{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}}
*{{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}}
*{{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}}
*{{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}}
*{{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}}
*{{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}}
*{{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}}
*{{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}}
*{{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}}
*{{cite book
|last = Cresswell
|first = Julia
|chapter = Ark
|title = Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins
|publisher = Oxford University Press
|year = 2010
|isbn = 978-0199547937
|chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=J4i3zV4vnBAC
}}
*{{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
|first1=Jon D.
|chapter=Genesis: introduction and annotations
|editor1-last=Berlin
|editor1-first=Adele
|editor2-last=Brettler
|editor2-first=Marc Zvi
|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}}


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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 (1846), by the American folk painter Edward Hicks

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 myth

For 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 § Composition

A 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 literature

The 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

An artist's depiction of the construction of the Ark, from the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493)
A woodcut of Noah's Ark from Anton Koberger's German Bible

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 Islam
Persian Miniature from Hafiz-i Abru's Majma al-tawarikh. Noah's Ark Iran (Afghanistan), Herat; Timur's son Shah Rukh (1405–1447) ordered the historian Hafiz-i Abru to write a continuation of Rashid al-Din's famous history of the world, Jami al-tawarikh. Like the Il-Khanids, the Timurids 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 Shah Rukh himself.
Noah's Ark and the deluge from Zubdat-al Tawarikh

In 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.

The Subsiding of the Waters of the Deluge (1829), a painting by the American painter Thomas Cole

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

This engraving features a line of animals on the gangway to Noah's ark. It is based on a woodcut by the French illustrator Bernard Salomon. From the Walters Art Museum.

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

The Durupinar site in July 2019
Main article: Searches for Noah's Ark

Searches 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

Noah's Ark depicted on a silver bullion coin of Armenia.

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

Notes

  1. 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

  1. ^ Bailey 1990, p. 63.
  2. 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.
  3. ^ Nigosian 2004, p. 40.
  4. ^ Cline, Eric H. (2009). Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. pp. 71–75. ISBN 978-0199741076.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. Blenkinsopp 2011, p. 139.
  10. ^ Hamilton 1990, pp. 280–281.
  11. Kessler & Deurloo 2004, p. 81.
  12. Wenham 2003, p. 44.
  13. Batto 1992, p. 95.
  14. ^ 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.
  15. ^ Hamilton 1990, pp. 281.
  16. Kvanvig 2011, p. 210.
  17. Chen 2013, pp. 3–4.
  18. Chen 2013, p. 253.
  19. Cline, Eric H. (2007). From Eden to Exile: Unraveling Mysteries of the Bible. National Geographic. ISBN 978-1-4262-0084-7.
  20. Finkel 2014, pp. 89–101.
  21. "Nova: Secrets of Noah's Ark". www.pbs.org. 7 October 2015. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
  22. ^ Finkel 2014, chpt.14.
  23. McKeown 2008, p. 55.
  24. May, Herbert G., and Bruce M. Metzger. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha. 1977.
  25. 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.
  26. Alan Dundes, ed., The Flood Myth Archived 14 May 2016 at the Wayback Machine, pp. 61–71.
  27. 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.
  28. Enns 2012, p. 23.
  29. Richard Elliot Friedman (1997 ed.), Who Wrote the Bible, p. 51.
  30. ^ "Sanhedrin 108b:7–16". www.sefaria.org. Retrieved 13 October 2021.
  31. Avigdor Nebenzahl, Tiku Bachodesh Shofer: Thoughts for Rosh Hashanah, Feldheim Publishers, 1997, p. 208.
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  33. ^ McCurdy, J. F.; Jastrow, M. W.; Ginzberg, L.; et al., eds. (1906). "Ark of Noah". Jewish Encyclopedia. JewishEncyclopedia.com.
  34. Hirsch, E. G.; Muss-Arnolt, W.; Hirschfeld, H., eds. (1906). "The Flood". Jewish Encyclopedia. JewishEncyclopedia.com.
  35. Ibn Ezra's Commentary to Genesis 7:16 Archived 24 May 2013 at the Wayback Machine. HebrewBooks.org.
  36. The Early Christian World, Volume 1, p.148, Philip Esler
  37. 1Pt 3:20–21
  38. ^ Hippolytus. "Fragments from the Scriptural Commentaries of Hippolytus". New Advent. Archived from the original on 17 April 2007. Retrieved 27 June 2007.
  39. Cohn 1996, p. 38.
  40. 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.
  41. 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.
  42. ^ Cohn 1996
  43. 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.
  44. 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)
  45. 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.
  46. 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.
  47. 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.
  48. 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
  49. 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.
  50. 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.
  51. From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer, 25 November 1950. Published in Compilation 1983, p. 494
  52. 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.
  53. Williams, Frank (2009). The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis. BRILL. p. 48. ISBN 978-90-04-17017-9.
  54. Montgomery, John Warwick (1974). The Quest For Noahs Ark. p. 77. ISBN 0-87123-477-7.
  55. Montgomery, John Warwick (1974). The Quest For Noahs Ark. p. 78. ISBN 0-87123-477-7.
  56. ^ 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...
  57. Cheyne, Thomas Kelly (1911). "Deluge, The" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 07 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 976–979.
  58. "Cameo with Noah's Ark". The Walters Art Museum. Archived from the original on 13 December 2013. Retrieved 10 December 2013.
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Bibliography

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