Noah's Ark - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Noah's Ark is a vessel appearing in the Book of Genesis (chapters 6–9) and the Quran (sura

Sura

A sura is a division of the Qur'an, often referred to as a chapter. The term chapter is sometimes avoided, as the suras are of unequal length; the shortest sura has only three ayat while the longest contains 286 ayat...

hs Hud

Hud (sura)

Sura Hud is the 11th chapter of the Qur'an with 123 verses. It is a Makkan sura.-Contents and themes:...

and Al-Mu’minoon). These narratives describe the construction of the ark by Noah

Noah

Noah was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the tenth and last of the antediluvian Patriarchs. The biblical story of Noah is contained in chapters 6–9 of the book of Genesis, where he saves his family and representatives of all animals from the flood by constructing an ark...

at God

God

God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

's command to save himself, his family, and the world's animals from the worldwide deluge of the Great Flood.

In the narrative of the ark, God sees the wickedness of man and is grieved by his creation, resolving to send a great flood to cleanse the Earth. However, he sees that Noah is a man "righteous in his generation," and gives him detailed instructions on how to construct a seaworthy ark. When Noah and the animals are safe on board, God sends the Flood, which rises until all the mountains are covered and all life on Earth is destroyed. At the height of the flood, the ark rests on mountaintops, before the waters recede and dry land reappears. Noah, his family, and the animals leave the ark to repopulate the Earth. God places a symbolic rainbow

Rainbow

A rainbow is an optical and meteorological phenomenon that causes a spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines on to droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere. It takes the form of a multicoloured arc...

in the sky and makes a covenant with Noah and all living things, by which he vows to never again send a flood to destroy the Earth.

The ark narrative has been extensively studied by adherents of Judaism

Judaism

Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

, Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

and Islam

Islam

Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

, as well as other Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic faiths. Such studies have ranged from hypothetical solutions to practical problems (such as the issues of waste disposal and lighting the ark's interior), to theological and metaphoric interpretations (with the ark being seen as the spiritual precursor of the Church

Christian Church

The Christian Church is the assembly or association of followers of Jesus Christ. The Greek term ἐκκλησία that in its appearances in the New Testament is usually translated as "church" basically means "assembly"...

in offering salvation to mankind). Although the account of the ark was traditionally accepted as historical, by the 19th century the growing impact of scientific investigation and biblical interpretation had led many people to abandon a literal view in favour of a more metaphoric understanding. Though there have been many alleged sightings of Noah's Ark over the years, no concrete physical evidence of the ark has so far been found. Nonetheless, biblical literalists continue to explore the mountains of Ararat

Mountains of Ararat

The Mountains of Ararat is the place named in the Book of Genesis where Noah's Ark came to rest after the great flood ....

in present-day Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

, where the Bible says the ark came to rest, in search of archaeological remnants of the vessel.

Biblical narrative

Quotations are taken from the English Standard Version
English Standard Version
The English Standard Version is an English translation of the Christian Bible. It is a revision of the 1971 edition of the Revised Standard Version...

of the Bible; the Book of Genesis, Chapters 6–9.

In the Genesis narrative, God observes that humanity is corrupt and decides to destroy all life. However, "Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation, [and] Noah walked with God," and so God gives him instructions for the ark, into which he is told to bring "two of every sort [of animal]...male and female ... everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life," and their food. The dimensions of the vessel are specified: "the length of the ark 300 cubit

Cubit

The cubit is a traditional unit of length, based on the length of the forearm. Cubits of various lengths were employed in many parts of the world in Antiquity, in the Middle Ages and into Early Modern Times....

s, its breadth 50 cubits, and its height 30 cubits". This is equivalent to a length of 137.2 meters, a breadth of 22.9 meters and a height of 13.7 meters (assuming an 18" cubit); or 152.4m, 25.4m and 15.2m (if the 20" Egyptian cubit was used).

God instructs Noah to board the ark with his family, seven pairs of the birds and the clean animals, and one pair of the unclean animals. "On the same day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened, and the rain was upon the earth," and God closes up the door of the ark. The flood begins, and the waters prevail until all the high mountains are covered fifteen cubit

Cubit

s deep. All the people and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens are blotted out from the Earth, and only Noah and those with him in the ark remain alive.

Then "God remembered Noah," and causes his wind to blow, and the fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens are closed. The rain is restrained, the waters abate, and in the seventh month the ark rests on the mountains of Ararat

Mountains of Ararat

The Mountains of Ararat is the place named in the Book of Genesis where Noah's Ark came to rest after the great flood ....

. In the tenth month, the tops of the mountains are seen, and Noah sends out a raven

Raven

Raven is the common name given to several larger-bodied members of the genus Corvus—but in Europe and North America the Common Raven is normally implied...

and a dove

Dove

Pigeons and doves constitute the bird family Columbidae within the order Columbiformes, which include some 300 species of near passerines. In general terms "dove" and "pigeon" are used somewhat interchangeably...

to see if the waters have subsided; the raven flies "to and fro" but the dove returns with a fresh olive

Olive

The olive , Olea europaea), is a species of a small tree in the family Oleaceae, native to the coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean Basin as well as northern Iran at the south end of the Caspian Sea.Its fruit, also called the olive, is of major agricultural importance in the...

leaf in her beak. Noah waits seven days more and sends out the dove again, and this time it does not return.

When the land is dry, God tells Noah to leave the ark, and Noah offers a sacrifice to God. God resolves never again to curse the Earth, "for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth." God grants to Noah and his sons

Sons of Noah

The Seventy Nations or Sons of Noah is an extensive list of descendants of Noah appearing in of the Hebrew Bible, representing an ethnology from an Iron Age Levantine perspective...

the right to kill animals and eat their meat, but forbids meat which has not been drained of its blood. Blood is proclaimed to be sacred, and the unauthorised taking of life is prohibited: "For your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man...Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image." God then establishes his covenant with Noah and his sons and with all living things, and places a rainbow

Rainbow

in the clouds, "the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth."

Religious traditions

Critical-historical view

It is theorized by many historians that the story in Genesis was most likely written in the early Persian period, about the 5th century BC.

Rabbinic Judaism

In the last centuries BC and the first centuries AD, many Jewish rabbi

Rabbi

In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...

s formed interpretations of the story of Noah's Ark. Their teachings were collected in the Talmud

Talmud

The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....

, which dates from between 200 and 500 AD. The individual volumes of the Talmud are known as Tractates.

Tractates Sanhedrin

Sanhedrin

The Sanhedrin was an assembly of twenty-three judges appointed in every city in the Biblical Land of Israel.The Great Sanhedrin was the supreme court of ancient Israel made of 71 members...

, Avoda 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. In order to protect Noah and his family, God placed lions and other ferocious animals to guard them from the wicked who tried to stop them from entering the ark. According to one Midrash

Midrash

The Hebrew term Midrash is a homiletic method of biblical exegesis. The term also refers to the whole compilation of homiletic teachings on the Bible....

, it was God, or the angel

Angel

Angels are mythical beings often depicted as messengers of God in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles along with the Quran. The English word angel is derived from the Greek ἄγγελος, a translation of in the Hebrew Bible ; a similar term, ملائكة , is used in the Qur'an...

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 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 species, and so behaved with utmost goodness. They abstained from procreation, so that the number of creatures that disembarked was exactly equal to the number that embarked. The raven

Raven

Raven is the common name given to several larger-bodied members of the genus Corvus—but in Europe and North America the Common Raven is normally implied...

created problems, refusing to go out of the ark when Noah sent it forth and accusing the patriarch of wishing to destroy its race, but as the commentators pointed out, God wished to save the raven, for its descendants were destined to feed the prophet 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 opinion placed the refuse in the utmost story, from where it was shoveled into the sea through a trapdoor. Precious stones, bright as midday, provided light, and God ensured that food was kept fresh.

Christianity

Interpretations of the ark narrative played an important role in early Christian doctrine. St. Hippolytus of Rome, (d. 235), seeking to demonstrate that "the Ark was a symbol of the Christ

Christ

Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...

who was expected", stated that the vessel had its door on the east side – the direction from which Christ would appear at the Second Coming

Second Coming

In Christian doctrine, the Second Coming of Christ, the Second Advent, or the Parousia, is the anticipated return of Jesus Christ from Heaven, where he sits at the Right Hand of God, to Earth. This prophecy is found in the canonical gospels and in most Christian and Islamic eschatologies...

– and that the bones of Adam

Adam

Adam is a figure in the Book of Genesis. According to the creation myth of Abrahamic religions, he is the first human. In the Genesis creation narratives, he was created by Yahweh-Elohim , and the first woman, Eve was formed from his rib...

were brought aboard, together with gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

, frankincense

Frankincense

Frankincense, also called olibanum , is an aromatic resin obtained from trees of the genus Boswellia, particularly Boswellia sacra, B. carteri, B. thurifera, B. frereana, and B. bhaw-dajiana...

and myrrh

Myrrh

Myrrh is the aromatic oleoresin of a number of small, thorny tree species of the genus Commiphora, which grow in dry, stony soil. An oleoresin is a natural blend of an essential oil and a resin. Myrrh resin is a natural gum....

(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

Armenians

Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....

call it Ararat". On a more practical plane, Hippolytus explained that the ark was built in three stories, the lowest for wild beasts, the middle for birds and domestic animals, and the top level for humans, and that the male animals were separated from the females by sharp stakes so that there would be no cohabitation aboard the vessel.

The early Church Father and theologian Origen

Origen

Origen , or Origen Adamantius, 184/5–253/4, was an early Christian Alexandrian scholar and theologian, and one of the most distinguished writers of the early Church. As early as the fourth century, his orthodoxy was suspect, in part because he believed in the pre-existence of souls...

(c. 182 – 251) produced a learned argument about cubits, in response to a critic who doubted that the ark could contain all the animals in the world. Origen held that Moses, the traditional author of the book of Genesis, had been brought up in Egypt

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

and would therefore have used the larger Egyptian cubit. He also fixed the shape of the ark as a truncated pyramid

Pyramid

A pyramid is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge at a single point. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilateral, or any polygon shape, meaning that a pyramid has at least three triangular surfaces...

, square at its base, and tapering to a square peak one cubit on a side; it was not until the 12th century that it came to be thought of as a rectangular box with a sloping roof.

Early Christian artists depicted Noah standing in a small box on the waves, symbolizing God saving the Christian Church

Christian Church

in its turbulent early years. St. Augustine of Hippo

Augustine of Hippo

Augustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...

(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. St. Jerome

Jerome

Saint Jerome was a Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, and who became a Doctor of the Church. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, which was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia...

(c. 347 – 420) identified the raven, which was sent forth and did not return, as the "foul bird of wickedness" expelled by baptism

Baptism

In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...

; more enduringly, the dove and olive branch came to symbolize the Holy Spirit

Holy Spirit

Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of the Hebrew Bible, but understood differently in the main Abrahamic religions.While the general concept of a "Spirit" that permeates the cosmos has been used in various religions Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of...

and the hope of salvation

Salvation

Within religion salvation is the phenomenon of being saved from the undesirable condition of bondage or suffering experienced by the psyche or soul that has arisen as a result of unskillful or immoral actions generically referred to as sins. Salvation may also be called "deliverance" or...

and, eventually, peace. The olive branch remains a secular and religious symbol of peace today.

Islam

Noah (Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

: Nuh) is one of the five principal prophets of Islam

Prophets of Islam

Muslims identify the Prophets of Islam as those humans chosen by God and given revelation to deliver to mankind. Muslims believe that every prophet was given a belief to worship God and their respective followers believed it as well...

. References to him are scattered through the Qur'an

Qur'an

The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...

, with the fullest account being found in surah Hud

Hud (sura)

Sura Hud is the 11th chapter of the Qur'an with 123 verses. It is a Makkan sura.-Contents and themes:...

(11:27–51). As a prophet, Noah preached to his people, but with little success; only "a few" of them converted (traditionally thought to be seventy). Noah prayed for deliverance, and Allah

Allah

Allah is a word for God used in the context of Islam. In Arabic, the word means simply "God". It is used primarily by Muslims and Bahá'ís, and often, albeit not exclusively, used by Arabic-speaking Eastern Catholic Christians, Maltese Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Mizrahi Jews and...

told him to build a ship in preparation for the coming flood. A son (named either 'Kan'an' or 'Yam' depending on the source) was among those drowned, despite Noah pleading with him to leave the disbelievers and join him (Surah Hud, 42–43).

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 54:13 describes the ark as "a thing of boards and nails". `Abd Allah ibn `Abbas

`Abd Allah ibn `Abbas

Abd Allah ibn Abbas was a paternal cousin of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He is revered by Muslims for his knowledge and was an expert in Tafsir , as well as an authority on the Islamic Sunnah.-Family:...

, a contemporary of Muhammad

Muhammad

Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...

, 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

Teak

Teak is the common name for the tropical hardwood tree species Tectona grandis and its wood products. Tectona grandis is native to south and southeast Asia, mainly India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Burma, but is naturalized and cultivated in many countries, including those in Africa and the...

wood.

Abdallah ibn 'Umar al-Baidawi

Baidawi

Baidawi , was a Muslim scholar, was born in Fars, where his father was chief judge, in the time of the Atabek ruler Abu Bakr ibn Sa'd . He himself became judge in Shiraz, and died in Tabriz about 1286. Many commentaries have been written on Baidawi's work...

, writing in the 13th century, gives the length of the ark as 300 cubit

Cubit

s (157 m, 515 ft) by 50 (26.2 m, 86 ft) in width, 30 cubits (15.7 m, 52 ft) in height, and explains that in the first of the three levels wild and domesticated animals were lodged, in the second the human beings, and in the third the birds. On every plank was the name of a prophet. Three missing planks, symbolizing three prophets, were brought from Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

by Og, son of Anak, the only one of the giant

Giant (mythology)

The mythology and legends of many different cultures include monsters of human appearance but prodigious size and strength. "Giant" is the English word commonly used for such beings, derived from one of the most famed examples: the gigantes of Greek mythology.In various Indo-European mythologies,...

s permitted to survive the Flood.[dubious – discuss] The body of Adam was carried in the middle to divide the men from the women.[dubious – discuss] Surah 11:41 says: "And he said, 'Ride ye in it; in the Name of Allah it moves and stays!'"; this was taken to mean that Noah said, "In the Name of Allah!" when he wished the ark to move, and the same when he wished it to stand still.

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

Carrion

Carrion refers to the carcass of a dead animal. Carrion is an important food source for large carnivores and omnivores in most ecosystems. Examples of carrion-eaters include vultures, hawks, eagles, hyenas, Virginia Opossum, Tasmanian Devils, coyotes, Komodo dragons, and burying beetles...

, and so Noah cursed it and sent out the dove, which has been known ever since as the friend of mankind. The medieval scholar Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Husayn Masudi

Al-Masudi

Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Ali al-Mas'udi , was an Arab historian and geographer, known as the "Herodotus of the Arabs." Al-Masudi was one of the first to combine history and scientific geography in a large-scale work, Muruj adh-dhahab...

(d. 956) wrote that Allah commanded the Earth to absorb the water, and certain portions which were slow in obeying received salt water

Salt water

Salt water or saltwater may refer to:* Saline water, water containing salts* Brine, with salt* Brackish water, water that is saltier than fresh water, but not as salty as seawater* Seawater, water from oceans or seas...

in punishment and so became dry and arid

Desert

A desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Most deserts have an average annual precipitation of less than...

. The water which was not absorbed formed the seas, so that the waters of the flood still exist. Masudi says that the ark began its voyage at Kufa

Kufa

Kufa is a city in Iraq, about south of Baghdad, and northeast of Najaf. It is located on the banks of the Euphrates River. The estimated population in 2003 was 110,000....

in central Iraq

Iraq

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

and sailed to Mecca

Mecca

Mecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...

, circling the Kaaba

Kaaba

The Kaaba is a cuboid-shaped building in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, and is the most sacred site in Islam. The Qur'an states that the Kaaba was constructed by Abraham, or Ibraheem, in Arabic, and his son Ishmael, or Ismaeel, as said in Arabic, after he had settled in Arabia. The building has a mosque...

before finally traveling to Mount Judi

Mount Judi

Mount Judi , according to very Early Christian and Islamic tradition , is the Noah's apobaterion or "Place of Descent", the location where the Ark came to rest after the Great Flood....

(in Arabic also referred to as "high place, hill), which surah 11:44 states was 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

Tigris

The Tigris River is the eastern member of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of southeastern Turkey through Iraq.-Geography:...

in the province of Mosul

Mosul

Mosul , is a city in northern Iraq and the capital of the Ninawa Governorate, some northwest of Baghdad. The original city stands on the west bank of the Tigris River, opposite the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh on the east bank, but the metropolitan area has now grown to encompass substantial...

in northern Iraq, and Masudi says that the spot where it came to rest could be seen in his time.

Noah left the ark, and he and his family and companions built a town at the foot of Mount Judi, named Thamanin ("eighty") in reference to their number. Noah then locked the ark and entrusted the keys to Shem

Shem

Shem was one of the sons of Noah in the Hebrew Bible as well as in Islamic literature. He is most popularly regarded as the eldest son, though some traditions regard him as the second son. Genesis 10:21 refers to relative ages of Shem and his brother Japheth, but with sufficient ambiguity in each...

. Yaqut al-Hamawi

Yaqut al-Hamawi

Yāqūt ibn-'Abdullah al-Rūmī al-Hamawī) was an Islamic biographer and geographer renowned for his encyclopedic writings on the Muslim world. "al-Rumi" refers to his Greek descent; "al-Hamawi" means that he is from Hama, Syria, and ibn-Abdullah is a reference to his father's name, Abdullah...

(1179–1229) mentions a mosque

Mosque

A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word is likely to have entered the English language through French , from Portuguese , from Spanish , and from Berber , ultimately originating in — . The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration...

built by Noah which could be seen in his day. Some modern Muslims, although not generally active in searching for the ark, believe that it still exists on the high slopes of the mountain.

Other traditions

The Mandaeans

Mandaeism

Mandaeism or Mandaeanism is a Gnostic religion with a strongly dualistic worldview. Its adherents, the Mandaeans, revere Adam, Abel, Seth, Enosh, Noah, Shem, Aram and especially John the Baptist...

of the southern Iraq

Iraq

i marshes practice a religion that was possibly influenced in part by early followers of John the Baptist

John the Baptist

John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...

. They regard Noah as a prophet, while rejecting Abraham

Abraham

Abraham , whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam...

(and Jesus

Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

) as false prophets. In the Mandaean scriptures, the ark was built of sandalwood

Sandalwood

Sandalwood is the name of a class of fragrant woods from trees in the genus Santalum. The woods are heavy, yellow, and fine-grained, and unlike many other aromatic woods they retain their fragrance for decades. As well as using the harvested and cut wood in-situ, essential oils are also extracted...

from Jebel Harun

Mount Hor

Mount Hor is the name given in the Old Testament to two distinct mountains. One is in the Land of Edom on the East shore of the Dead Sea , the other by the Mediterranean Sea at the Northern border of the Land of Israel.-Mount Hor in Edom:This Mount Hor is situated "in the edge of the land of Edom"...

and was cubic in shape, with a length, width and height of 30 amma (the length of an arm); its final resting place is said to be Egypt

Egypt

.

The religion of the Yazidi

Yazidi

The Yazidi are members of a Kurdish religion with ancient Indo-Iranian roots. They are primarily a Kurdish-speaking people living in the Mosul region of northern Iraq, with additional communities in Transcaucasia, Armenia, Turkey, and Syria in decline since the 1990s – their members emigrating to...

of the Sinjar

Sinjar

Sinjar is the name of a town and district in northwestern Iraq's Ninawa Governorate near the Syrian border. Its population at the time of the 2006 census was 39,875....

mountains of northern Iraq blends indigenous and Islamic beliefs. According to their Mishefa Reş
Yazidi Black Book
The Yazidi Black Book or Meshaf Resh is one of the two holy books of the Yazidi religion, the other being the Book of Revelation ....

, the Deluge occurred not once, but twice. The original Deluge is said to have been survived by a certain Na'umi, father of Ham, whose ark landed at a place called Ain Sifni, in the region of Nineveh Plains

Nineveh plains

Nineveh plains is a region in the Ninawa Governorate of Iraq to the north and west of the city Mosul. The area generally consists of three districts; Tel Keppe, Al-Hamdaniya, and Al-Shikhan...

40 kilometres (24.9 mi) north-east of Mosul

Mosul

. Some time after this came the second flood, upon the Yezidis only, which was survived by Noah, whose ship was pierced by a rock as it floated above Mount Sinjar, then went on to land on Mount Judi

Mount Judi

Mount Judi , according to very Early Christian and Islamic tradition , is the Noah's apobaterion or "Place of Descent", the location where the Ark came to rest after the Great Flood....

, as described in Islamic tradition.

The Bahá'í Faith

Bahá'í Faith

The Bahá'í Faith is a monotheistic religion founded by Bahá'u'lláh in 19th-century Persia, emphasizing the spiritual unity of all humankind. There are an estimated five to six million Bahá'ís around the world in more than 200 countries and territories....

regards the Ark and the Flood as symbolic. In Bahá'í belief, only Noah's followers were spiritually alive, preserved in the "ark" of his teachings, as others were spiritually dead. The Bahá'í scripture Kitáb-i-Íqán
Kitáb-i-Íqán
The Kitáb-i-Íqán is one of many books held sacred by followers of the Bahá'í Faith; it is their primary theological work. One Bahá'í scholar states that it can be regarded as the "most influential Koran commentary in Persian outside the Muslim world," because of its international audience. It is...

endorses the Islamic belief that Noah had a large number of companions on the ark, either 40 or 72, as well as his family, and that he taught for 950 (symbolic) years before the flood.

In Hindu mythology

Hindu mythology

Hindu religious literature is the large body of traditional narratives related to Hinduism, notably as contained in Sanskrit literature, such as the Sanskrit epics and the Puranas. As such, it is a subset of Nepali and Indian culture...

, texts like the Satapatha Brahmana mention the story of a great flood, wherein the Matsya

Matsya

Matsya was the first Avatar of Vishnu in Hinduism. The great flood finds mention in Hindu mythology texts like the Satapatha Brahmana, where in the Matsya Avatar takes place to save the pious and the first man, Manu and advices him to build a giant boat.-The Legend:According to the Matsya...

Avatar

In Hinduism, an avatar is a deliberate descent of a deity to earth, or a descent of the Supreme Being and is mostly translated into English as "incarnation," but more accurately as "appearance" or "manifestation"....

of Vishnu

Vishnu

Vishnu is the Supreme god in the Vaishnavite tradition of Hinduism. Smarta followers of Adi Shankara, among others, venerate Vishnu as one of the five primary forms of God....

warns the first man, Manu

Manu (Hinduism)

In various Hindu traditions, Manu is a title accorded to the progenitor of mankind, and also the very first brahman king to rule this earth, who saved mankind from the universal flood. He was absolutely honest which was why he was initially known as "Satyavrata"...

, of the impending flood, and also advises him to build a giant boat.

Noah's Ark and science

Various editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica
Encyclopædia Britannica
The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...

reflect the collapse of belief in the historicity of the ark in the face of advancing scientific knowledge. Its 1771 edition offered the following as scientific evidence for the ark's size and capacity: "...Buteo and Kircher

Athanasius Kircher

Athanasius Kircher was a 17th century German Jesuit scholar who published around 40 works, most notably in the fields of oriental studies, geology, and medicine...

have proved geometrically, that, taking the common cubit

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...". By the eighth edition (1853–1860), the encyclopedia said of the Noah story, "The insuperable difficulties connected with the belief that all other existing species of animals were provided for in the ark are obviated by adopting the suggestion of Bishop Stillingfleet

Edward Stillingfleet

Edward Stillingfleet was a British theologian and scholar. Considered an outstanding preacher as well as a strong polemical writer defending Anglicanism, Stillingfleet was known as "the beauty of holiness" for his good looks in the pulpit, and was called by John Hough "the ablest man of his...

, approved by Matthew Poole

Matthew Poole

Matthew Poole was an English Nonconformist theologian.-Life to 1662:He was born at York, the son of Francis Pole, but he spelled his name Poole, and in Latin Polus; his mother was a daughter of Alderman Toppins there. He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, from 1645, under John...

...and others, that the Deluge did not extend beyond the region of the Earth then inhabited..." By the ninth edition, in 1875, no attempt was made to reconcile the Noah story with scientific fact, and it was presented without comment. In the 1960 edition, the article on the ark stated that "Before the days of 'higher criticism' and the rise of the modern scientific views as to the origin of the species

Evolution

Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...

, there was much discussion among the learned, and many ingenious and curious theories were advanced, as to the number of animals on the ark".

16th–18th centuries

The Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

saw continued speculation on the nature of the ark that might have seemed familiar to 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 geometrician

Geometry

Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....

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.

By the 17th century, it was becoming necessary to reconcile the exploration of the New World

New World

The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...

and increased awareness of the global distribution of species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

with the older belief that all life had sprung from a single point of origin on the slopes of Mount Ararat

Mount Ararat

Mount Ararat is a snow-capped, dormant volcanic cone in Turkey. It has two peaks: Greater Ararat and Lesser Ararat .The Ararat massif is about in diameter...

. The obvious answer was that man had spread over the continents following the destruction of the Tower of Babel

Tower of Babel

The Tower of Babel , according to the Book of Genesis, was an enormous tower built in the plain of Shinar .According to the biblical account, a united humanity of the generations following the Great Flood, speaking a single language and migrating from the east, came to the land of Shinar, where...

and taken animals with him, yet some of the results seemed peculiar. In 1646, Sir Thomas Browne

Thomas Browne

Sir Thomas Browne was an English author of varied works which reveal his wide learning in diverse fields including medicine, religion, science and the esoteric....

wondered why the natives of North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

had taken rattlesnake

Rattlesnake

Rattlesnakes are a group of venomous snakes of the genera Crotalus and Sistrurus of the subfamily Crotalinae . There are 32 known species of rattlesnake, with between 65-70 subspecies, all native to the Americas, ranging from southern Alberta and southern British Columbia in Canada to Central...

s with them, but not horse

Horse

The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...

s: "How America abounded with Beasts of prey and noxious Animals, yet contained not in that necessary Creature, a Horse, is very strange".

Browne, who was among the first to question the notion of spontaneous generation

Spontaneous generation

Spontaneous generation or Equivocal generation is an obsolete principle regarding the origin of life from inanimate matter, which held that this process was a commonplace and everyday occurrence, as distinguished from univocal generation, or reproduction from parent...

, was a medical doctor and amateur scientist making this observation in passing. However, biblical scholars of the time, such as Justus Lipsius

Justus Lipsius

Justus Lipsius was a Southern-Netherlandish philologist and humanist. Lipsius wrote a series of works designed to revive ancient Stoicism in a form that would be compatible with Christianity. The most famous of these is De Constantia...

(1547–1606) and Athanasius Kircher

Athanasius Kircher

Athanasius Kircher was a 17th century German Jesuit scholar who published around 40 works, most notably in the fields of oriental studies, geology, and medicine...

(c.1601–80), were also beginning to subject the Ark story to rigorous scrutiny as they attempted to harmonize the biblical account with the growing body of natural historical

Natural history

Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...

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 biogeography

Biogeography

Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species , organisms, and ecosystems in space and through geological time. Organisms and biological communities vary in a highly regular fashion along geographic gradients of latitude, elevation, isolation and habitat area...

in the 18th century. Natural historians began to draw connections between climates and the animals and plants adapted to them. One influential theory held that the biblical Ararat was striped with varying climatic zones, and as climate changed, the associated animals moved as well, eventually spreading to repopulate the globe. There was also the problem of an ever-expanding number of known species: for Kircher and earlier natural historians, there was little problem finding room for all known animal species in the ark, but by the time John Ray

John Ray

John Ray was an English naturalist, sometimes referred to as the father of English natural history. Until 1670, he wrote his name as John Wray. From then on, he used 'Ray', after "having ascertained that such had been the practice of his family before him".He published important works on botany,...

(1627–1705) was working, less than a century after Kircher, their number had expanded beyond biblical proportions. Incorporating the full range of animal diversity into the Ark story was becoming increasingly difficult, and by the middle of the 18th century few natural historians could justify a literal interpretation of the Ark narrative. An uneasy rapprochement was reached by thinkers such as Edward Stillingfleet

Edward Stillingfleet

, a late 17th-century English theologian and scholar, who suggested that mankind at the time of Noah had inhabited only a small portion of the world, so that a purely local Flood would square the Bible with science; the idea gained popularity in intellectual circles in the 18th century, but was increasingly abandoned as the century wore on and the scientific evidence mounted.

Geology

The development of scientific geology

Geology

Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...

had a profound impact on attitudes towards the biblical Flood and Ark story. Without the support of the Biblical chronology, which placed the Creation and the Flood in a history which stretched back no more than a few thousand years, the historicity of the Ark itself was undermined. In 1823, William Buckland

William Buckland

The Very Rev. Dr William Buckland DD FRS was an English geologist, palaeontologist and Dean of Westminster, who wrote the first full account of a fossil dinosaur, which he named Megalosaurus...

interpreted geological

Geology

phenomena as Reliquiae Diluvianae; relics of the flood "Attesting the Action of a Universal Deluge". His views were supported by other English clergymen and naturalists at the time, including the influential Adam Sedgwick

Adam Sedgwick

Adam Sedgwick was one of the founders of modern geology. He proposed the Devonian period of the geological timescale...

, but by 1830 Sedgwick considered that the evidence only showed local floods. The deposits were subsequently explained by Louis Agassiz

Louis Agassiz

Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz was a Swiss paleontologist, glaciologist, geologist and a prominent innovator in the study of the Earth's natural history. He grew up in Switzerland and became a professor of natural history at University of Neuchâtel...

as the results of glaciation. In 1862, William Thompson, later Lord Kelvin

William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin

William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin OM, GCVO, PC, PRS, PRSE, was a mathematical physicist and engineer. At the University of Glasgow he did important work in the mathematical analysis of electricity and formulation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and did much to unify the emerging...

, calculated the age of the Earth

Age of the Earth

The age of the Earth is 4.54 billion years This age is based on evidence from radiometric age dating of meteorite material and is consistent with the ages of the oldest-known terrestrial and lunar samples...

at between 24 and 400 million years, and for the remainder of the 19th century, discussion was not about whether Kelvin was right or wrong, but about just how many millions were involved. The influential 1889 volume of theological essays Lux Mundi
Lux mundi
Lux Mundi: A series of Studies in the Religion of the Incarnation is a collection of 12 essays from liberal Anglo-Catholic theologians and edited by the future Bishop of Oxford, Charles Gore, in 1889....

, which is usually held to mark a stage in the acceptance of a more critical approach to scripture, took the stance that the gospel

Gospel

A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...

s could be relied upon as completely historical, but that the earlier chapters of Genesis should not be taken literally.

Biblical scholarship

In the 19th century, Biblical scholars

Biblical studies

Biblical studies is the academic study of the Judeo-Christian Bible and related texts. For Christianity, the Bible traditionally comprises the New Testament and Old Testament, which together are sometimes called the "Scriptures." Judaism recognizes as scripture only the Hebrew Bible, also known as...

were beginning to examine the origins of the Bible itself. The story of Noah's Ark played a central role in the new theories, largely because, using the newly developed tools of source criticism

Source criticism

A source criticism is a published source evaluation . An information source may be a document, a person, a speech, a fingerprint, a photo, an observation or anything used in order to obtain knowledge. In relation to a given purpose, a given information source may be more or less valid, reliable or...

, scholars discovered in the Ark narrative two complete, coherent, parallel stories. It is stated twice over, for example, that God was angered with his creation, but the reasons given in each telling are slightly different; we are told that there was a single pair of each animal aboard, but also that there were seven pairs of the clean animals; that the source of the water was rain, but also that it came from the "windows of Heaven" and the "fountains of the Deep"; that the rains lasted forty days, but that the waters rose for 150. Gradually, scholars came to agree that this was how the entire Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) had been written: the work of many authors over many centuries, combining separate sources into a single whole.

Translation of other flood myths

The 19th century also saw the growth of Middle Eastern archaeology and the first translations into English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

of ancient Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...

n records. The Assyriologist

Assyriology

Assyriology is the archaeological, historical, and linguistic study of ancient Mesopotamia and the related cultures that used cuneiform writing. The field covers the Akkadian sister-cultures of Assyria and Babylonia, together with their cultural predecessor; Sumer...

George Smith

George Smith (assyriologist)

George Smith , was a pioneering English Assyriologist who first discovered and translated the Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest-known written work of literature.-Early life and early career:...

achieved world-wide fame with his translation of the Babylon

Babylon

Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...

ian account of the Great Flood, which he read before the Society of Biblical Archaeology

Society of Biblical Archaeology

The Society of Biblical Archaeology was founded in London in 1870 to further Biblical archaeology. It published a series of Proceedings in which some important papers read before the Society were preserved....

on December 3, 1872. Further discoveries brought to light several versions of the Mesopotamian flood-myth, with the closest to Genesis 6–9 being found in a 7th-century-BC Babylonian copy of the Epic of Gilgamesh
Epic of Gilgamesh
Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from Mesopotamia and is among the earliest known works of literature. Scholars believe that it originated as a series of Sumerian legends and poems about the protagonist of the story, Gilgamesh king of Uruk, which were fashioned into a longer Akkadian epic much...

: the hero Gilgamesh

Gilgamesh

Gilgamesh was the fifth king of Uruk, modern day Iraq , placing his reign ca. 2500 BC. According to the Sumerian king list he reigned for 126 years. In the Tummal Inscription, Gilgamesh, and his son Urlugal, rebuilt the sanctuary of the goddess Ninlil, in Tummal, a sacred quarter in her city of...

meets the immortal man Utnapishtim, who tells how the god Ea

Enki

Enki is a god in Sumerian mythology, later known as Ea in Akkadian and Babylonian mythology. He was originally patron god of the city of Eridu, but later the influence of his cult spread throughout Mesopotamia and to the Canaanites, Hittites and Hurrians...

warned him to build a huge vessel in which to save himself, his family, and his friends and animals, from a great flood by which the gods intended to destroy the world.

Origins of the Genesis Ark story

The story of Noah's Ark in Genesis is considered by modern scholars to be directly dependent upon the Babylonian version, which it parallels point by point, in the correct order, from beginning to end. It is a composite text, with some parts belonging to the Jahwist

Jahwist

The Jahwist, also referred to as the Jehovist, Yahwist, or simply as J, is one of the sources of the Torah. It gets its name from the fact that it characteristically uses the term Yahweh for God in the book of Genesis...

source and some to the Priestly source

Priestly source

The Priestly Source is one of the sources of the Torah/Pentateuch in the bible. Primarily a product of the post-Exilic period when Judah was a province of the Persian empire , P was written to show that even when all seemed lost, God remained present with Israel...

. The Jahwist version has modified the Babylonian text to make it conform to a monotheistic theology.

Chronology of the flood

The elaborate chronology of the flood has attracted a great deal of attention from scholars. The following table is abridged from a study by Gordon J. Wenham. (The left column lists dates by day, month and year of Noah's life, the middle column lists the time-periods involved for each incident, and the right column gives the day of the week):

Date (in Noah's life)	Event	Day of the week
d.10, mth.2, year 600 (Gen.7:10)	God announces that the flood will come in seven days	Sunday
d.17, mth.2, year 600 (Gen.7:11–24)	Flood begins. (Rain continues 40 days, waters rise for 150 days)	Sunday
d.17, mth.7, year 600 (Gen.8:4)	Ark rests on Ararat, waters begin to retreat	Friday
d.1, mth.10, year 600 (Gen.8:5)	Mountain-tops become visible	Wednesday
	After 40 days Noah sends out the raven	Sunday
	After 7 days Noah sends the dove again (2nd time); dove returns with olive twig	Sunday
	After 7 days Noah sends the dove again (3rd time); dove does not return	Sunday
d.1, mth.1, year 601 (Gen.8:13)	Waters dried up	Wednesday
d.27, mth.2, year 601 (Gen.8:14)	Earth dry; Noah emerges	Wednesday

Numerology and the Tabernacle

The ark is said to be 300 cubit

Cubit

s long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high, and has three decks; it is therefore three times the height of the Tabernacle

Tabernacle

The Tabernacle , according to the Hebrew Torah/Old Testament, was the portable dwelling place for the divine presence from the time of the Exodus from Egypt through the conquering of the land of Canaan. Built to specifications revealed by God to Moses at Mount Sinai, it accompanied the Israelites...

and three times the area of the Tabernacle forecourt, as described in the Book of Exodus. It is suggested that the biblical authors saw both structures serving the same purpose, the preservation of humankind for God's plan. The dimensions betray a numerological preoccupation with the number sixty, one which it shares with the Babylonian Ark: Noah's Ark is 60x5=300 cubits long and 60÷2=30 cubits high.

Narrative structure

British biblical scholar Gordon Wenham

Gordon Wenham

Gordon Wenham is an Old Testament scholar and author of several books about the Bible. Tremper Longman has called him "one of the finest evangelical commentators today."...

has identified an elaborate chiasmus

Chiasmus

In rhetoric, chiasmus is the figure of speech in which two or more clauses are related to each other through a reversal of structures in order to make a larger point; that is, the clauses display inverted parallelism...

within the Ark story, with the phrase "And God remembered Noah" at its centre. This analysis has attracted numerous supporters, especially among more conservative scholars, but has been criticized by J. A. Emerton and others as being essentially subjective and inclined to arbitrary results. Nonetheless, some variant of the chiastic structure of the story continues to be widely quoted in scholarly literature.

Engineering perspective

Using modern engineering techniques, it may be possible to build a floatable wooden ship with the displacement of Noah's Ark. However, a 137 m-long wooden ship would be extremely fragile; indeed, the longest modern wooden ship ever built was only 329 feet (100.3 m) long, and required iron-strap reinforcement to maintain its structural integrity. Moreover, the necessary quantities of lumber would not have been available in ancient Mesopotamia. Finally, there is no evidence of a shipbuilding tradition capable of building such large ships in ancient times.

Literalism and the search for Noah's Ark

Modern Biblical literalists

Biblical literalism

Biblical literalism is the interpretation or translation of the explicit and primary sense of words in the Bible. A literal Biblical interpretation is associated with the fundamentalist and evangelical hermeneutical approach to Scripture, and is used almost exclusively by conservative Christians...

believe in a literal, physical Ark and Flood, and some seek the physical remains of the vessel. Young Earth creationists feel that finding archaeological evidence of the Ark would validate their views on various theological and scientific matters. In 2009, John D. Morris of the Institute for Creation Research

Institute for Creation Research

The Institute for Creation Research is a Christian institution in Dallas, Texas that specializes in education, research, and media promotion of Creation Science and Biblical creationism. The ICR adopts the Bible as an inerrant and literal documentary of scientific and historical fact as well as...

wrote that, "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... [with] tremendous potential impact on the creation-evolution (including theistic evolution

Theistic evolution

Theistic evolution or evolutionary creation is a concept that asserts that classical religious teachings about God are compatible with the modern scientific understanding about biological evolution...

) controversy." Physical searches for Noah's Ark

Searches for Noah's Ark

From at least the time of Eusebius to the present day, the search for the physical remains of Noah's Ark has held a fascination for many people...

continue on and around Mount Ararat

Mount Ararat

Mount Ararat is a snow-capped, dormant volcanic cone in Turkey. It has two peaks: Greater Ararat and Lesser Ararat .The Ararat massif is about in diameter...

in present-day Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

, the Ark's supposed resting place.

Date of the flood

The Ussher chronology, a calculation of the dates of creation and other Biblical events published in 1650 by the Irish

Irish people

The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...

Archbishop

An archbishop is a bishop of higher rank, but not of higher sacramental order above that of the three orders of deacon, priest , and bishop...

James Ussher

James Ussher was Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland between 1625–56...

, places the Great Flood at 2348 BC. Using the Masoretic Text

Masoretic Text

The Masoretic Text is the authoritative Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible and is regarded as Judaism's official version of the Tanakh. While the Masoretic Text defines the books of the Jewish canon, it also defines the precise letter-text of these biblical books, with their vocalization and...

of the Bible shows the date to be 1656 years after creation. Ussher calculated that the creation occurred in 4004 BC; using the King James Bible, this creation date gives the date of the Flood as 2348 BC. Although the Ussher chronology remains highly influential, other theologians have given different dates for the Creation; for example, Joseph Scaliger

Joseph Justus Scaliger

Joseph Justus Scaliger was a French religious leader and scholar, known for expanding the notion of classical history from Greek and Ancient Roman history to include Persian, Babylonian, Jewish and Ancient Egyptian history.-Early life:He was born at Agen, the tenth child and third son of Italian...

claimed it to have occurred in 3950 BC, while Petavius calculated the date as 3982 BC.

Biblical narrative

Religious traditions

Critical-historical view

Rabbinic Judaism

Christianity

Islam

Other traditions

Noah's Ark and science

16th–18th centuries

Geology

Biblical scholarship

Translation of other flood myths

Origins of the Genesis Ark story

Chronology of the flood

Numerology and the Tabernacle

Narrative structure

Engineering perspective

Literalism and the search for Noah's Ark

Date of the flood

See also