The Flood is, first of all, a biblical story described in the Book of Genesis - the first of the books of the Old Testament and the entire Bible. However, legends or stories about the Flood are found in a number of mythological and religious texts of various peoples of the world.
In this article we will look at the Biblical Flood or, as it is often called, the Flood of Noah, because Noah is a key figure in the events associated with the Great Flood in the Bible.
According to the Book of Genesis, the Flood is God's punishment for the sinfulness of mankind.
And the Lord said: I will destroy from the face of the earth man whom I have created, from man to beast, and the creeping thing and the bird of the air I will destroy, for I have repented that I created them. (Book of Genesis. Chapter 6)
The flood is God's way of destroying sin in man. God left only Noah and his family alive, commanding Noah to build an ark in which Noah and his family, as well as a couple of different animals and birds, hid. We will not dwell in detail on the history of the construction of the ark and its voyage, since there is already an article about this on the site that you can read - Noah’s Ark. Let's talk in more detail about the Flood, its symbolism and possible scientific interpretation.
What is a global flood
The story of the global flood is widespread among various peoples of the world. In the Christian religion, this plot occupies a special place. Believers view it as a large-scale death of people due to God's punishment for unbelief and lawlessness. The Flood as a historical fact and confirmation of its reality are questioned by skeptics.
Noah gathers animals for the Ark (medieval mosaic)
The Flood - a biblical story
The Bible tells us that the first generations of people on earth after the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden were distinguished by great longevity. It was given to humanity for the rapid repopulation of the earth and for the preservation of faith and memory of the promise of the Deliverer. Thus, in every family over the centuries, knowledge about God and the creation of the world was passed on to subsequent generations.
However, long life became the reason for people to take root in bad customs and corruption. Death was rare, which allowed people's conscience to become dull. Evil and vices multiplied, punishment for them and deliverance from sins seemed distant, almost inaccessible. And the time came when evil spread throughout the earth, there was a complete corruption of people who were no longer capable of repentance and correction. Then the Lord decided to put to death all life on earth, to wash away wickedness and corruption from the earth.
However, among all people there was a blameless man who found grace with God, the righteous Noah. Then God told Noah to build an ark, because a great flood would be brought upon the earth. God determined 120 years during which humanity could repent of its sins. Noah had to complete the construction of the ark during this time.
Construction of the Ark
The creation of the ark was carried out according to the direct instructions of the Lord, reminiscent of engineering instructions. The wood used for construction was gopher wood (a type of cypress). The Ark was 300 cubits long (about 150 meters), 50 cubits wide (about 25 meters), and 30 cubits high (about 15 meters).
For that time it was a grandiose structure. At the top there was an opening for light and air to enter, and a door was built on the side. The ark itself had three tiers with various compartments for livestock and birds. According to the behavior of God, Noah took seven clean animals and birds and two unclean animals and birds, male and female.
During the construction of the ark, people did not change, they did not stop doing evil. Not seeing repentance from the people, God commanded Noah, along with his wife and three sons with their wives, to enter the ark. Also, the animals and birds themselves arrived at the appointed place at a certain time. The Lord himself closed the door behind them. Seven days later it began to rain, which did not stop for 40 days and 40 nights.
Interesting facts about Noah
The story of Noah is an amazing story of God's love, glory and victory! This is the story that Jesus mentioned when talking about His second coming.
* * * Noah was a righteous man in his generation, for which he was saved by God from the Flood and became the successor of the human race.
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His figure occupies an important place in the Bible. As we know, he was chosen by God as a righteous man to continue the human race after the Great Flood. In Gen. 5:28-29 describes the birth of Noah: “And Lemech lived 182 years and begat a son, and called his name Noah, saying, “This one will comfort (yinakhamenu) us in our work and in the labor of our hands in the land which the Lord has cursed.” Those. The ploughshare derived the name Noah (correctly “Noah”) from the root “nachem,” which is translated here as “comfort, peace.”
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Noah's father was Lamech (Gen. 5:28) - Lamech's father was Methuselah - Methuselah was Noah's grandfather. Interestingly, this man lived the longest life - 969 years. Methuselah's father was Enoch. That special man who walked with God and didn't see death because God took him.
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In the Koran, Noah is called Nuh and is revered in Islam.
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Noah was 500 years old when he gave birth to his three sons - Shem, Ham and Japheth (Gen. 5:32).
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The first bird Noah released was a raven. It is strong in flight, with a wingspan of up to 1.20 m and can cut through the air and soar with the ease of a kite. The raven lives in the mountains, and therefore would detect any cliff that might appear above the surface of the flooded earth.
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"Noah and the Dove with an Olive Branch." Fresco in early Christian catacombs, II-IV centuries.
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After the flood, the first thing Noah did was plant a vineyard. The grape is one of the most ancient plants in the Bible and is mentioned almost 200 times in the Old and New.
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Noah died at the age of 950
Facts about Noah's Ark
In the Book of Genesis, God not only gives instructions on how to build the Ark, but also gives precise instructions regarding its size. Calculations are given in cubits. This measure of length varies in the number systems of different countries; the Jews of the Second Temple period defined it as 48 centimeters. Thus, the approximate dimensions of the Ark can be calculated. According to the Bible, the Ark was 300 cubits long, 50 wide and 30 high. converted to the metric system: ~144 meters in length, ~24 in width and ~13.5 in height.
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The 6:1 ark proportions are still used in shipbuilding.
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Students from the physics department at the University of Leicester carried out calculations and calculated that a ship of this size could support the weight of 70 thousand animals.
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Noah built his ark from gopher wood (Genesis 6:14), which may be caparis. This tree is very durable. The doors of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome are made of it, and even after 1200 years there is no sign of destruction.
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In Holland there is an exact copy of Noah's Ark. The ark was designed by millionaire Johan Huibers.
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The Noah's Ark theme park Noah was built in Hong Kong - one of the most visited entertainment and educational complexes.
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We have discovered at least 250 different ancient cultures that have a history of a global flood. Most of these stories bear striking similarities to the Book of Genesis.
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If there really was a global flood, then we would expect to find billions of decompositions in rock layers around the world. And that's exactly what we find.
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The famous artist Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519) was surprised to discover the fossilized remains of sea creatures while walking in the Alps. He wondered how they could get there, and as a result came to the conclusion that this was evidence of a flood that had once occurred on earth.
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The Flood and Noah's Ark are mentioned not only in the canonical books of the Bible, but also in the later apocrypha. For example, in the Book of Enoch.
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God told Noah to tar the outside of the ark. Resins occur naturally in the Middle East.
Fun Fact: Show/Hide Text
The Hebrew word translated "earth resin" (originally "mud," "sticky mucus") is given a more correct meaning in the Revised Standard Text: bitumen (another translation is also found: "tree resin"). The word “bitumen” comes from the Latin bitumen – “mountain resin”. It is a soft, sticky, water-insoluble, black substance. By its nature, it is a mixture of hydrocarbons with various additives; the chemical composition of bitumen is close to oil. Simply put, this is oil from which all the most easily evaporating fractions have been removed. As we know today, the Middle East is extremely rich in underground oil deposits. Some part of it seeps to the surface of the earth and partially evaporates; what remains is bitumen. It was used not only as a substance with good waterproofing properties, but also as a lime that made it possible to glue bricks and build strong walls.
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According to the Koran, the Ark landed on Mount Al-Jadda, and according to the Book of Genesis - on the Ararat Mountains. This mountain range is located in modern Turkey. Many people at different times explored Mount Ararat in search of the remains of Noah's Ark. The Bible, however, says that Noah's ark stopped not on Mount Ararat, but on the mountains of Ararat. Not on a single mountain, but on multiple mountains.
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It has been estimated that the ark's internal volume was more than 1.5 million cubic feet. Noah did not have the problem of placing all the “specimens” of animals and birds in the ark. Based on the fact that Noah took with him “a pair of every creature.” Noah would probably have thought of taking small and young animals so that they would take up less space and would not multiply.
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The researchers calculated that the volume of food supplies accounted for only about 15% of the total volume of the Ark, and drinking water occupied less than 10% of the volume; in addition, the passengers of the Ark could collect rainwater.
Noah's Ark (new translation)
I recommend watching!
Source: bible-facts.org
How long did the Great Flood last?
There is an opinion that the great flood could not have occurred from rain in 40 days. Therefore, the existence of a universal flood is called into question.
The answer lies in the Bible, where it is written that windows opened in heaven and rain began to fall. Water began to flow from all water sources on earth for 150 days. Even the highest mountains disappeared under water. All living things perished, only Noah and his family and animals in the ark survived. Then God commanded the winds to blow, the flow of water stopped, and it began to drain.
Seven months later, the ark stopped on Mount Ararat (the territory of modern Turkey). The water subsided until the tops of the mountains appeared. After 40 days, Noah released a raven through the window of the ark. He returned after some time, unable to find a place for himself on the water-filled land. Then Noah released a dove, which also returned empty-handed, indicating that the earth was still covered by the waters of the flood.
A dove released 7 days later brought an oil leaf in its mouth, indicating that the water had already subsided from the ground. The pigeon released again 7 days later did not return. After waiting another 7 days, Noah opened the door of the ark and saw that the earth had dried up from the water. At the command of the Lord, Noah and his family left the ark and released all the animals and birds so that they could go and multiply on the earth. Noah spent exactly a year in the ark. When the global flood ended, he was 601 years old.
After leaving the ark, the righteous Noah first decided to give thanks to God for such salvation. He took clean animals and birds and offered them as burnt offerings. And God made a covenant with Noah, repeating to him his blessing to be fruitful, multiply and populate the earth. The Lord promised not to bring flood waters over the whole earth. As a sign of this covenant, a rainbow first appeared in the sky. Now it is a warning about the great punishment of God and reminds people that the Lord will never again send a global flood.
Was there a Flood? Scientific point of view.
The story of the Flood described in the Bible has analogues among different peoples, far from the Old Testament ideas. This suggests that such a cataclysm took place and its consequences were indeed severe, since legends about the Great Flood were preserved in the memory of the peoples of all continents of the Earth.
Today, scientists reject the version that in the times described by the Bible there really was a World Sweat. A large number of legends, including the biblical one, most likely describe various disasters associated with water and flooding, which occurred at different time periods and were of a local nature.
Thus, the Great Flood is most likely a huge number of local disasters in different regions, to which residents of the affected areas attributed a global nature. The probable causes of local sweats were:
- tsunami due to earthquakes or meteorite falls,
- rise in water level for one reason or another,
- water breakthroughs from closed reservoirs due to karst processes,
- typhoons.
What are we dealing with when we talk about the Biblical Flood?
Questions about the flood worried the Austrian geologist E. Suess, who studied the biblical text, as well as the primary source of the biblical legend - the Assyrian myth of Gilgamesh, and concluded that Noah's Flood was nothing more than a devastating flood of the Mesopotamian lowland in the lower reaches of the Euphrates. E. Suess considered the main cause of the Biblical Flood to be a tsunami formed as a result of a strong earthquake in the Persian Gulf. Scientists who followed Suess found that the probable cause of Noah's Flood was not a tsunami - tsunamis of such force are not typical for this region, but a devastating flood that occurred as a result of prolonged downpours and strong winds blowing against the flow of rivers. Similar floods have been observed more than once in the Bengal region. The water level during such floods quickly rose by 16 meters. Hundreds of thousands of people died. Probably a similar flood 4000-5000 years ago was described in the Bible as the Great Flood.
There is, however, another opinion among scientists, according to which the Flood took place precisely in the form of a global catastrophe, when the Black Sea ceased to be closed. Due to a powerful earthquake, the water level rose by 140 meters, the Black Sea connected with the Mediterranean, causing flooding of vast regions and the death of a huge number of people.
