Noah's Ark

For other uses, see Noah's Ark (disambiguation). Not to be confused with Ark of the Covenant.
Noah's Ark (1846), by the American folk painter Edward Hicks

Noah's Ark (Hebrew: תיבת נח; Biblical Hebrew: Tevat Noaḥ)[Notes 1] 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.[1] 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).[2] 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.[3]

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,[4] nor is there scientific evidence for a global flood.[5] The boat and the natural disaster as described in the Bible would have been contingent upon physical impossibilities and extraordinary anachronisms.[6] 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.[7][8]


Cite error: There are <ref group=Notes> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=Notes}} template (see the help page).

  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. ^ Cite error: The named reference Cline 2009 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Lorence G. Collins (2009). "Yes, Noah's Flood May Have Happened, But Not Over the Whole Earth". NCSE. Archived from the original on 2018-06-26. Retrieved 2018-08-22.
  6. ^ Moore, Robert A. (1983). "The Impossible Voyage of Noah's Ark". Creation Evolution Journal. 4 (1): 1–43. Archived from the original on 2016-07-17. Retrieved 2016-07-10.
  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 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2014-12-23.
  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.