Noah's Ark

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For other uses, see Noah's Ark (disambiguation).
Noah's Ark (1846), a painting by the American folk painter Edward Hicks
A full scale replica of Noah's Ark, Ark van Noach, in the Netherlands

Noah's Ark (Hebrew: תיבת נח‎; Biblical Hebrew: Tevat Noaḥ) is the vessel in the Genesis flood narrative (Genesis chapters 6–9) by which Noah saves himself, his family, and a remnant of all the world's animals from the flood. God gives Noah detailed instructions for building the ark: it is to be of gopher wood, smeared inside and out with pitch, with three decks and internal compartments; it will be 300 cubits long (137.16 m, 450 ft), 50 wide (22.86 m, 75 ft), and 30 high (13.716 m, 45 ft); it will have a roof "finished to a cubit upward", and an entrance on the side.[1] The story goes on to describe the ark being afloat throughout the flood and subsequent receding of the waters before it came to rest on Mount Ararat. The story is repeated, with variations, in the Quran, where the ark appears as Arabic: سفينة نوح‎ Safina Nuh, "Noah's boat".

Since the 19th century, scholarly consensus is that the story is not literally true. Various expeditions have focused their attention on Mount Ararat in the search for Noah's Ark but there is no evidence that anything like Noah's Ark was ever there.

Origins

The Hebrew word for the ark is teba, which occurs only twice in the Bible, here and in the Book of Exodus, where it is used for the basket in which the infant Moses is placed by his mother. (The word for the ark of the covenant is quite different in Hebrew). In both cases, therefore, teba has a connection with salvation from waters. It is made of "gopher" wood, a word which does not appear elsewhere in the entire Bible, and is divided into qinnim, a word which always refers to birds' nests elsewhere, leading some scholars to amend this to qanim, reeds, the material used for the boat of Atrahasis, the Babylonian flood-hero. Noah is instructed to kapar (smear) the ark with koper (pitch): in Hebrew the first of these words is a verb formed from the second, and this is the only place in the Bible where "koper" means "pitch". God spells out to Noah the dimensions of the ark, 300 cubits by 50 by 30 – Using the longer "Egyptian royal cubit" of 529mm, this works out at 158.7m long by 26.45m wide by 15.87m high (520 feet 8 inches long by 86 feet 9.3 inches wide by 52 feet 0.8 inches high). If the 457.2mm (18") cubit is used, this works out at 137.16m long by 22.86m wide by 13.716m high (450 feet long by 75 feet wide by 45 feet high). The ark had three internal divisions (which are not actually called "decks", although presumably this is what is intended), a door in the side, and a sohar, which may be either a roof or a skylight.[2]

The story of the flood is closely connected with the story of the creation, a cycle of creation, un-creation, and re-creation, in which the ark plays a pivotal role.[3] The universe as conceived by the ancient Hebrews was made up of a flat disk-shaped habitable earth with the heavens above and Sheol, the underworld of the dead, below.[4] These three were surrounded by a watery "ocean" of chaos, protected by the firmament, a transparent but solid dome resting on the mountains which ringed the earth.[4] Noah's three-deck ark represents this three-level Hebrew cosmos in miniature: the heavens, the earth, and the waters beneath.[5] In Genesis 1, God created the three-level world as a space in the midst of the waters for humanity; in Genesis 6-8 (the flood story) he fills that space with waters again, saving only Noah, his family and the animals with him in the ark.[3]

Comparative mythology

Main article: Flood myth

The Genesis flood narrative is one of a number of similar flood myths. The earliest written flood myth is the Sumerian flood myth found in the 'Epic of Ziusudra’.[6] Later and very similar Mesopotamian flood stories are found in the Epic of Atrahasis and Epic of Gilgamesh texts. Many scholars believe that Noah and the Biblical Flood story are derived from the Mesopotamian versions, predominantly because Biblical mythology that is today found in Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Mandeanism shares overlapping consistency with far older written Mesopotamian stories of The Great Flood, and that the early Hebrews were known to have lived in Mesopotamia,[7] particularly during the Babylonian captivity.

The parallels – both similarities and differences – between Noah's ship and that of the Babylonian flood hero Atrahasis have often been noted. Noah's is a rectangle, while Atrahasis was instructed to build his in the form of a cube; Atrahasis has seven decks with nine compartments on each level, Noah has three decks, but is not given any instructions on the number of compartments.[8] The word used for "pitch" is not the normal Hebrew word but is closely related to the word used in the Babylonian story.[9]

Traditions

Rabbinic Judaism

The Building of Noah's Ark (painting by a French master of 1675)

"Rabbinic Judaism" is the Judaism of the first millennium CE, beginning approximately with the 2nd century

Main article: Noah in rabbinic literature

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. 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, it was God, or the angels, 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.[10] The animals were the best of their species, and so behaved with utmost goodness. They abstained from procreation, so that the number of creatures that disembarked was exactly equal to the number that embarked. The raven created problems, refusing to 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 utmost deck, from where it was shoveled into the sea through a trapdoor. Precious stones, said to be as bright as the noon sun, provided light, and God ensured that food remained fresh.[11][12][13] Some more unorthodox interpretations of the ark narrative also surfaced: the 12th-century Jewish commentator Abraham ibn Ezra interpreted the ark as being a vessel that remained underwater for 40 days, after which it floated to the surface.[14]

Christianity

An artist's depiction of the construction of the Ark, from the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493)

Interpretations of the ark narrative played an important role in early Christian doctrine. St. Hippolytus of Rome (d. 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".[15] 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 level for humans, and that male animals were separated from the females by sharp stakes so that there would be no breeding on board.[15]

The early Church Father and theologian Origen (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 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; it was not until the 12th century that it came to be thought of as a rectangular box with a sloping roof.[16]

Early Christian artists depicted Noah standing in a small box on the waves, symbolizing God saving the Christian Church in its turbulent early years. St. 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.[17] St. Jerome (c. 347 – 420) identified the raven, which was sent forth and did not return, as the "foul bird of wickedness" expelled by baptism;[18] more enduringly, the dove and olive branch came to symbolize the Holy Spirit and the hope of salvation and, eventually, peace.[16] The olive branch remains a secular and religious symbol of peace today.

Ussher's chronology, one of the most prominent attempts to date events according to the Bible, calculated that Noah would have lived from 2948 until 1998 BCE, with the deluge occurring in 2349 BCE. Calculations based on figures in the Hebrew Bible place the flood in 1656 AM (Anno Mundi); those based on the Greek LXX Bible in 2262 AM; and those based on the Samaritan Pentateuch, in 1308 AM. The Book of Jubilees, by a different calculation, also yields the date 1308 AM for the flood.

Islam

Main article: Noah in Islam
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 which 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, 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.[19]

Abdallah ibn 'Umar al-Baidawi, writing in the 13th century, explains that in the first of its 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 by Og, son of Anak, the only one of the giants permitted to survive the Flood. The body of Adam was carried in the middle to divide the men from the women. 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, and so Noah cursed it and sent out the dove, which has been known ever since as the friend of humanity. The medieval scholar Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Husayn Masudi (d. 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 that 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 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 in the province of Mosul in northern Iraq, and Masudi says that the spot could be seen in his time.[11] [12]

Other traditions

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

The Mandaeans of the southern Iraqi marshes regard Noah as a prophet, while rejecting both Abraham and Jesus as false prophets. In the Mandaean scriptures, the ark was built of sandalwood from Jebel Harun 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.[citation needed]

The Bahá'í Faith regards the Ark and the Flood as symbolic.[20] In Bahá'í belief, only Noah's followers were spiritually alive, preserved in the "ark" of his teachings, as others were spiritually dead.[21][22] The Bahá'í scripture Kitáb-i-Íqán 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.[23]

Historicity

Ark's geometrics

This engraving, made from carved sardonyx and gold, features a line of animals on the gangway to Noah's ark. It is based on a woodcut by the French illustrator Bernard Salomon.[1] 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 geometrician 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.[16]

Various editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica 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 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". 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, approved by Matthew Poole...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, there was much discussion among the learned, and many ingenious and curious theories were advanced, as to the number of animals on the ark".[24]

Searches for Noah's Ark

Main article: Searches for Noah's Ark

Searches for Noah's Ark, sometimes mockingly referred to as arkeology,[25][26][27] have been made from at least the time of Eusebius (c.275–339 AD) to the present day. Despite many expeditions, no scientific evidence of the ark has been found.[28][29] The practice is widely regarded as pseudoarchaeology.[30][31][32]

Flood geology

Main article: Flood geology

Modern geology, its sub-disciplines and other scientific disciplines utilize the scientific method to analyze the geology of the earth. The key tenets of flood geology are refuted by scientific analysis and do not have any standing in the scientific community.[33][34][35][36][37] In general, there is a lack of any evidence for any of the effects proposed by flood geologists and their claims of fossil layering are not taken seriously by scientists.[38]

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Noah's Ark.

References

Citations

  1. ↑ Hamilton 1990, p. 279.
  2. ↑ Hamilton 1990, p. 280-282.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Gooder 2005, p. 38.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Knight 1990, p. 175-176.
  5. ↑ Kessler & Deurloo 2004, p. 81.
  6. ↑ Bandstra 2009, p. 61, 62.
  7. ↑ Bottero (2001:21–22)
  8. ↑ Hamilton 1990, p. 282.
  9. ↑ McKeown 2008, p. 55.
  10. ↑ Avigdor Nebenzahl, Tiku Bachodesh Shofer: Thoughts for Rosh Hashanah, Feldheim Publishers, 1997, p.208
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 McCurdy, J.F.; Bacher, W.; Seligsohn, M. et al., eds. (2002). "Noah". Jewish Encyclopedia. JewishEncyclopedia.com. 
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 McCurdy, J.F.; Jastrow, M.W.; Ginzberg, L. et al., eds. (2002). "Ark of Noah". Jewish Encyclopedia. JewishEncyclopedia.com. 
  13. ↑ Hirsch, E.G.; Muss-Arnolt, W.; Hirschfeld, H, eds. (2002). "The Flood". Jewish Encyclopedia. JewishEncyclopedia.com. 
  14. ↑ Ibn Ezra's Commentary to Genesis 7:16. HebrewBooks.org.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Hippolytus. "Fragments from the Scriptural Commentaries of Hippolytus". New Advent. Retrieved 2007-06-27. 
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 Cohn 1996
  17. ↑ St. Augustin (1890) [c. 400]. "Chapter 26:That the ark Which Noah Was Ordered to Make Figures In Every Respect Christ and the Church". In Schaff, Philip. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers [St. Augustin's City of God and Christian Doctrine]. 1 2. The Christian Literature Publishing Company. 
  18. ↑ Jerome (1892) [c. 347–420]. "Letter LXIX. To Oceanus.". In Schaff, P. Niocene and Post-Niocene Fathers: The Principal Works of St. Jerome. 2 6. The Christian Literature Publishing Company. 
  19. ↑ 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. 
  20. ↑ From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi, October 28, 1949: Bahá'í News, No. 228, February 1950, p. 4. Republished in Compilation 1983, p. 508
  21. ↑ Poirier, Brent. "The Kitab-i-Iqan: The key to unsealing the mysteries of the Holy Bible". Retrieved 2007-06-25. 
  22. ↑ Shoghi Effendi (1971). Messages to the Bahá'í World, 1950–1957. Wilmette, Illinois, USA: Bahá'í Publishing Trust. p. 104. ISBN 0-87743-036-5. 
  23. ↑ From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer, November 25, 1950. Published in Compilation 1983, p. 494
  24. ↑ All quotations from the article "Ark" in the 1960 Encyclopædia Britannica
  25. ↑ Dundes, Alan (1988). The Flood Myth. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. ISBN 0520063538. Retrieved 18 November 2013. 
  26. ↑ Rickard, Bob; Michell, John (2000). Unexplained Phenomena: A Rough Guide Special. London: Rough Guides. ISBN 1858285895. Retrieved 18 November 2013. 
  27. ↑ Prothero, Donald (2013). Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters. New York City: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0231511426. Retrieved 18 November 2013. 
  28. ↑ Mayell, Hillary (27 April 2004). "Noah's Ark Found? Turkey Expedition Planned for Summer". National Geographic Society. Retrieved 29 April 2010. 
  29. ↑ Noah's Ark Quest Dead in Water – National Geographic
  30. ↑ Fagan, Brian M.; Beck, Charlotte (1996). The Oxford Companion to Archaeology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195076184. Retrieved 17 January 2014. 
  31. ↑ Cline, Eric H. (2009). Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0199741077. Retrieved 17 January 2014. 
  32. ↑ Feder, Kenneth L. (2010). Encyclopedia of Dubious Archaeology: From Atlantis to the Walam Olum. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 031337919X. Retrieved 17 January 2014. 
  33. ↑ Young 1995.
  34. ↑ Isaak 2006.
  35. ↑ Morton 2001.
  36. ↑ Isaak 2007, p. 173.
  37. ↑ Stewart 2010, p. 123.
  38. ↑ Isaak 1998.

Bibliography

Further reading

Commentaries on Genesis
  • Rogerson, John William (1991). Genesis 1-11. T&T Clark. ISBN 9780567083388. 
  • Sacks, Robert D (1990). A Commentary on the Book of Genesis. Edwin Mellen. 
  • Towner, Wayne Sibley (2001). Genesis. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 9780664252564. 
  • Von Rad, Gerhard (1972). Genesis: A Commentary. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 9780664227456. 
  • Wenham, Gordon (2003). "Genesis". In James D. G. Dunn, John William Rogerson. Eerdmans Bible Commentary. Eerdmans. ISBN 9780802837110. 
  • Whybray, R.N (2001). "Genesis". In John Barton. Oxford Bible Commentary. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198755005. 
General
Tigay, Jeffrey H., (1982). The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia. ISBN 0-8122-7805-4. 
  • Van Seters, John (2004). The Pentateuch: a social-science commentary. Continuum International Publishing Group. 
  • Wenham, Gordon (1994). "The Coherence of the Flood Narrative" (Google Books). In Hess, Richard S.; Tsumura, David Toshio. I studied inscriptions from before the flood. Sources for Biblical and Theological Study 4. Eisenbrauns. p. 480. ISBN 0-931464-88-9. 
  • Young, Davis A. (March 1995). The Biblical Flood: A Case Study of the Church's Response to Extrabiblical Evidence. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Pub Co. p. 340. ISBN 0-8028-0719-4. 
  • Douglas, J.D. and Tenney, Merrill C., ed. (2011). Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary. revised by Moisés Silva (Revised ed.). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan. ISBN 0310229839. 

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