Noah's Ark Biblical narrative

Quotations are taken from the English Standard Version of the Bible; the Book of Genesis, Chapters 6-9.

God observes that humanity is corrupt and decides to destroy all life. But 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.

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 cubits deep, and 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.

Then "God remembered Noah," and causes his wind to blow, and the fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens are closed, and the rain is restrained, and the waters abate, and in the seventh month the Ark rests on the mountains of Ararat. In the tenth month the tops of the mountains are seen, and Noah sends out a raven and a dove to see if the waters have subsided; the raven flies "to and fro" but the dove returns with a fresh olive 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 the right to kill animals and eat their meat, but forbids meat which has not been drained of its blood. Blood is proclaimed 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." Then God establishes his covenant with Noah and his sons and with all living things, and places the rainbow in the clouds, "the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth."

The Ark and Genesis 1

As the Flood rises, it wipes out the work of Creation, each month of the Flood corresponding to the matching day of Creation. Just as God on the second day of the world placed the firmament to separate the Earth from waters above and below, so in the second month of Noah's 600th year God opens the floodgates of Heaven and the fountains of the Deep and allows the waters to return; just as the work of Creation was completed on the sixth day, when all living things were ready for man, so the Flood rises for a further five months (the 150 days of Genesis 7:24) until the sixth month, when "everything that had the breath of life in its nostrils, everything that was on the earth, died"; and as God rested on the seventh day, so the Ark rests on the mountaintops on the seventh month. The "wind from God" which passed over the waters of Chaos at the very beginning of Creation (in Genesis 1:2) passes over the waters again, and the world is re-created as the waters dry from the land, until in the fourteenth month men and creatures exit the Ark, and Noah enters into the first Covenant with God.

Date of the flood

The Ussher chronology, a calculation of the dates of creation and other Biblical events published in 1650 by the Irish Archbishop James Ussher, places the Great Flood at 2348 B.C. Using the Masoretic Text of the Bible shows the date to be 1656 years after creation. Ussher calculated that the creation occurred in 4004 B.C.; using this date and the King James Bible result in a date of 2348 B.C. for the Flood. The Ussher chronology was highly influential, but other theologians have given different dates for the Creation; for example, Scaliger claimed it to have occurred in 3950 B.C., while Petavius calculated the date as 3982 B.C.

FACTS ON NOAH'S ARK
Files from Christian Information Ministries
http://www.ldolphin.org/cisflood.html

UFOTV Presents...: Noah's Ark Found? - The Best Evidence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io3P2b68DHk