Noah

NOAH'S ARK

Thousands of years ago the Hebrew farmer Noah was the only person left who remembered God and his creation. The world was flooded with evil and God's response to the severe situation was to have Noah and his family build an ark that enabled them to survive a widespread flood over the Earth. The rest of humanity was wiped out.

According to Book of Genesis, the Ark was 450ft by 75ft and 45ft high- that is taller than a three-storey building and with a deck size of 36 tennis courts.

Noah was the first great ship builder and his ark was constructed out of cypress wood.

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

On board his ark Noah included at least one pair of every kind of animal, (seven pairs of every type of clean animal, which was used for sacrifice.) Noah needed around 40,000 animals to represent every kind of creature.

Biblical scholars have long asserted November 25, 2348 to be the day of the Great Deluge, or Flood.

After the Great Flood the Hebrew Noah landed his ark on the summit of the Ararat mountain range - the highest part of the Caucasus, where grapes originated. He alighted from the ark, planted a vineyard and got drunk on some of its wine.

After the great flood it is said that Noah made a pudding with all the food remaining on board: beans, chickpeas, dried fruits, nuts, rice and wheat.

The name Noah means 'rest'.

A group of fourth year master's students from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leicester calculated that Noah's ark, built to accommodate at least two of every animal species, would have floated using the dimensions ordained in the Bible.

Various replicas of the Ark exist. The one at Johan's Ark in Dordrecht, Netherlands is the only full-scale Ark interpretation that is actually floating and mobile.

Replica of Noah's Ark in Dordrecht, Netherlands. By Ceinturion - Wikipedia

OTHER ACCOUNTS OF THE GREAT FLOOD

Other people groups recount similar stories such as the Babylonian flood tale from the Epic of Gilgameash.

The Bakossi people of the Mungo River in Cameroon have a legend that their ancestor Ngoe built an ark to save his family and many animals from a great flood.

Noah, or Nug, is one of the main prophets of Islam. In the Quran, his wife is said to drown in the flood.

An Islamic depiction of Noah in a 16th-century Mughal miniature.

Source Food For Thought by Ed Pearce