There is far more to the story of Noah and his Ark than a mere gathering of animals, two by two. In this ancient story, Christians find an important covenant between God and man and are able to see a direct foreshadowing of the salvation found in Christ.
The story of Noah’s Ark is one familiar to any child who has ever spent so much as a day in a pre-school Sunday School class. It is a story that is as equally well-known in popular culture as it is in the pew. Sadly, too seldom is the Noah story seriously reviewed by the layperson.
In the story of Noah’s Ark, God is upset that humanity has turned toward evil. God decides to rid the world of this evil by sending a flood to wipe out humanity and to allow Him to begin anew. God sees that Noah, alone among the people, is righteous. Noah walks with God, the Bible tells us. So God instructs Noah to build an ark.
Noah begins construction of the ark long before God tells him the purpose of the ark. Noah begins this work without hesitation. This contrasts significantly with the Biblical account of many who are called by God who either do not initially understand the call, such as Samuel, or those who are hesitant to accept it, such as Moses. Given Moses’ own hesitation when called by God in the presence of the Burning Bush in Exodus 3, Noah’s lack of hesitation to be obedient to God is further proof that Noah did indeed “walk with God.”
In fact, in the story God does not tell Noah of the pending rains and flood until after the ark has been built – Noah does not know why he is building an ark, he simply does so because God told him to. The story of Noah, therefore, is often used as an example of unquestioning obedience to God. After the ark is constructed, God then directs Noah to gather up representatives of every type of animal, as well as Noah’s immediate family – his wife, sons and daughters-in-law. All the animals and Noah’s family are gathered safely in the ark as the rains begin and a flood covers the earth.
Eventually, the rains subside and God calls Noah and the animals out of the ark. Immediately, Noah builds an altar and offers a sacrifice to God. After seeing Noah’s sacrifice, God creates a new covenant with all living creatures through Noah. The sign of this covenant is the rainbow. God makes a promise to never again send a flood that will destroy the world.
One cannot examine the story of Noah’s Ark without acknowledging that stories of a great flood exist outside of the Judeo-Christian context. While almost every major grouping of people and/or religion has some type of flood story in their ancient/pre-history, two are the most notable: the writings of Islam and the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Given that Islam traces its history back to Abraham, it is not surprising that the story of Noah, who preceded Abraham, is a part of Islamic faith.
In the Quran, Noah is viewed as an important early prophet. The bulk of the story in the Quran and in the Bible is the same, with the exception of an emphasis in the Quran on Noah urging his fellow people to turn to God prior to the flood. While this is not included in the Biblical account of Noah, one could easily imagine the Biblical Noah doing such a thing.
The Quranic version also provides some detail not found in the Bible, perhaps most notably including an additional son of Noah. Given that Noah and his family were left to re-populate the Earth after the events of the flood, one would expect that Noah had additional children. It is likely he eventually had children in addition to those listed in either the Bible or the Quran. None of the details presented about Noah in the Quran are in direct contradiction of the Biblical account. We can conclude that the Quranic and Biblical accounts of Noah are complementary. Clearly, Noah was a great man of faith and is rightly honored by the world’s Abrahamic religions.
The Epic of Gilgamesh is more challenging.
Part of a much longer narrative, Gilgamesh is presented as a king who has become distressed over the death of his best friend, Enkidu. Toward the end of the Gilgamesh story, Gilgamesh seeks out a man named Utnapishtim, who is said to have gained immortality by building a boat at the direction of the gods and surviving a massive flood that destroys all the Earth. Utnaphishtim eventually releases a dove, raven and swallow to see if the water has receded. Upon leaving the boat after the flood, Utnaphishtim offers a sacrifice to the gods, which has a pleasing aroma.
That there are many similarities to the Noah story in the Gilgamesh story, but the overall focus of the story is far different – this is clearly not a story about how God loved and redeemed creation. We are therefore faced with a challenge: which story came first – and which is to be believed? As Christians we live in the world and must be able to respond to the challenges that the world presents us.
In her excellent thesis comparing the Gilgamesh text and the Flood account in Genesis, scholar Nozomi Osani concludes that the two stories surely are derived from the same historical account. If all of humanity can trace its history back to the common ancestor of Noah – even if his name has somehow become confused in a different account – then surely the story of the flood would have been handed down in most cultures.
The historical event of the flood significantly pre-dates the writing of any account of it. It can be reasonably concluded, however, that the writing of the account of the flood which was divinely inspired, i.e. the Genesis account, is the accurate version and the one from which we are to draw the divine message. Further, the very fact that multiple cultures have an account of the Flood strengthens the case for the historical veracity of such an event.
Surely, a world-changing event such as the Flood would have been stored in the collective memory of the people for many, many generations. Osani reported in her 2005 research that 95 percent of the more than 200 Flood traditions among the world’s peoples she studied feature common key elements to the account found in Scripture, such as the releasing of a bird(s) and that there are eight people in the ark. It is to be expected that secondary details of such an event would be lost over the centuries. But the essence of the story always remains the same, in all these accounts: There was a massive flood and a righteous man and his family were saved.
We then are left to ask “why did The Flood happen?” It is the story of the flood that is found in Genesis which provides us with the why of not only the flood but also the aftermath of the flood event, providing an early account of the love that God has for his special creation, man.
Sources:
Biller, Susan Provost. The History Puzzle: How We Know What We Know About the Past. Minneapolis: Twenty First Century Books, 2006.
Berlitz, Charles. The Lost Ship of Noah: in Search of the Ark at Ararat. New York: Putnam Adult, 1987.
“Genesis introduction.” In King James Version Study Bible. Edited by Kenneth Baker. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003.
Osanai, Nozomi. “A Comparative Study of the Flood Accounts in the Gilgamesh Epic and Genesis.” Master’s thesis, Kobe Lutheran Theological Seminary, 2004.