Legends about the Flood and the Ark exist in different cultures. In the biblical tradition, this is Noah’s Ark, since it was Noah who was the righteous man who was entrusted with the mission of saving mankind.
Bible
Story Flood known to most of us from the Bible. The Book of Genesis tells that the flood was the Lord's retribution for the moral fall of mankind. God decided to leave only the pious Noah and his family alive. He was ordered to build an Ark and take on it two pairs of all unclean animals and seven of each type of clean animal.
In the Book of Genesis, God not only gives instructions on how to build the Ark, but also gives precise instructions regarding its size. Calculations are given in cubits. This measure of length is different in number systems different countries, Jews of the Second Temple period determined it to be 48 centimeters. Thus, the approximate dimensions of the Ark can be calculated. According to the Bible, the Ark was 300 cubits long, 50 wide and 30 high. Converted to the metric system: 144 meters in length, 24 in width and 8.5 in height.
Students from the physics department at the University of Leicester carried out calculations and calculated that a ship of this size could support the weight of 70 thousand animals.
Other sources
The Flood and Noah's Ark are mentioned not only in the canonical books of the Bible, but also in the later apocrypha. For example, in the Book of Enoch. The main outline of the story remains, but the reasons that prompted God to cause the flood are described here in more detail. In particular, it talks about the mixing of angels with the daughters of people. This, according to the Book of Enoch, led to the emergence of giants, which caused inequality, wars, the spread of magic and witchcraft, and a decline in morals.
The story of the flood can be found in other books, in the Jewish Haggadah and in Midrash Tanchuma. The latter says that Noah taught people how to use tools and had the skills of a carpenter, which was useful to him during the construction of the Ark.
Sumerian myth
The legend of the Flood and the mention of the Ark is found in many myths of different peoples. The most famous is the Sumerian myth, the legend of Ziusudra. At a meeting of all the gods, a terrible decision was made - to destroy all of humanity. Only one god, Enki, took pity on the people. He appeared in a dream to King Ziusudra and ordered him to build a huge ship.
Ziusudra fulfilled the will of God; he loaded his property, family and relatives, various craftsmen to preserve knowledge and technology, livestock, animals and birds onto the ship. The doors of the ship were tarred on the outside. In the morning a terrible flood began, which even the gods were afraid of. The rain and wind raged for six days and seven nights. Finally, when the water began to recede, Ziusudra left the ship and made sacrifices to the gods. Then, as a reward for his loyalty, the gods granted Ziusudra and his wife immortality. It is likely that this legend not only resembles the legend of Noah's Ark, but that the biblical story is borrowed from Sumerian culture, since the first Sumerian poems about the flood that have reached us date back to the 18th century BC.
Nuh
There is a legend about the Great Flood in Islam. According to the Koran, Nuh is one of the five great prophets sent by Allah to people. The plots in the Book of Genesis and in the Koran are similar, only in the Koran Allah punishes idolaters, and the sizes of the Ark also differ. According to the Koran, the length of the ark reached one thousand two hundred cubits, the width - up to eight hundred cubits, and the height - up to eighty cubits. If we take into account the average size of this length measure - 45 cm, then the Ark in Islam is much larger. Its length was 540 meters, width 360 meters, height - 36 meters. The types of trees from which the ship was made are also different.
The Bible mentions the gopher tree. This name is found only in the Book of Genesis. According to different versions, it was either a cypress or a cedar, but both trees have their own in the Bible proper names(brooch and erez), therefore most likely in the Bible the word “gopher” is used to mean “resinous tree”, resistant to moisture.
In the Qur'an, Allah asks Nuh and his compatriots to eat dates and plant their seeds. From the trees the grove grew and the Ark was made.
Quest for the Ark
According to the Koran, the Ark landed on Mount Al-Jadda, and according to the Book of Genesis - on the Ararat Mountains. Al-Jadda can be translated as “high place”, that is, there is no exact indication of the place of arrival of the Ark in the Koran.
The Bible says: “And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat” (Gen. 8:4).
In the Biblical Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron, in the article “Ararat”, however, it is written that nothing indicates that Noah’s ark landed specifically on the modern Mount Ararat and it is indicated that “Ararat is the name of an area in the north of Assyria (2 Kings 19:37; Isaiah 37:38), suppose. We are talking about Urartu, mentioned in cuneiform texts, an ancient country near the lake. Van."
Modern researchers are also inclined to the version that the Bible refers to Urartu. Soviet orientalist Ilya Shifmann wrote that the vocalization “Ararat” was first attested in the Septuagint, a translation of the Old Testament into Greek from the 3rd-2nd centuries BC. In the Qumran scrolls the spelling “wrrt” is found, suggesting the vowel “Urarat”. Shifman is the compiler of a scientific translation of the Pentateuch, in which the above quotation from the Book of Genesis sounds like “And the ark stopped in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, near the mountains of Urartu.”
Noah's Ark was searched for on Ararat several times. One of the fathers of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Hakob Mtsbnetsi, made attempts to climb Ararat back in the 4th century, but every time he fell asleep along the way and woke up at the foot of the mountain. According to legend, after another attempt, an angel appeared to Hakob and told him to stop searching for the ark, in return for which he promised to bring a fragment of the relic. A piece of Noah's Ark is still in the Etchmiadzin Cathedral.
In subsequent centuries, the search for Noah's Ark continued, every now and then sensational materials appeared in the media that the Ark had been found, but none had yet found scientific confirmation.
The real existence of Noah's Ark from the biblical scriptures began to be believed more and more after the expedition of the American anesthesiologist Ron Wyatt, who, having seen photographs of a possible ship on Mount Ararat, in an article in Life Store magazine in 1957, made such a trip in 1960 .
The author of the photographs was Turkish pilot Ilham Durupinar. The shape of the ship with clear, regular outlines of the stern and bow stood out on them. The American became so interested in this fact that he went to these places in search of the object and confirmation of the story in the Bible.
According to biblical scripture, God gave Noah the command to build a huge ship in order to save not only him and his family, but also all the animals inhabiting the planet. To do this, a pair had to be selected from each species.
The design of the vessel assumed the following parameters:
- length 300 cubits or 133.5 m;
- width 50 cubits or 22.25 m;
- height 30 cubits or 13.35 m.
A door was to be made on the side of the ark, and there were 3 floors inside. The material for the vessel should have been gopher wood. The entire structure needed to be tarred inside and out. The construction of the ship was completed by Noah in 4352 BC. By this time he was already 600 years old. The work continued for 100 years.
At the command of God, Noah boarded the ship with his wife, animals and necessary products and it was closed. Then rain fell on the ground, which continued for 40 days.
The water rose so much that it flooded the tops of the highest mountains, destroying all life on earth. Only then did it begin to subside and leave. God commanded everyone to leave the ark, saying that there would be no more death and that all living things could peacefully reproduce.
Mentions in ancient and medieval sources of different peoples of the world
Noah's Ark is mentioned in medieval sources:
- In the chronicles of the Jewish commander Josephus - 1st century BC. e.
- Legendary traveler Marco Polo - XIII century. It is mentioned in the Book on the Diversity of the World.
- In The Tale of Bygone Years the year is 1114.
In the mythology of the Middle Eastern peoples:
Search for Noah's Ark
Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat, the photo of which is presented in the form of a huge ship, refers to mysterious events. Humanity has a constant desire to reveal it. Search attempts began in the 4th century BC. They were subsequently repeated in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat. Photo of the proposed object. According to the Bible, there is an opinion that the ark landed at Ararat. However, here we can mean not a mountain, but a place in Assyria, which is called Urartu. Nevertheless, starting from the 4th century, the search for the ark has been carried out precisely on Mount Ararat. According to legend, the first attempts were made by Hakob Mtsbnetsi, who was the father of the Armenian Apostolic Church.
Legend has it that he made several attempts to climb, but regularly fell asleep along the way. After waking up, I again found myself at the foot of the mountain. This happened until an angel flew up to him and suggested that he give up his attempts. In return, he promised to deliver him a piece of the ark. The Holy Father agreed and received the relic, which is now kept in the Etchmiadzin Cathedral.
Subsequently, many attempts were made to find Noah's Ark. Often the results were positive, but did not provide evidence that would provide scientific confirmation of the event.
Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat
Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat, photographs of which are available from various angles in the Ron Wyatt Archaeological Museum, is believed to have been found in 1970. At least, this is what American Ronald Wyatt said after climbing Mount Ararat with a group of researchers. He was not an archaeologist by profession, but confidently relied on biblical texts.
At the height, a huge ship appeared to his eyes, preserved in lava, as if in a cocoon. Based on assumptions, its appearance from the bowels of the earth occurred after an earthquake, when hardened lava was ejected.
It was not possible to excavate the vessel, so the research was carried out using instruments. According to the American, the body is made of laminated wood. As a result of exposure to the external environment, the ship was severely damaged.
The anchor stone with the hole is clearly visible. He is very large sizes. His task was to hold the ship while it was parked.
This place is the territory of Turkey, and it officially recognized the location of Noah's Ark. Nowadays the same name is built here national park. There are different opinions regarding the reliability of the facts. Some researchers argue that this is simply a natural formation.
From the expedition, Ron brought with him a piece of petrified wood for the purpose of analyzing it. The main goal was to obtain information about the presence of organic carbon, which is absent in ordinary stone.
Its amount was 0.7019%. This meant that wood used to be living matter. The material from which the ship was made caused a lot of controversy. According to the texts of the Bible, this should have been a gopher tree.
Scientists give different arguments here:
Ron also brought the remains of rivets. Apparently they were used to fasten wooden beams together. After analyzing them, it turned out that the area of the rivet head pressed against the wood is 1 cm. It turns out that even in those days metal was used for construction.
Expeditions
Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat has constantly interested researchers. Photos of this ship, allegedly seen by someone, often appeared in publications. This led to the organization of a number of expeditions in search of the ancient ship.
| Year | Description of the expedition |
| 1829 | Despite the ban on climbing Mount Ararat in search of the ark, the Frenchman Friedrich Parrot still did it. The results were negative, however, he put the name new science"ark" |
| 1856 | The search included 3 foreigners, whose names remained unknown. After their ascent to Mount Ararat, they said, the ark was found. They had a desire to destroy it, but this turned out to be beyond their power due to the massiveness of the structure. Then they promised not to tell anyone about it. However, before his death, one of the participants still told the story of this expedition |
| 1876 | Having risen to a height of 4.3 km, Lord Bryce found a huge piece of processed log in this place. Its length was 1.3 m |
| 1893 | The ascent was made by Archdeacon of the Nestorian Church Nurri. According to him, the ark was found and measured by him. All parameters corresponded to the text of the Bible. The boards were dark brown and very thick. Returning to America, he organized a collection of donations to bring the ark to Chicago. However, this was prevented by the Turkish authorities |
| 1916 | The reason for 2 expeditions organized by the tsarist government was the news of the Russian pilot Roskovitsky, who flew over Ararat and saw the outline of a huge ship there. The first group consisted of 15 people, and the second numbered up to 100. They found the remains of the ship and compiled a report. For unknown reasons, it was later lost. |
| 1949 | Dr. Smith's Expedition. By this time he was no longer a missionary from North Carolina. He went there together with 3 companions. The reason for organizing the trip was the doctor’s vision. Enthusiasts raised funds and the ascent began. The result was unsuccessful; the ark was not found. |
| 1955 | The leader of the expedition was John Libby, who saw the exact contours of the ship in a dream. A group of 2 people climbed Mount Ararat, but to no avail |
| 1969 | The expedition was organized by the Frenchman Fernand Navarre. He climbed Mount Ararat with his son. The result was the discovery of a meter-long ship frame. Research in Madrid and Cairo showed that the wood had been in storage for more than 5,000 years. |
| 2009 | At the beginning of the 20th century, Türkiye lifted the ban on conducting research expeditions on Mount Ararat. Representatives of Cosmopoisk immediately took advantage of this and organized an expedition. It consisted of 4 people. Failure awaited them. While climbing Mount Ararat, they actually saw the outline of a ship in the distance. However, having reached the right place, it turned out that nature had so skillfully laid out the outline of the ship from stones. |
| 2010 | An official international expedition was formed. It consisted of 15 people. These were Turkish and Japanese scientists. The report says that a wooden structure was found, rising above the ground by at least 5 m. According to scientists, they got inside the find and took not only photographs, but also video footage. However, no evidence was obtained that it was Noah's ark. |
In all subsequent years, ascents were made with varying success. Each new find refuted the previous version or was not objective enough, since it did not have irrefutable evidence.
Opponents of the history of the existence of the ark and why this denial benefits them
Opponents of the search for Noah's Ark include those who believe that this should not be done. If you rely on the chronicles, you can see that after finding him, the end of the world will immediately come. Supporters of such a theory exist in modern times - mostly it is deeply religious people, who do not believe that ancient chronicles need to be confirmed with anything at all.
For Armenian believers, Mount Ararat is a sacred place. In their opinion, conducting searches in such a place is blasphemy, therefore it is forbidden to climb the shrine.
Facts in favor of the reality of history
There are many myths surrounding the existence of Noah's Ark.
However, if you look at it objectively, you can make arguments in favor of the reality of such a theory:
Assumptions and their justifications
There are different opinions about the existence of Noah's Ark.
The theory is based on assumptions and attempts to substantiate them:
Obvious speculation without reasonable confirmation
The story surrounding Noah's Ark raises doubts among skeptics.
They consist of the following:
- The remains of a ship found on Mount Ararat look fossilized. This must have happened as a result of prolonged contact of wood with rock. At the same time, the decaying organic matter was replaced by minerals. However, analysis showed that such a fossil turns the material into quartz, which is hard like diamond. The samples under study do not have such properties.
- Studying the wake of the ship's movement along the mountainside, scientists They came to the conclusion that this is an ordinary fold from a sliding glacier. Since this phenomenon occurs often, the hull of the ship would now be not on the slope of the mountain, but at its foot.
- The flood also raises doubts. Such a cataclysm should have left a deep mark on nature. Geological studies have not found this confirmation.
Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat, or rather the almost ideal shape of the vessel, remaining after many thousands of years in the place indicated in the Bible, really confirms the likelihood of its existence.
Despite the presence of photographs demonstrating this and the availability of fossilized wood, metal rivets and boulders with carved holes for ropes that served as anchors, as well as other evidence from many expeditions, there are many skeptics of this theory today.
This is due to the fact that all the collected facts are not conclusive evidence to support this statement. historical event. As for believers, they do not need any evidence, because the Bible does not raise doubts in them.
Article format: Lozinsky Oleg
Video about Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat
Noah's Ark. What kind of object is located on Mount Ararat:
We present to your attention a selection of ten interesting facts about Noah's Ark, the Flood and the parallels of this story in the book of Genesis with the events of the New Testament:
1. The most complete history of the Flood is set out in the book of Genesis
It says that the flood was the Lord's retribution for the moral failure of mankind, to which God gave him a second chance through the salvation of the pious Noah and his family. Previously, the Lord shortened the days of people's lives to 120 years (the first people lived almost a thousand).
Noah was instructed to build an Ark and take on it two of every unclean animal and seven of each type of clean animal.
By the time work began on the construction of the ark, Noah was 500 years old and already had three sons. After the construction of the ark, before the flood, Noah was 600 years old. The time from God's announcement of the flood to the completion of the construction of the ark, according to the theological interpretation of Genesis 6:3, was 120 years.
Before the flood, Noah tried to preach repentance to other people, but they did not listen to him. As a result, all of humanity except Noah and his family perished, and Noah, after spending a long time sailing, was saved and immediately offered a thanksgiving sacrifice to God.
2. Dimensions and materials
In the Book of Genesis, God not only gives instructions on the construction of the Ark, but also gives precise instructions regarding its dimensions and construction materials.
The ark was assembled from gopher wood - “resinous wood”. According to modern interpreters, they meant all coniferous trees that resist rot well: spruce, pine. cypress, cedar, larch and others.
Numbers in the Bible are given in cubits. This measure of length varies in the number systems of different countries; the Jews of the Second Temple period defined it as 48 centimeters. Thus, the approximate dimensions of the Ark can be calculated.
According to the Bible, the Ark was 300 cubits long, 50 wide and 30 high. Converted to the metric system, it is approximately 144 meters long, 24 meters wide and 8.5 meters high.
Students from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Leicester (UK) carried out calculations and calculated that a ship of this size could support the weight of 70,000 animals.
At the same time, the ark had completely modern system ship unsinkability (survivability) with bulkheads and decks: “ make compartments in the ark and coat it with pitch inside and outside... build in it the lower, second and third [dwellings].”
3. How long did the ark last on the voyage?
150 days or five months (or 190 if the 40 days of rain were counted separately). It rained for the first forty days, and the rest of the time the water continued to rise. On the 150th day the ark ended up on the “Ararat Mountains”.
If we add another week of waiting before the rains start and the time until the land completely dries out (133 days), then in total Noah with his family and animals spent 290 days (or 330) in the ark, i.e. a little less than a year.
4. Archaeological data
During excavations, archaeologists deal with stratigraphite - i.e. a description of the so-called “cultural layers” of soil they found.
During excavations of many ancient cities, such as Ur, Kish, Nineveh, Shurrupak and Eridu in Mesopotamia, as well as in other places, a huge (up to 3 meters thick) gap was discovered between the more modern cultural layers and the antediluvian ones, consisting of silt, gyne and sand, indicating a global catastrophe involving water.
5. Geological data
As a hypothesis for what happened, geologists propose a shift of lithospheric plates and, as a consequence, a rise in the waters of the world’s oceans, which is confirmed by the biblical text, which speaks not only about rain. but also “the sources of the great deep.”
This is confirmed by finds in the form of ancient marine organisms high in the mountains or, conversely, mountain and lowland animals on continental shelves.
Coal and oil also support the flood theory, because... modern data indicate the almost instantaneous conservation in ancient times of a huge number of forests, which became the above-mentioned minerals, which could only happen during a global catastrophe. In addition, many ancient fossils are also found in coal deposits. marine animals.
Finally, animal fossils, which are found in abundance all over the world, indicate that they almost instantly fell into airless soil pockets, where bacteria could not process the remains in a timely manner...
6. Evidence from historians
Ancient historians, such as Berossus of Babylon (350-280 BC), Nicholas of Damascus (64 BC - early 1st century AD), Josephus (37-101 AD). according to R. Chr.). as well as the Assyrian Cuneiform Library, fully or partially confirm biblical story about the flood.
7. Myths of other nations also speak about him...
The Flood and Noah's Ark are mentioned not only in the canonical books of the Bible, but also in the later apocrypha. For example, in the Book of Enoch. The story of the flood can be found in other books, in the Jewish Haggadah and in Midrash Tanchuma.
The Sumerian myth of Ziusudra and the legend of Nuha from the Koran also echo the biblical narrative, as do the legends of tribes in India, Africa, Australia, North and South America and Europe:
In India, legends about the flood date back to the 6th century BC. and are contained in the religious work of Satapatha Brahman. Indian Noah - Manu, warned about the flood, builds a ship on which he manages to escape. Immediately after the end of the disaster, Manu makes a sacrifice to the gods for his salvation.
The Bhil tribe, living in the jungles of Central India, also talks about the flood; Rama (Noah), who escaped the flood, appears in their story.
According to the legend of the Australian aborigines, many centuries ago a flood hit the earth, in which all but a few people died
Flood legends are common among the Bapedi tribe in South Africa, and among a number of tribes in East Africa. In their legends, a certain Tumbainot, the African Noah, was famous for his piety. Therefore, when the gods decided to destroy the sinful world with a flood, they informed him of their intention in advance. They also ordered him to build a ship on which he, his family, and representatives of the entire animal world were to be saved. The flood raged for a long time. Several times Tumbanot released either a dove or a hawk to find out about his end. When the water subsided, he saw a rainbow, signifying the end of God's wrath.
The Indian tribes of the Kaingang, Curruaya, Paumari, Abederi, Catauchi (Brazil), Araucan (Chile), Murato (Ecuador), Macu and Akkawai (Guiana), Incas (Peru), Chiriguano (Bolivia) tell stories about the flood that are almost identical to the Biblical.
In the Mexican province of Michoacan, the legend of the flood has also been preserved. According to the natives, at the beginning of the flood, a certain man named Teuni with his wife and children boarded a large ship, taking with them animals and seeds of various plants in sufficient quantities to re-supply the earth with them after the flood. When the water subsided, the man released the hawk, the bird flew away... finally he released the hummingbird, and the bird returned with a green branch in its beak.
The Montagnais, Cherokees, Pima, Delaware, Solto, Tinne, Papago, Akagchemey, Luiseño, Cree, and Mandan tribes also tell of a flood in which one man was saved by sailing to a mountain in the west by boat. The Mandans had an annual holiday with a special ritual in memory of the end of the flood. The ceremony was timed to coincide with the time when the willow leaves on the river banks fully bloomed, because “the branch brought by the bird was willow.”
The tales of the flood are recorded in the Prose Edda, the epic monument of the ancient Irish, by the poet Snorri Sturluson. During the disaster, only Bergelmir with his wife and children escaped by boarding the ark. Similar legends are preserved among the inhabitants of Wales, Friesland and Scandinavia.
8. Where is the ark now?
The Bible says: “And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat” (Gen. 8:4).
Currently, one of the main places where, according to seekers, the ark rests is the Ararat anomaly. The anomaly is an object of unknown nature protruding from the snow on the northwestern slope of Mount Ararat, 2200 meters from the peak. Scientists with access to the images attribute the formation to natural causes. Research on site is difficult because the area, located near the Armenian-Turkish border, is a closed military zone.
Another potential location for the ark is Tendyurek, an area about 30 kilometers south of Ararat. In 1957, the American Life magazine published photographs taken in the area from an airplane. Turkish army captain Ilham Durupinar, looking through aerial photographs, discovered interesting formations that were shaped like a ship, and sent them to the magazine. The article caught the eye of Ron Wyatt, an American anesthesiologist, who decided to study this phenomenon. After several expeditions, he came to the conclusion that this education- nothing more than Noah's Ark. As with the Ararat Anomaly, professional archaeologists do not take these claims seriously.
In the Biblical Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Ephron, in the article “Ararat” it is written that nothing indicates that Noah’s ark landed specifically on the modern Mount Ararat and it is indicated that “Ararat is the name of an area in the north of Assyria (2 Kings 19:37; Isa 37 :38), presumably referring to Urartu, mentioned in cuneiform texts, an ancient country near Lake Van.”
Modern researchers are also inclined to the version that the Bible refers to Urartu. Soviet orientalist Ilya Shifman wrote that the vocalization “Ararat” was first attested in the Septuagint, a translation of the Old Testament into Greek from the 3rd-2nd centuries BC. In the Qumran scrolls the spelling “wrrt” is found, suggesting the vowel “Urarat”.
9. Armenians have their own piece of the ark, brought by an angel
According to legend, one of the holy fathers of the Armenian Church, Hakob Mtsbnetsi, made attempts to climb Ararat back in the 4th century, but every time he fell asleep along the way and woke up at the foot of the mountain. After another attempt, an angel appeared to Hakob and told him to stop searching for the ark, in return for which he promised to bring a fragment of the relic. A piece of Noah's Ark given to Saint Hakob is still in the Etchmiadzin Cathedral.
10. Rainbow - as a symbol of the covenant
After the flood, God promised never again to destroy the human race through it and blessed Noah, his descendants and everything on earth. As a sign of his promise, God gave people such an atmospheric phenomenon as a rainbow - a symbol of his Covenant with people.
“And God said, This is the sign of the covenant that I make between Me and you and every living soul that is with you, throughout all generations forever: I have set My rainbow in the cloud, that it may be a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth.” Gen. 9:12-13).
Andrey Szegeda
In contact with
Many people are interested in the question “How many years did it take Noah to build the ark?” Let's try to figure it out. Many believe that it took 120 years to build this structure. This term is taken from chapter 6 of the Bible, which details the construction of the ark and the story of Noah.
Who is Noah and why did he build his ark?
Noah is one of the direct descendants of Adam. When he started building his structure, he was 500 years old. He had 3 sons - Shem, Ham and Japheth. They were all the same age. Scientists agree that he did not want to have children because he knew that the end of the world would come. But still, by the command of the Lord, he was forced to marry.
It was Noah who was the only one who led a righteous life and received alms from the Lord. He was chosen by the Almighty so that after the flood life would be reborn in the world.
The Lord God believed that people were mired in their sins. The punishment for people was to be their complete destruction. He brought down a lot of water on the ground. All living things disappeared under its waves.
Only Noah's family remained alive. This grace was sent to him by God in the form of the so-called instructions:
- God explained to Noah in detail how to build the ark so that it would not go under water or leak.
- He told me what to take with me on the ship in order to survive and not die of hunger.
- He ordered to take with him his wife and sons with their wives, as well as a pair of each creature.
Of course, the Lord God could have helped Noah, and he would have built the ark in just a few days. But still, the Almighty hoped that people would come to their senses and come to ask for forgiveness for their sins. Then he would have left life on earth with his mercy. However, sinners were in no hurry to go to repent.
Noah also warned them about the coming end of the world. He planted trees that were later used as material for the ship. All the preparation and construction lasted for 120 long years, and not a single living soul listened to the advice and turned to God.
The flood lasted for more than a month. Only after 40 days did the ark surface. There was so much water that only the tops of sunken mountains protruded from it. It was impossible for any living creature to escape.
The water remained for 150 days, then began to decrease. The Ark washed up on Mount Ararat. But only 9 months later, Noah noticed the tops of the mountains, and only 40 days later he sent the raven free, but he returned without finding dry land. Three more times he released the dove, and only on the 3rd time the bird did not return. This means that it was now possible to go ashore.
After such an end of the world, only Noah’s family remained alive on earth. So that the Lord would no longer punish his descendants, Noah brought sacrificial gifts. And the Almighty promised that he would never again punish people with complete extermination. He blessed every living thing on this earth and made an agreement with Noah. The symbol of this is the rainbow, which appeared as a sign that water will no longer be able to destroy humanity.
It was necessary to start new life. Noah's main occupation was farming. He planted many vineyards and made the first wine.
This is where another legend comes from. One day, Noah, drunk on wine, lay naked in a tent. When Ham saw this, he laughed at his father and told his brothers about everything. But they hid their father and condemned their brother. Noah cursed the entire family of Ham.
After the flood, Noah worked for another 350 years and died when he was 950 years old.
Noah gave birth to life to all the peoples who live on Earth. These are the descendants of his sons: Ham, Japheth and Shem. It was Noah's righteous and godly life that contributed to the way you and I live. 
Now you know the answer to the question “How many years did Noah take to build his ark?” The Lord gave a lot of time for people to come to their senses and stop committing sinful acts. For 120 years, people laughed and mocked the man who was destined to become the forefather of modern humanity.
, Gen. 6 - 9.
According to the Bible, in those days there was a great moral decline of man:
But in those days there lived a man who was righteous and blameless in his generation, pleasing to the Lord, and his name was Noah.
Noah did everything as God commanded him. At the end of the construction, God told Noah to enter the ark with his sons and his wife, and with his sons’ wives, and also bring two of every animal into the ark so that they would survive. And take for yourself all the food that you need for yourself and for the animals. After which the ark was closed by God.
After seven days (in the second month, on the seventeenth day) rain fell on the earth, and the flood continued on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and the waters increased, and the ark was lifted up, and it rose above the earth and floated on the surface of the waters. " And the waters on the earth increased exceedingly, so that they were all covered high mountains, which are under the whole sky"(Genesis 7:19) And every creature that was on the surface of the earth lost its life, only Noah remained and what was with him in the ark.
The water increased on the earth for one hundred and fifty days, after which it began to subside. " And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat. The water continually decreased until the tenth month; on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains appeared."(Gen. 8:4,5)
By the first day of the next year the water on earth had dried up; and Noah opened the roof of the ark, and in the second month, by the twenty-seventh day, the earth was dry.
Shape and dimensions of the ark
The main source for the description of Noah's Ark is Genesis. 6:14-16.
The unit of measurement in the Bible for Noah's Ark is the cubit. 1 royal Egyptian cubit = 52.375 cm.
God ordered the length of the ark to be 300 cubits (157 m); the width is 50 cubits (26 m) and the height is 30 cubits (15 m). He also commanded Noah to make a hole in the ark, and to bring it down to a cubit (52 cm) at the top, and to make a door into the ark on the side; arrange three departments in it. These compartments had to be located one above the other. The ark itself should have been made from gopher wood and tarred with resin and its compartments inside and out. Nothing more is said about the structure of the ark.
Duration of construction of the ark
At the age of 500, Noah gave birth to three sons: Shem, Ham and Jophet. By the time construction was completed, Noah was 600 years old. The Bible is silent about when exactly Noah began work on the ark, but the sixth chapter of Genesis, describing the command to build the Ark, follows the 500th anniversary of Noah Gen. 5:32.
According to the hypothesis according to which the biblical year is understood moon month, the ark took approximately 100*29.5/365.25=8.08 years to build. Dutchman Joan Hubers built a five times smaller reproduction of Noah's Ark in 2 years. This hypothesis is refuted by some biblical scholars on the grounds that if the biblical year is understood as a lunar month, some of Noah's ancestors must have given birth to their children in childhood. If we accept the point of view of some biblical scholars, then the end of the world already happened about 300 years ago.
Search for Noah's Ark
In 275 BC. e. the Babylonian historian Berossus mentioned the ship on Ararat.
From about the beginning of the 4th century, attempts were made from time to time to find the remains of Noah's Ark in the area of Mount Ararat - where, according to the Bible, the ark landed on the ground after the end of the flood. Several expeditions visited the area in the 19th and 20th centuries, and although none of them discovered the ark, many of the explorers claimed to have seen something identified as its remains.
At the end of the 15th century, the famous traveler Marco Polo wrote that “the remains of the ark are still visible on the top of Ararat.”
In 1887, Prince of Persia and Archbishop John Joseph Nuri reported that he had found the remains of the ark on Ararat. Six years later, he tried to organize an expedition to dismantle the ark and take it to the World's Fair in Chicago. But he did not receive permission to do this from the Turkish government.
There is a popular story in the Russian-language press about a Russian military pilot, Lieutenant Vladimir Roskovitsky, who emigrated to America, who during the First World War in 1916, flying over the city of Ararat, saw the skeleton and assumed that it was Noah’s Ark. The pilot sketched what he saw and wrote a report. A year later, the air force Russian Empire allegedly sent an expedition of 150 people with Roskovitsky to the city of Ararat, which found the Ark and took many photographs of the Ark, but because of the revolution of 1917, the report supposedly got to Trotsky, who destroyed it (a photograph of “part of the Ark” in the form of a large almost rectangular box, according to the publishers, made by the Roskovitsky expedition). No documentary evidence of the find, as well as the existence of a pilot with that name, was found, except for an article by the pilot’s son in the magazine “Technology for Youth”.
Photo of Durupinar taken by a Turkish pilot in 1957.
Expedition photograph by Ron Wyatt
Currently, one of the main places where, according to seekers, the ark rests is the Ararat Anomaly. The anomaly is an object of unknown nature protruding from the snow on the northwestern slope of Mount Ararat, 2200 meters from the peak. Scientists with access to the images attribute the formation to natural causes. Research on site is difficult because the area, located near the Armenian-Turkish border, is a military closed zone and access is limited.
Another potential location for the ark is Durupinar, an area about 30 kilometers south of Ararat. In the city, the American Life magazine published photographs taken in this area from an airplane. Turkish army captain Lihan Durupinar, looking through aerial photographs, discovered interesting formations that were shaped like a ship, and sent them to the magazine. The article caught the eye of Ron Wyatt, an American anesthesiologist, who decided to study this phenomenon. After several expeditions, I came to the conclusion that this formation is nothing more than Noah’s Ark. As with the Ararat Anomaly, some archaeologists do not take these claims seriously, although no other large-scale archaeological research has been carried out in the area. In 1987, together with the district administration, a small tourist center was built in this place.
There are several other areas that various organizations involved in the search for the ark consider it to be a potential location. Thus, the Bible Archeology Search and Exploration Institute (BASE), a fundamentalist American organization, believes that the remains of the ark should be looked for in Iran. The expedition to the Elborz Mountains, equipped with her in July 2006, upon return, stated that she saw an object at an altitude of about 4500 meters, the dimensions of which coincided with those indicated in the Bible. None of the expedition members are professional geologist or archaeologist.
In literature
See also Noah- Kobo Abe. "Ark "Sakura"".(1984) A novel about the earth after a nuclear war.
- Vladimir Mayakovsky, "Mystery-buff." The Ark is one of the settings, along with heaven, hell and the promised land.
- Gerald Durrell. "New Noah", "Overloaded Ark", "Ark on the Island". A famous naturalist uses the name of the patriarch and the theme of the ark for the titles of books about collecting animals.
In painting
Notes and sources
Links
- Article " Noah's Ark» in the Electronic Jewish Encyclopedia
| Noah's story | ||
|---|---|---|
| Characters | Noah | |
| Events | Flood | Covenant with Humanity | Settlement of peoples | |
| Basic Concepts | Noah's Ark| Ararat | Dove of Peace | Seven laws of the descendants of Noah | "Sons of Noah" | |
| In different sources | Nuh | |
| Children of Noah | Sim | Japheth | Ham | |
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
See what "Noah's Ark" is in other dictionaries:
A genus of shell in the Mediterranean Sea. Explanation 25000 foreign words, which came into use in the Russian language, with the meaning of their roots. Mikhelson A.D., 1865. NOAH'S ARK A genus of shell in the Mediterranean Sea. Dictionary of foreign words included in... ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language
