Genesis flood narrative facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

The Genesis flood story (found in chapters 6–9 of the Book of Genesis) is an ancient tale about a great flood. It describes how God decided to return the world to a state of watery chaos. Then, God planned to remake the world using Noah's ark as a starting point.

This story is part of the Book of Genesis. Scholars believe it was written around the 5th century BCE. Some think the first 11 chapters, including the flood story, might have been added later, around the 3rd century BCE. The story combines details from two main sources. Even though some details seem to contradict each other, the story forms a complete whole.

A worldwide flood like the one described in this story does not match what scientists have found. This includes findings from geology (study of Earth's physical structure), archeology (study of human history through digging up sites), and paleontology (study of fossils). It also doesn't match the way different animal species are spread around the world. Some people who believe in creationism try to argue that a global flood really happened. This idea is called flood geology, but it is considered a pseudoscientific attempt. Other Christians believe the story describes a local flood instead of a global one. Still others see the story as an allegory, meaning it's a symbolic story with a deeper meaning, not a historical event.

What Happens in the Genesis Flood Story?
How the Story Was Written
Similar Flood Stories in Other Cultures
Understanding the Flood's Timeline
The Flood and Creation
Later Interpretations of the Flood Story
Is the Flood Story Historical?
- Flood Geology and Science
- How Animals Spread After the Flood
See also

What Happens in the Genesis Flood Story?

The flood story is in chapters 6–9 of Genesis, the Bible's first book. After ten generations from Adam, God saw that the Earth was full of violence. He decided to destroy everything he had created. But God found one good man named Noah. God told Noah his plan: "I am about to bring on the Flood... to eliminate everywhere all flesh in which there is the breath of life..."

So, God told Noah to build an ark, which is like a large chest or box. Noah entered the Ark when he was 600 years old. On the 17th day of the second month of that year, "the fountains of the Great Deep burst apart and the floodgates of heaven broke open." Rain fell for 40 days and 40 nights. The highest mountains were covered by 15 cubits of water. All life died except Noah and those with him in the Ark.

After 150 days, "God remembered Noah... and the waters subsided." The Ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. On the 27th day of the second month of Noah's 601st year, the Earth was dry. Then Noah built an altar and made a sacrifice. God made a promise to Noah. He said that people could eat every living thing but not its blood. God also promised never again to destroy all life by a flood.

How the Story Was Written

Building the Ark (watercolor c. 1896–1902 by James Tissot)

Most modern scholars agree that Genesis was written around the 5th century BCE. However, the first eleven chapters, often called primeval history, seem different from the rest of the book. Some scholars think this part might have been written later, around the 3rd century BCE.

Experts generally believe the story uses two main sources. One is called the Priestly source, and the other is the non-Priestly or Yahwist source. You can see these different sources because the final story has "doublets," which are repetitions. Many of these repetitions contradict each other. For example, how long did the flood last? Some parts say 40 days (Genesis 7:17), while others say 150 days (KJV). How many animals went on the ark? Some verses say one pair of each (KJV). Others say one pair of unclean animals and seven pairs of clean animals (KJV). Did Noah release a raven or a dove, or both?

Despite these differences, the story feels like a complete whole. Some scholars even see a special literary structure called a "chiasm" in it. In a chiasm, the first part matches the last, the second matches the second-to-last, and so on. Many attempts have been made to explain how this unity came about. Some scholars have even questioned if the story truly comes from two different sources. They note that some "doublets" are not really contradictions. They also point out that the way the sources were combined seems inconsistent. The complete Genesis flood story also matches the parallel Gilgamesh flood story in a way that neither of the proposed biblical sources does alone.

Understanding the Flood's Timeline

1896 illustration of the symbol of the rainbow, which God created as a sign of the covenant

Numbers in the Bible often have special or symbolic meanings. For example, the 40 days and nights of rain show a complete cycle.

The flood starts on the 17th day of the second month. At this time, "the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened." After 40 days, the ark floats (Genesis 7:11–12). The waters rise and then go down. On the 17th day of the seventh month, the ark rests on the mountains (Genesis 8:4). The waters keep falling. The ark is uncovered on the 1st day of the 1st month of Noah's 601st year. It is opened on the 27th day of his 601st year (Genesis 8:13–14).

The time from the flood's start to the ark landing is five months (from the second month to the seventh, Genesis 7:11 and 8:4) and 150 days (8:3). This makes five months of 30 days each, which is a symbolic number. It is based on the Babylonian calendar of 360 days (12 months of 30 days each). This means the flood lasts 36 weeks by the flood calendar. The number 36 (6x6) symbolizes destruction. The number 7 (days in a week) represents creation continuing during this time.

Scholars have wondered why the flood lasted one year and eleven days (from day 17 of year 600 to day 27 of year 601). One idea is that the basic calendar was a lunar one of 354 days. Eleven days were added to match a solar year of 365 days.

The original story from the Yahwist source was simpler. It described a week of rain followed by a 40-day flood. The water took only a week to go down. This set the stage for God's promise to Noah. The Priestly source added more dramatic details. It included a 150-day flood that came from the heavens and earth. It took ten months to stop. The Yahwist source shows God as more unpredictable. The Priestly source shows God as majestic and powerful.

The Flood and Creation

The early history in Genesis is mostly about the world God made. It covers its beginnings, its people, its purpose, and its problems. It asks why the world God made is not perfect and what human violence means. The answers involve ideas like promises (covenant), rules (law), and forgiveness. The Genesis creation narrative (Genesis 1–2) talks about God creating the world. God's regret is the reason for the flood story. In the Priestly source, the words "create" and "forgive" are used only for God's actions.

Biblical stories often refer to and reflect each other. For example, the word used for ark is the same word used for the basket that saved Moses. This suggests a connection between two stories of heroes chosen by God. Both are saved in a world threatened by water and chaos. The most important connection is that the flood reverses the Genesis creation narrative. The separation between the "waters above" and "waters below" the Earth is removed. The dry land is flooded, and most life is destroyed. Only Noah and those with him survive to follow God's command to "be fruitful and multiply."

The flood is like a reset and renewal of God's creation. In Genesis 1, God separates the "waters above the earth" from those below. This allows dry land to appear for living things. But in the flood story, the "windows of heaven" and "fountains of the deep" open. This returns the world to the watery chaos before creation. The order of events in the flood also mirrors creation. The flood first covers the Earth to the highest mountains. Then it destroys, in order, birds, cattle, beasts, "swarming creatures," and finally humans. (This is similar to the Babylonian flood story in the Epic of Gilgamesh. There, at the end of the rain, "all of mankind had returned to clay," the material they were made from.) The Ark itself is also seen as a small version of Solomon's Temple.

Later Interpretations of the Flood Story

Jewish Traditions

In Jewish folklore, the sins before the flood included speaking against God, using magic, and stopping new traders from making money. Children were also said to be able to talk and walk right after birth and fight with demons.

When the flood began, God made each raindrop pass through Gehenna (a place of punishment) for 40 days. This made the rain scald the skin of sinners.

Christianity

The Genesis flood story is part of the Old Testament in the Christian Bible. Jesus and his followers also taught about the Genesis flood story in the New Testament (Matthew 24:37–39, Luke 17:26–27, Peter%203:20;&version=NIV; 1 Peter 3:20, Peter%202:5;&version=NIV; 2 Peter 2:5, 2 Peter 3:6, Hebrews 11:7). Some Christian scholars suggest the flood shows salvation in Christ. The Ark was planned by God, and there was only one way to be saved: through the Ark's door. This is similar to believing there is only one way to salvation through Christ. Also, some scholars connect the Ark to Christ's resurrection (Peter%203:18–22;&version=NIV; 1 Peter 3:18–22). The waters buried the old world but raised Noah to a new life. Christian scholars also say that 1 Peter 3:18–22 shows the Genesis flood as a type (a symbol or foreshadowing) for Christian baptism.

Other Traditions

In 3rd-century Gnosticism, a group of beliefs, it was corrupt rulers called Archons who decided to flood the world. They wanted to get rid of most people. However, Noah was saved and told to build an ark. But when his wife Norea wanted to get on the ark, Noah tried to stop her. She used her divine power to blow on the ark, causing it to burn. Noah later built the ark a second time. When the Archons tried to capture Norea, she called out to God for help. An angel named Eleleth appeared and scared away the Archons. He told Norea that she was a divine child of the great spirit. A different Gnostic text, the Secret Book of John, says Noah hid in a bright cloud instead of an ark.

Mandaeism, a religion from the Middle East, teaches that Noah's flood was the last of three times the world's population was reduced to one family. Noah and his family were saved because they built an ark or kawila.

The story of Noah and the Great Flood is also told in the Qur'an, the holy book of Islam, in the surah (chapter) Nūḥ.

Is the Flood Story Historical?

Academic scholars and researchers generally think the story, as it is now, is exaggerated or unlikely to be a literal historical event. The story describes either a severe genetic bottleneck (where a population shrinks greatly) or the start of a founder effect (where a new population comes from a small group of ancestors). There is no scientific evidence of such a severe genetic bottleneck for humans or other animals around 7,000 years ago. However, if the flood story came from a more local event, it might describe a founder effect among one group of humans. Ideas like the Black Sea deluge hypothesis might explain some historical basis for the flood narrative.

Local, huge floods have left signs in the Earth's geological record. For example, the Channeled Scablands in Washington state were formed by a series of massive floods. These floods happened when glacial dams broke. The last one is thought to have occurred between 18,200 and 14,000 years ago.

Another geological feature believed to be formed by massive flooding is the Tsangpo Gorge in Tibet. Like the Channeled Scablands, breakthroughs of glacial ice dams are thought to have released huge, sudden amounts of water to form the gorge. This happened sometime between 600 and 900 AD.

Some also connect climate change from the Piora Oscillation with the biblical flood myth. This climate change led to the collapse of the Uruk period in ancient Mesopotamia.

Scientists also understand that several glacial lake outburst floods from the Altai Mountains caused huge flooding along the Katun River (in present-day Altai Republic). This happened sometime between 12000 BC and 9000 BC. The gravel in the Katun valley shows signs of being deposited directly after being suspended in a fast, turbulent flow of water.

In 2020, archaeologists found evidence of a tsunami that destroyed coastal settlements in Tel Dor, Israel. This happened during the middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period. The tsunami traveled between 3.5 to 1.5 km inland and was about 16 meters high. Recovery in the affected areas was slow. While this tsunami is not the biblical flood, it is believed to have contributed to flood myths found in many cultures.

Flood Geology and Science

Flood geology is a pseudoscience. It tries to explain Earth's geological features by saying they were formed by a literal Genesis flood. This idea goes against many scientific principles and discoveries in geology, paleontology, and biology.

In the 19th century, scientists like William Buckland first thought some geological features were "relics of the flood." But by 1830, other geologists like Adam Sedgwick realized the evidence only suggested local floods. Later, Louis Agassiz explained these deposits as results of glaciation (ice ages).

By the late 19th century, scientists had calculated the age of the Earth to be millions of years old. Today, scientists have determined that Earth is about 4.54 billion years old. This long timeline does not fit with a recent global flood.

Most scientific fields rely on Charles Lyell's principle of uniformitarianism. This idea says that Earth's features are formed by mostly slow forces that we can see happening today. While uniformitarianism was once seen as opposite to the idea of sudden, huge events (catastrophism), scientists now accept that some catastrophic events can happen within an overall uniformitarian framework.

How Animals Spread After the Flood

By the 17th century, people who believed in the Genesis story faced a problem. Explorers found new lands like the New World (Americas). They also learned about the global distribution of species. This made it hard to explain how all life came from a single point on Mount Ararat after the flood. The simple answer was that humans spread across continents after the Tower of Babel and took animals with them. But some results seemed strange. In 1646, Sir Thomas Browne wondered why North American natives had rattlesnakes but no horses.

This question helped start the study of how plants and animals are spread geographically. This led to the field of biogeography in the 18th century. Natural historians began to connect climates with the animals and plants adapted to them. One idea was that Mount Ararat had different climate zones. As the climate changed, animals moved, eventually spreading to repopulate the globe.

There was also the problem of an ever-expanding number of known species. For earlier natural historians, it was easy to imagine all known animals fitting in the Ark. But less than a century later, new species were discovered. This made it harder to believe a literal interpretation of the Ark story. By the mid-18th century, only a few natural historians still accepted the story literally.