Flood, Noah's

The story of Noah's flood is found in Genesis chapter 6 but is also referred to elsewhere in the Bible. In the book of Genesis, Noah and his family board a giant boat (‘the ark') to survive an extensive, destructive flood that wipes out the rest of humanity. Noah's zoo-like ark is a tale many remember fondly from their childhood. Many throughout Christian history have - and still do believe - that the flood was a real event that engulfed the entire planet. This is often connected in our own time with a belief in young-earth creationism. The flood is understood to have wreaked havoc with the planet and caused drastic change in the geology of the earth (a way of accounting for scientific evidence that the earth is old).

Other Christians equally believe that the flood was a real event, but that it was a regional flood that took place only in the Middle East. Still others believe that the account of the flood was in fact a teaching story about God's relationship with humanity, modelled on other Middle-Eastern flood myths, but that it shouldn't be taken literally. Genesis 8.4 says that the ark came to rest upon the mountains of Ararat. Some Christians, guided by this verse, claim to have found the remains of Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat in Turkey. On the other hand, others argue that the verse refers to an entire mountain range rather than one specific location.