Episode 14: The Great Deep, part 2
There’s only one storm that wrapped around the entire planet. This is the story of the sailors who lived through it.
Quotes from the Bible were were taken from the English Standard Version (see ESV copyright here) or the New King James Version. For the other sources, including commentaries, websites, or articles, you can find links and references in the show notes below in the order they appeared. If you have any questions, there’s a place to contact me at the bottom of the page.
Show notes:
As mentioned in the show notes for Episode 12, commentaries differ on whether Noah and his family boarded the Ark at the start or end of the seven days before the Flood. This podcast assumes they boarded at the start of that week. Commentaries note that the start of the civil year, which predates the Jewish relgious year began at the autumn equinox (see comments on Genesis 7:11 here and here). Currently the autumn equinox falls about September 22 or 23 according to this article. If Noah’s year started on the same dates as the equinoxes we have today, and the Flood started on the seventeenth day of the second month (Genesis 7:11), then it began around November 9, meaning that Noah and his family boarded the Ark on November 2, but this is only a best guess. Genesis records the date and year when the Flood started, but doesn’t tell us how that aligns with the months on our calendars today. Due to the precession of the equinoxes, 6,000 years ago, the equinox would’ve been shifted by about 3 months, but the Gregorian calendar we use today keeps time according to the seasons, so we keep this shift from accumulating (see here). That said, I used the modern date of the equinox for building a timeline, ignoring any precession effects.
Genesis doesn’t say what family members Noah left behind when he boarded the Ark, but [Genesis 5:30] states that Noah had brothers and sisters, so they were either already dead, or left behind. We know nothing about the families of Noah’s wife or his daughters-in-law, but there’s every reason to think they had to leave behind even more family members when boarding the Ark.
For details on the construction of the Ark, see Episode 11 and Episode 12 and the show notes that go with them.
The word for “ark” used in Genesis is similar to the root word the Egyptians used to refer to a coffin. For details, see Kidner, D. (1967). Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary (Vol. 1, pp. 94–95). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
When you see Illustrations of the Ark, often there’s a ramp leading up to the door. This makes sense. A lot of large animals had to board the Ark and getting supplies up and into the ship for storing them down in the cargo hold would be lots easier with carts, wheels, and ramps than it would with stairs and ladders. At the same time, a rigid ramp structure would be a hazard once the Ark lifted off from its dry dock during the Flood. In those first moments, the waves might push it into the dock, risking damage to the side of the ship before the voyage was even underway. Considering these competing concerns, I wonder if a ramp would’ve been used for the greater part of construction, perhaps up through the loading of the animals, but then disassembled and and replaced with a simpler structure more akin to a ladder before Noah and his family boarded the vessel.
In Genesis 6:16 God tells Noah to put a door in the side of the Ark. We don’t know anything else about what the door was like, but based on what we know about ships, it’s reasonable to guess that the door entered near the top of the ship, probably above the waterline, in order to minimize the likelihood that water would want to leak in around the borders of it. Furthermore, the door would probably be close to either the bow or stern since the bending forces (hogging and sagging) on a ship would be greatest in the middle, and having an opening in the framing of the ship in that location would unncessarily weaken the structure.
For God closing the door of the Ark and sealing Noah and his family inside, see the show notes on Episode 12.
The source here suggests that a variety of plant oils were used for latern fuel as well as bees wax. It is also possible that Noah used an animal fat lantern.
Admittedly, I decided not to tackle the what-animals-were-on-the-Ark question. That subject is highly speculative and other people have already delved far deeper into it than I can. On the strength of their research, I accept that enough animals boarded the Ark to be the ancestors of the animals we see in the world today. If you want to tunnel into the specifics, this article has an overview.
We don’t know what windows there were in the top of the Ark, but even if Noah or his family had a way of looking out through them, the rain probably cut visibility to just a few feet. For more on the design of the Ark, see Episode 11.
For the emphasis of the power of the water, see the note on Genesis 7:17-19 by this author who suggests the reference is at first to the Ark floating, and then interprets the “increased exceedingly” comment to suggest that a strong current set in, forcing the Ark along with the flow. The note on Genesis 7:17-19, here also sees different stages of the Flood in these verses. See also Doukhan, J. B. (2016). Seventh-day Adventist International Bible Commentary (pg. 149). Pacific Press Publishing Association which notes that Genesis uses the word “prevail” which comes from a military background and gives you the idea that the water defeated the land.
While it is speculation to think the Ark was built at the top of a hill, it makes sense that you might try to build it there for reasons explained in Episodes 11 and 12. Even so, hilltops have their hazards including lightning that often strikes high points of land and landslides that would happen when saturated soil broke loose from the hill. We don’t know what Noah knew of these dangers, or if God gave him further instructions than the brief summary in Genesis 6:13-21, but there are some things a boat builder can do to manage the risk of a landslide and the concerns posed by lightning. First, regarding landslides, building at the top of a hill puts you above most of the danger. Then, rather than constructing the Ark on top of the soil, he probably dug down until he reached bedrock, if nothing else so the hull supports for the Ark would rest on a solid surface during construction. We don’t know that Noah did this, but if so it fits nicely with Christ’s command in Matthew 7:24-27 about building on the rock, in that case an analogy to believing in Christ. Regarding lightning strikes, while Noah probably didn’t know much about them aside from what God perhaps explained, he could have left a few trees surrounding the Ark specifically as sacrificial lightning rods, trees that would take the brunt of the energy and channel it away from the Ark. Trees are natures lightning rods (see here) and even if Noah didn’t leave trees around the Ark on purpose, any 300 foot redwood or other tall tree growing somewhat down the slope from the Ark would still tower above the 50 foot hull of the ship and help to shield it from the storm.
For the belief by Martin Luther that it took most or all of 40 days of rain before the Ark floated free, see paragraph starting, “For forty days the ark stood” here. The note on Genesis 7:17 in this commentary references a Jewish scholar who also thought the Ark didn’t float free for the first 40 days. If true, and despite Luther’s reference to “some plain,” if the Ark didn’t float on the water until the end of the 40 days of rain, it supports the idea that the Ark was built at some higher elevation that the rising waves took some time to reach.
For suggestions outside the Bible that the Flood of Genesis was a local, not global, event, see here as well as this article that connects the Flood story in Genesis to theories about how the Black Sea flooded.
For the suggestion from a commentary written 100 years ago that the global Flood is an exagerration and a physical impossibility, see note on Genesis 7:19, here. For the year the Genesis edition of that commentary was written, see here.
The Flood described in Genesis was not a local event. It covered the world. The story makes this clear in Genesis 7:19-20 where it says that the highest mountains were covered with water, a point recognized by one commentary in its note on Genesis 7:20. Even so, not all scholars accept that idea. The note on Genesis 7:19, here thinks a global flood is impossible and calls the description hyperbole since the authors cannot imagine how the Himalayas might’ve been under water. In the note on Genesis 7:19 in another commentary the author tries to get around that issue by suggesting that the Flood affected only the area of the Earth where men had inhabited, plus a margin further, and that the “high hills” refers to only the hills men knew about (an idea also echoed in the note on Genesis 7:17-19, here. If you investigate that idea, it does very little to limit the extent of the Flood. In the story, the Ark comes to rest on Mt. Ararat, a tall mountain, even today. Covering Mt. Ararat to a depth of 15 cubits still covers most of the world with water with only a section of the Himalayas and a few of the tallest peaks elsewhere in the world poking through the surface (an idea offered in part by the note in Genesis 7:14-24 in this commentary). If you want a visual idea of what would be covered if the Flood reached only to the summit of Mt. Ararat, you can put the elevation (found in meters here) into this map. One commentary offers the idea that the Ark only landed in the region of Ararat, not necessarily at the peak of the mountain, but it also mentions that the mountain ranges during the Flood were, perhaps, not as tall as they are today (see Kidner, D. (1967). Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 98-99). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.). This idea also comes out in this article which suggests that most creation researchers think the world before the Flood had only one continent with low hills surrounded by shallow seas. Geologists also think the world was, at one time, mostly submerged due to shallow seas and ocean ridges, as mentioned in this article (see also a later show note about Rodinia for making sense of super-continents). Taking that idea further, another article offers the theory that shallow oceans deepened at the end of the Flood helping to drain the water off of the continents we see today. One source (see note on Genesis 7:10 in this commentary proposes the idea that the continents sank, with the rain being only a minor part of the cause of global flooding, and this article suggests land surged upward at the end of the Flood. Another source disputes the idea the land would “sink” since the rock is too light, but supports the idea that the ocean floors moved up due to the lower density of hot magma creating shallower ocean basins that pushed water up on to the land (see the articles here and here). Altogether, you get a plausible mechanism of the ground between the land and sea leveling out to allow the water to flood the land and then shifting again so the water flowed off of the new continents and back into the ocean basins, but that is all an educated guess. Regardless of the mechanism, support for belief in a global Flood comes from the comment on Genesis 7:17, here, where John Calvin comments upon Moses’ insistence that the highest hills were covered by the Flood and says it removes any room to argue that only a portion of the world was under water. In fact, in the comment on Genesis 7:19, this author points out that, far from there being a shortage of water for the Flood, instead there was too much, because Genesis says God had to close up the windows of heaven and fountains of the deep, perhaps implying that the Flood would have gotten deeper or gone on longer if He hadn’t.
It is worth pointing out that Genesis is not the only reference to the Flood in the Bible. It comes up in the New Testament as well. In Matthew 24:37-39, Jesus refers to it and in 1 Peter 3:20 and 2 Peter 2:5, Peter emphasizes that only 8 people survived. While this technically leaves room to argue that it the Flood didn’t have to be global as long as everyone lived in the same limited geographical area, reasonable estimates of the population size before the Flood make it likely that people covered most or all of the Earth by the time the Flood came, requiring that the inundation cover the whole world as well. For more on the population estimates for the world before the Flood, see here for an overview, as well as the note on Genesis 7:19, here and the note on Genesis 7:21, here which give values ranging from 4 million to 80 billion.
Melting ice caps would, perhaps, contribute to the depth of the Flood, but only a little compared to the total depth needed. According to this source, the sea level would rise 216 feet if all the ice-caps in the world were to melt. This source suggests 230 feet.
I used the radius of the Earth (here) and the total water on Earth (here) to calculate how deep the global ocean would be if the world’s surface was smooth. Using those numbers, there could be mountains 1.6 miles tall coming up from the floor of the ocean during the Flood, and they would only just touch the surface.
For the idea that the Ark had a draft of 15 cubits, half its height, see note on Genesis 7:17 here, the note on Genesis 7:17-24, here, the comment here, and Kidner, D. (1967). Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 98). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. An alternative reason for the 15 cubit depth is given by the note on Genesis 7:20, here which says that the height of water above the hilltops was the depth required to drown even the tallest men and animals.
This article argues that the Ark could have been constructed with three keels which would’ve allowed Noah and his family to avoid use of hull supports when building the ship. In addition, it is suggested that these added keels, and other reinforcing on the top, would work to strengthen the ship against the bending forces it would face in the open ocean. I drew hull supports in the cover art for Episode 12, and mentioned them in this episode, but that is artistry rather than physics. On the face of it, the Answers in Genesis theory is plausible, though nothing precludes the use of hull supports other than the added labor of erecting them and the possible danger they posed to the hull of the Ark when the water reached the top of the hill and the ship began to float it free from them.
We don’t know the calendar Noah used, but there’s reason to suspect that the months were each 30 days long since Genesis 8:3-4 states that 150 days were exactly 5 months. If that’s the case, and the Flood started on November 9 (as speculated in an earlier show note), 40 days later would be December 18.
God told Noah in Genesis 7:4 that the rain would come down for 40 days and the story in Genesis verifies the accuracy of that statement in Genesis 7:12.
The main supernatural rain stopped after 40 days, but given the churned up state of the weather, I’d guess occasional squalls and storms still came along throughout the rest of the Flood much as storms still come on occasion today. For more, see the note on Genesis 8:2 in this commentary.
For modern cargo ships, the draft varies between half and 80% of the height of the ship (see pg. 14 here with 75% being the approximate value for the cargo the Ark was carrying, but this data probably applies to vessels with steel hulls. For wooden ships, the draft might be limited by water pressure. In any case, the fact that the Ark’s draft was a maximum of half its height (since the mountains were only covered by 15 cubits of water, half the height of the Ark), the increased freeboard (distance above the waterline to the top deck of the ship (see here) may have been because one would expect very large waves during the Flood and decreased freeboard would allow more of those waves to wash over the top of the ship. This trade-off can only go so far, though, as too much freeboard would make a ship more likely to capsize.
For waves striking the Queen Elizabeth, see pg 17, here.
For the record of the wave that struck the Eagle Island lighthouse in 1861, see here.
For details on the rogue wave that hit the Draupner oil platform, see paragraph beginning, “on January 1, 1995” here and here.
For a definition of rogue waves as at least twice the height of the waves around them, as well as a further description of them going against the wind and being formed from wave addition and focusing, see here. For satellites detecting rogue waves, see here. That site also includes data from the oil rig recording 466 rogue wave encounters in 12 years rather than one in 10,000 years. For a 95 foot wave striking the Queen Elizabeth II see here. For details about the Norwegian Dawn cruise ship rogue wave, see here and here. Other rogue wave details can be found here. For the comment that scientists still don’t understand rogue waves, see here as well as other research here. For possible mechanisms of rogue wave formation, see here.
For sustained storm winds as a cause of rogue waves, see here.
The comment that the Ark would want to take the waves end-on rather than from the side, and possible structures to allowit to do that, are mentioned in this article from people who made a life-size version. We don’t know if the Ark did incorporate these features, but it may have used something to keep it oriented in the heavy seas. Pg. 52 here argues that ships try to take big waves at an angle, neither head-on or breaking on the side of the ship.
For the average wave height and chances of larger waves hitting a ship during the duration of a storm at sea, see here.
For the stormy names of the ocean latitudes, see here and here.
For details on rogue holes, see here which defines them as an inverted version of a wave, and thus about twice as deep or more than the surrounding valleys between waves. There are also some example stories of rogue holes on pg. 17, here.
For background on the “Three Sisters” phenomenon, see pg. 50 here. For the formation of a string of large waves called the “Three Sisters,” see here and here. For the reference to the use of the term “Glorious Three” in France, see pg. 51 here. For research evidence supporting the existence of “Three Sisters” waves, see here.
For comments from pilots during the Battle of Britain, see here starting with paragraph beginning, “pilots became familiar with”.
I didn’t spend much time researching the logistics of running a floating zoo. There are a lot of unknowns there including how many animals got on the Ark (it depends on how many families today’s species descended from), what types of animals are included, and whether the animals were active the whole time, hibernating, or something in-between. All I can say with some confidence is that Genesis 6:21 records God telling Noah to bring food on to the Ark for the animals as well as the humans, so there was some amount of animal tending required. In the note on Genesis 7:13-16 in one commentary, they suggested that the animals became calm and mild during their time aboard, but that is conjecture. For other sources that have spent much more time and effort looking into the number and logistics of the animals on the Ark, see here.
There are a lot of things that could’ve contributed to the dampness aboard the Ark, even if there weren’t active leaks. First, some rain or spray could possibly wash in through the vent windows toward the top of the ship. Second, people sweat and breathe out water vapor while some animals pant to cool themselves down (see here). While we can guess at the amount of water vapor the eight people might produce during a day aboard the Ark (see here), not knowing either the number of animals, the type, or whether those animals were active or in some form of hibernation, it’s difficult to guess at how much total vapor there might’ve been in the air or how much perspiration contributed. Even with those uncertainties, with a global Flood, I’d guess the ambient humidity was high which would lead to easy condensation of any moisture and thus, a damp interior to the Ark. Regarding the bilges, water probably collected in the hold of the Ark just as water does in bilges on ships today. This does not imply that the Ark was leaking, only that, in the very least, the vapor that condensed all around the ship would at some point run down to the lowest spot and form a puddle.
For John Calvin’s speculation about Noah’s anxiety when he didn’t hear from God over the course of the Flood, see note on Genesis 8:1, here.
Geologists call the earliest theorized super-continent Rodinia. Answers in Genesis discusses this too and suggest that the land mass before the Flood was probably Rodinia and not Pangaea since Pangaea already had mountains with sediment that would’ve been deposited during the Flood. In their scenario, Pangaea was a shortlived temporary super-continent that only existed during the Flood. For more, see here.
For earthquakes or eruptions on the sea floor generating tsunamis, and the fact that they build in height only where the ocean gets shallower, see here.
In an interesting parallel to the Flood and the wind that help to dry the Flood waters, John Calvin, in his notes on Genesis 8 (see here) references the wind that divided the Red Sea at the Exodus. Beyond that one aspect, the Exodus also has the feature of a rush of water drowning those who rebelled against God while God’s people were delivered and kept safe.
In Genesis 8, the story shifts from how the old world was destroyed to how the people on the Ark were safely brought into a new world. One commentary (reference below) notes a number of parallels between this part of the story and the story of creation, including the fact that the same word is used for “wind” here as “Spirit” in Genesis 1, the pattern of water, land, birds, animals, and the command to be fruitful and multiply. For some of these parallels, see Barker, K. L. (2002) NIV Study Bible. Genesis 8:1, note. Zondervan and more detailed parallels in Doukhan, J. B. (2016). Seventh-day Adventist International Bible Commentary (pg. 150). Pacific Press Publishing Association.
It doesn’t seem like wind, on its own, would make the Flood waters decrease, but only push them around. One commentary, in the note on Genesis 8:1, thinks that it was a hot wind that calmed the water and drove away the rain. Another commentary, in the note on Genesis 8:1, thinks it was a hot wind which helped to evaporate some of the water back into the air. If so, this super-saturation of the air might have contributed to water vapor condensing at the North and South poles and generating the ice caps we have today, but this is my speculation.
For the suggestion that the Flood waters soaked into the ground and helped fill up all the underground caverns, see the note on Genesis 8:3 here.
For the depths of oceanic trenches around the world, see the Puerto Rico Trench details here. Elsewhere, the Marianas Trench is 6.8 miles below the surface at its deepest point as mentioned here. For the height of Everest, see this article.
According to people who believe the Biblical account of a global Flood, you can find evidence for it’s accuracy in places like the Grand Canyon where rush of great amounts of water flowing off the land at the end of the Flood would’ve formed the canyon in just a brief time. For more, see here.
Geology is a hotly debated topic among people who advocate for the standard geological timeline of millions of years of deposition and erosion and those who believe Genesis is giving a literal timeline of history, and geology, properly understood, should fit into that timeline. The Grand Canyon is just one small part of that debate. For the suggestion that it was carved over the course of millions of years, see here and here. For timelines that are more in line with the history the Bible records, see here. Further discussions can be found here and here. This does not prove Genesis’ account to be accurate, but it does show the Genesis story to be plausible and not something easily dismissed.
For the rate of flow increasing the amount and size of suspended particles in a flood, see here.
For the flooding of the Guadalupe river in 2002 and the formation of the Canyon Lake Gorge, see here and here.
For a reference to speed or quick burial being important for fossils to form, see here. For examples of things being buried fast enough to preserve even soft tissues, see here and here.
There’s broad agreement on both sides of the creation-evolution debate that the Himalayas have fossils of undersea animals on them and that the mountains were once under water (see here and here or here for statements from both sides). For the long-ages perspective, however, erosion is a problem. During the millions of years since emerging from the sea, the Himalayas should have been washed away by erosion. If the mountains are still rising, balancing the erosion, one would still expect the sediments to be washed away or the layering on the mountains to be different than the surrounding land, but no such differences are in evidence. Altogether this suggests the Himalayas emerged from the water much more recently, likely pushed up as the continents settled into their new positions during the Flood. For details on the issue of long ages and erosion, see here.
I mentioned the proportions of the Ark and compared it to modern ship design in Episode 11. See the show notes there for more details about the sea-worthiness of the Ark.
For details from the Babylonian Flood legend, see pg. 236 here which records the length, height, width, and number of rooms in the ship. For the it taking a week to build the Babylonian ark, and about two weeks for the voyage itself, see pgs. 20-21 here.
For the Greek Flood legend of Deucalion, it mentions that the whole world was flooded (”a sea without a shore”), and that only one man and one woman survived (see here. Future humans came from rocks thrown on the ground (see here) and animals arose from the Earth all on their own (see here.
For the Peruvian Flood legend, see paragraph in chapter 2 beginning with, “More intriguing are the Flood stories” in Bauer, Susan Wise. The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome . W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.
The idea that the story of the Flood in Genesis sounds like a ships’ log comes from the note on Genesis 7:17-19 here. The same author also points out that the style of language is very old and suggests the story was written down long before Moses (see note on Genesis 6:17, here). It’s also interesting to note the dates. The story of the Flood as recorded in Genesis lists the dates when the Flood started as well as at a number of other points. This feature supports the belief that it is a factual rather than a fictitious account, as mentioned by See Kidner, D. (1967). Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 97). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. In the literary style of the ancient Middle East it was common to round-off specifics with respect to timelines and dates, but the Old Testament does much less of this compared to other sources from the area. For more, see Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 182). Review and Herald Publishing Association.
For the length of the Flood, some authors add the 40 days of rain and the 150 days of the Flood together to get a length of 190 days (see the notes on Genesis 7:24 here and here), but the most likely timeline makes the 40 days of rain part of the total 150 days of the Flood. That is the idea suggested in the note on Genesis 7:24, here and later here as well as the notes on Genesis 8, here. This source, in the note on Genesis 7:24, gives a summary of different timelines, but concludes that having the 40 days as part of the 150 is most likely which agrees with the most straight-forward reading of Genesis 7:11 and Genesis 8:3-4 which places the Ark landing on Ararat 5 months after the start of the Flood, or 150 days, assuming 30 day months.
For the grounding and break up of the Crimson Polaris in Japan in 2021, see the articles here and here.
For evidence that, even though the Ark had grounded out, it was still surrounded by water, note that Genesis 8:4-5 states that the Ark grounded out in the middle of the seventh month, but the tops of the mountains couldn’t be seen until the beginning of the tenth month, something like 10 weeks later.
For the plate tectonics of the Himalayas and Andes, see here for the Himalayas and here for the Andes.
It’s speculation to say that Noah didn’t know where he was. If the axis of the Earth was at the same tilt before and after the Flood, he may have been able to determine his longitude and latitude from the stars, if there wasn’t cloud cover, but that would’ve given him only the most general information about seasons and equinoxes. Regarding his location relative to geography, he had no clues other than the mountain peaks that were gradually appearing.
The search for the Ark on the mountains of Ararat is one of the ongoing mysteries of Bible history. Genesis 8:4 says the Ark landed on the “mountains of Ararat.” This refers to a geographic region according to Horn, S. H. (1979). In The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Dictionary (p. 70). Review and Herald Publishing Association. Still, it was only later, after the Ark grounded on the mountains, that the tops of the mountains could be seen, perhaps offering the idea that the Ark landed on the highest peak in the chain. At the moment, that highest peak is mount Ararat in Turkey near where Turkey, Armenia, and Iran border one another (see here). In the past, people have thought this the most likely landing place for the Ark. (see the note on Genesis 8:4 here. Further support for the idea that this is the place the Ark came to rest comes from Persian history as they call the place “Kuh-i-nuh” or “Noah’s mountain” according to Easton, M. G. (1893). In Easton’s Bible dictionary. New York: Harper & Brothers. Both Jerome and Josephus referred to fragments of the Ark existing in their time, but considering that we don’t have any physical evidence of the Ark on Mount Ararat (see here) these records should perhaps be taken with a grain fo salt. Recent research complicates this conclusion, however, since it suggests that the Ararat volcano formed after the Flood, so at the time the Ark grounded out, the tallest of the “mountains of Ararat” would have been some other peak that is now unknown (see here. Taken together, we don’t know where the Ark is, or if it even exists. It may still be on some mountain near Armenia, or it may not. It may have fallen apart over time.
Some scholars dispute that the Ararat chain has anything to do with the landing place of the ark. The note on Genesis 8:4 in this commentary suggests that a mountain closer to Mesopotamia makes more sense because it’s closer to the starting place of the Ark, but that theory has a few flaws. First it assumes that the Ark, in five months, wouldn’t float all the way to Ararat, second it assumes the ground under the Ark didn’t move, and third it assumes the Ark launched from the area of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers found on maps today. In fairness, that particular commentary was written in the 1800s, but each of those points no longer stands up to scrutiny. In the time since that theory was put forward, the Kon-Tiki ship floated 4,300 miles in 101 days (see here), making the distance a moot point. In addition, the theory of plate tectonics was proposed and largely accepted by geoligists, opening up the possibility that the land was moving underneath the Ark as well as the Ark moving (see here). As such, it’s entirely possible the Ark landed on mount Ararat either by drifting there from its starting place (which could be any spot in the globe), by the land drifting underneath it, or some combination of both things moving. Combine that with the fact that the geography of the world today is probably very different than the geography of the world Noah knew before the Flood, and any arguments about the distance the Ark would’ve had to travel during the Flood are baseless.
For Noah’s use of a raven, see the note on Genesis 8:7, here and here. According to the notes on Genesis 8:3 and 8:7 here the phrase used to describe the decreasing water is very nearly the same as the phrase used to describe the flight of the raven when it went out from the Ark. From the way Genesis talks about the raven, it’s unclear what it did when it left the Ark. It may not have returned to the Ark, or, given it’s flying about, it may not have given Noah the information he hoped. See summary in the note on Genesis 8:6, here. Whatever the reasons, Noah switched to a dove as the next scout.
The timeline for releasing the raven and the doves is somewhat ambiguous since we don’t know for certain the gap between the sending out of the raven and the first time Noah released a dove out of the Ark.. The most likely timelines are that he released the dove right after the raven, perhaps the same day after the raven didn’t return with the information Noah looked for, or, as with the gap between releasing the dove the first time and releasing it the second time, Noah waited seven days (see Genesis 8:10. Either timeline fits. If Noah looked out of the Ark and saw the mountains on the first day of the tenth month (10.1), and then waited 40 days to release the raven, that would be the tenth day of the eleventh month (11.10). If he released the raven that day, the dove the same day, and then waited 7 (11.17) days to release it again, and 7 more (11.24) to release it the final time, that would leave a final seven day gap to reach the first day of the first month of the next year (1.1), when Genesis 8:13 says Noah removed the covering from the Ark. On the other hand, if Noah waited seven days between releasing the raven and releasing the dove, that shifts all the following events by a week and suggests that Noah released the dove for the final time on the same day he removed the covering from the Ark.
The word we use today for “pigeon” refers to larger birds while “dove” refers to smaller ones, but both words are possible translations of the term used in the Bible to refer to this type of bird according to this source as well as Horn, S. H. (1979). In The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Dictionary (p. 293). Review and Herald Publishing Association. For details about the distance an speed of a carrier pigeon, recorded in a book published in 1870, see pgs. 25-29 here. More recent measurements are found on pg. 5 here while pg. 8 at that source claims that one pigeon went 110 miles an hour for several hours. That same source also makes mention of how the birds’ performance has changed with selective breeding since ancient times on pg. 185.
Scholars connect repetition of releasing birds on seven day cycles to religious practice and, therefore, the Sabbath. If so, it constitutes further evidence that the Law of God, spelled out in Exodus 20, was not a new idea but was known in at least the time of Noah, and likely from the days of creation when God first established the Sabbath. For more, see note on Genesis 8:12, here.
The return of the dove with an olive leaf is the origin of our modern idea that an olive branch symbolizes peace (see Barker, K. L. (2002) NIV Study Bible. Genesis 8:11, note. Zondervan and Horn, S. H. (1979). In the New Testament, the Holy Spirit took the form of a dove when it descended on Jesus at His baptism (see John 1:29-34). Later, before going back to heaven, Jesus referred to the Holy Spirit as a comforter (see John 14:15-17), something that would also have been true of this dove who returned to the Ark with an olive branch since it brought comfort in the form of evidence that there was still life on Earth. For more, see the note on Genesis 8:6, here.
The note on Genesis 8:6, here, mentions that olives will sprout even when under water. Another commentary, in the note on Genesis 8:11, says that the word “leaf” in this verse refers to a “tender branch” and that olive trees will not only stand, but thrive under the water. At the same time, while olive trees are hardy and sprout nicely, they don’t grow high in the mountains, so this sort of leaf could have given Noah evidence that the water had drained from the lower valleys as well. For more, see Zondervan,. NIV, Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, eBook (Kindle Locations 7685-7687). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
According to the note on Genesis 8:11, here, there’s no parallel in the Babylonian flood story to the return of the dove with the olive branch found in Genesis, and, along with other factors, suggests that the focus of the Babylonian story isn’t on reconciliation with God while the Genesis story has that as it’s main point, beginning here and culminating in Genesis 8:20-22.
On the note for Genesis 8:13, here, it suggests that the ground was dry on that first day of the new year, but not so dry as to handle walking on it. Later, a different word is used in Genesis 8:14 for “dry,” perhaps suggesting more water had soaked in or evaporated from the ground by that point.
Besides John Calvin’s reference earlier to God’s silence during the Flood, see also Doukhan, J. B. (2016). Seventh-day Adventist International Bible Commentary (pgs. 153-154). Pacific Press Publishing Association.
You can total up the length of the Flood a number of ways, but perhaps the simplest is by just using years. Genesis 7:11 says that the Flood began on the 17th day of the second month (2.17). Later, in Genesis 8:14-16 it says Noah left the Ark more than a year later, giving the date as the twenty-seventh day of the second month (2.27). For us today, that would be about 375 days since the start of the Flood, or 382 since Noah and his family boarded the Ark and God closed the door, but that assumes they used 365 day years. Instead, based on the comment that the Flood started on the seventeenth day of the second month, and that, 150 days later, the Ark grounded out on the seventeenth day of the seventh month (see Genesis 8:3-4, Noah apparently used 30 day months. If that’s the case, Noah and his family were on the Ark a total of 377 days including a week before the rain started followed by 370 days until God told them to disembark. For an explanation of the week before the Flood, when Noah and his family boarded the Ark, see a detailed show note on Episode 12.
If you want to see images of the trunks of huge trees that were, perhaps, destroyed during the Flood and whose stumps are now petrified and preserved as stone, see here. The size of these trunks, snapped off, give you some idea of both what the world used to be, and how enormous the Flood was.
Noah and his family may have been afraid during the Flood, but then again, perhaps not. For their whole lives they lived as outcasts in a society that hated God, and, by extension, probably hated them as well. Going into the Ark would’ve offered relief from that society. Perhaps some support for this perspective comes from the phrase “windows of heaven” used in Genesis 7:11. In Englishman’s concordance the word used for windows in “windows of heaven” comes up 9 times in the Bible. Twice the phrase refers to the Flood (see Genesis 7:11 and Genesis 8:2). In one case it refers to judgment and uses Flood-like imagery (see Isaiah 24:18-20). In two instances it is a general reference to windows (see Ecclesiastes 12:3 and Hosea 13:3). In one case it is used with reference to a dove’s nest or roost (see Isaiah 60:8). In 2 Kings and Malachi, however, windows in heaven refers to blessings (see 2 Kings 7:2 and 2 Kings 7:19 and Malachi 3:10). Dismissing the three examples where the word for “windows” is used in a general sense, and looking at only the times when “windows of heaven” is the focus, the imagery either refers to the Flood, judgment, or the idea of blessings being poured out. While this doesn’t say that Noah saw the windows of heaven as a blessing, it suggests that the people later in history remembered those windows as something positive, perhaps a source of relief and life for those to trusted in God and did what He commanded them to do.
In the record of the Flood, God judged the world but preserved His followers. The same promises come up later in the Bible about our own future. Acts 17:30-31 says the world will be judged, and Romans 8:1 says that those who follow Christ will not be condemned.
The Bible empahsizes God’s reliability. Malachi 3:6 and Hebrews 13:8 emphasize that God does not change. Furthermore, the idea of safety in a storm comes up in the New Testament as well in Mark 4:35-41 where Jesus calms a storm and asks His disciples why they were afraid. Finally, as one of many promises we can still rely on today, Jesus states in John 16:33 that the world would bring trouble, but tells us to take heart, for He has overcome the world. Combining God’s care for us with the fact that He doesn’t change reinforces the conclusion that we have nothing to fear in any of today’s storms.
For commentaries that note that Noah waited to leave the Ark until God said it was time, see the note on Genesis 8:15, here and here as well as John Calvin’s comment on Genesis 8 (see here) where he points out Noah’s continued faithfulness to God.
For Noah’s altar as the first reference to an altar in the Bible, see the note on Genesis 8:20 here. This idea is confirmed in the note on Genesis 8:20, here which also goes on to state its belief that there were other, un-mentioned, altars earlier in history for the sacrifices of Cain and Abel. For altars to be made of rough stones, see Exodus 20:24-25. In addition, according to the note on Genesis 8:20, here the reference to Noah building an ‘altar’ is literally ‘a high place’. Noah was likely high on a mountain for this sacrifice, as that is where the Ark came to rest. Later on in the Bible, high places were common locations for altars, though often used for idols rather than the worship of God. For more see 1 Samuel 9 where Samuel goes up to a high place and 1 Kings 11:7 for an example of a high place used for idols. See also the note on Genesis 8:20, here which suggests that an altars was usually a raised structure or mound made of earth and stones.
The note on Genesis 8:20, here and here, suggests Noah sacrificed the “seventh” of all the clean animals, though this depends on whether 7 or 14 were taken aboard at the start of the Flood (see note on Episode 12). We don’t know whether these animals reproduced on the Ark, but if they did not, the sacrificing of a seventh of all the clean animals would represent a significant sacrifice as mentioned in the note Genesis 8:20, here.
For the comment that Noah’s first act after leaving the Ark was to re-establish the worship of God, see the note on Genesis 8:20 in this commentary.
For Noah giving the offering of his own free will, see the note on Genesis 8:20, here. Another commentary pointed out that the word used to refer to Noah’s sacrifice is the word you’d use for a request to be forgiven or an offering of thanks. For more see Doukhan, J. B. (2016). Seventh-day Adventist International Bible Commentary (pg. 156). Pacific Press Publishing Association.
At the beginning of God’s promise to never again curse or dishonor the ground as He had done with the Flood He says, “for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.” (see Genesis 8:21). This is confusing considering the evil of men’s hearts was the reason for the Flood in the first place (see Genesis 6:5-7). One commentary suggested that Noah’s sacrifice brought about this change (see Kidner, D. (1967). Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 101). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.). Another commentary believed that the first reference was the fact that man’s imagination led into sinful acts, while the second reference is talking only about the fact that sinfulness is ingrained in humans and they tend toward constant sinfulness, but, presumably, not in the whole-hearted way of the people who lived before the Flood (see Nichol, F. D. (Ed.). (1978). The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Vol. 1, p. 261). Review and Herald Publishing Association.). See also the note on Genesis 8:21, here.
Some scholars, see here and here, in their notes on Genesis 8:22, suggest that God’s promise that day and night and seedtime and harvest would continue as long as the Earth would last suggests that during the storm, the people on board probably couldn’t tell if it was day or night. Interestingly enough, that detail also shows up in the Babylonian flood story (quote here) that says the world was completely dark during the flood.
For the idea that Noah’s view of the world was limited by fog and mist, see the note on Genesis 8:4, here
Update: A show note (updated 10/27/2021) and and audio clip (updated 10/29/2021) related to where Noah’s Ark may have landed on the mountains of Ararat was updated to mention that modern Mount Ararat probably rose after the Flood waters receded, suggesting that the Ark would have landed on another unknown peak in the region.