Noah's ark enduring the Great Flood
Noah's Ark is the vessel by which God spared Noah, his family, and a remnant of all the world's animals from the flood.
Description[]
Before the coming of the Great Flood, God warned Noah of the coming flood and instructed him to construct the ark. God spelled out the dimensions of the vessel: 300 cubits in length, 50 cubits in width and 30 cubits in height (450 × 75 × 45 ft or 137 × 22.9 × 13.7 m). It had three internal divisions (which are not actually called "decks", although presumably this is what is intended), a door in the side, and a sohar, which may be either a roof or a skylight.
It is made of "gopher" wood, and is divided into qinnim, a word which always refers to birds' nests elsewhere, leading some scholars to amend this to qanim (reeds), the material used for the boat of Atrahasis, the Babylonian flood-hero. God instructs Noah to kapar (smear) the ark with koper (pitch): in Hebrew the first of these words is a verb formed from the second and, like "gopher", it is a word found nowhere else in the Bible.
Overview[]
When the time came for the great flood, God gave Noah instructions for building the ark. Seven days before the deluge, God told Noah to enter the ark with his wife, his three sons, and his sons' wives. He was also instructed to take two of every living animal, and seven pairs of every clean creature and of every bird, together with sufficient food.
After Noah and his family and all the creatures were on board, God shut the door of the ark. The flood was brought on by the bursting open of the fountains of the great deep and the opening of the floodgates of the sky through cracks in the Firmament. The rain lasted nearly six weeks (40 days and nights). The story goes on to describe the ark being afloat for the first 150 days of the flood before it came to rest on the Mountains of Ararat as the waters receded enough for the ark's inhabitants to exit.
In modern times, a team of evangelical Christian explorers claim they've found the remains of Noah's ark beneath snow and volcanic debris on Turkey's Mount Ararat. However, they are not one hundred percent certain that it is the true ark and as such it is up to speculation as to whether or not it is the real ark of Noah. Despite this, many Christians believe the mountain in Turkey is the final resting place of Noah's ark.