Noah Series

Noah

Most people probably thought Noah was crazy. Why would anyone build a great ship in the desert? And How about all those animals. What does he plan to do with them?

Noah and His Family

Venerated in Judaism

Christianity

Islam

Mandaeism

Druze faith

Bahá'í faith

Noah is the tenth and last of the pre-Flood patriarchs in the traditions of Abrahamic religions. His story appears in the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, chapters 5–9), the Quran, and Baha'i writings. Noah is referenced in various other books of the Bible, including the New Testament, and in associated deuterocanonical books.

The Genesis flood narrative is among the best-known stories in the Bible. In this account, Noah labored faithfully to build the Ark at God's command, ultimately saving his own family and humanity itself, and all land animals from extinction during the Flood. Afterward, God made a covenant with Noah and promised never again to destroy all the Earth's creatures with a flood. Noah is also portrayed as a "tiller of the soil" and a drinker of wine.

Noah is the tenth and final pre-Flood (antediluvian - of or belonging to the time before the biblical Flood) Patriarch, son of Lamech and an unnamed mother, Noah is 500 years old before his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth are born.

Genesis flood narrative

The Genesis flood narrative is encompassed within chapters 6–9 in the Book of Genesis in the Bible. The narrative discusses the evil of humanity that moved God to destroy the world by way of the Flood, the preparation of the Ark for certain animals, Noah, and his family, and God's guarantee (the Noahic Covenant) for the continued existence of life under the promise that he would never send another flood. The narrative indicates that God intended to return the Earth to its pre-creation state of watery chaos by flooding the Earth because of humanity's misdeeds and then remaking it using the microcosm of Noah's Ark. Thus, the Flood was no normal overflow but a reversal of Creation.

After the Flood

A 12th-Century Depiction Of Noah Sending The Dove

After the Flood, Noah offered burnt offerings to God. God accepted the sacrifice and made a covenant with Noah, and through him with all humankind, he would not waste the Earth or destroy man by another deluge.

"And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the Earth. "As a pledge of this gracious covenant with man and the beast, the rainbow was set in the clouds (viii. 15-22, 8-17). Noah laid two injunctions: While the eating of animal food was permitted, abstinence from blood was strictly admonished; and the shedding of the blood of man by man was made a crime punishable by death at man's hands.

Noah died 350 years after the Flood, at the age of 950, the last of the extremely long-lived Antediluvianiii patriarchs. As depicted by the Bible, the maximum human lifespan gradually diminishes from almost 1,000 years to the 120 years of Moses.

Noah's drunkenness

After the Flood, the Bible says that Noah became a farmer and he planted a vineyard. He drank wine made from this vineyard and got drunk and lay "uncovered" within his tent. Noah's son Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father naked and told his brothers, which led to Ham's son Canaan being cursed by Noah.

In Jewish tradition and rabbinic literature on Noah, rabbis blame Satan for the intoxicating properties of the wine. As early as the Classical era, commentators on Genesis 9:20–21 have excused Noah's excessive drinking because he was considered the first wine drinker, the first person to discover the effects of wine. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, and a Church Father, wrote in the 4th century that Noah's behavior is defensible: as the first human to taste wine, he would not know its effects: "Through ignorance and inexperience of the proper amount to drink, fell into a drunken stupor." Philo, a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher, also excused Noah by noting that one can drink in two different manners: (1) to drink wine in excess, a peculiar sin to the vicious evil man, or (2) to partake of wine as the wise man, Noah being the latter.

Noah curses Ham

In the context of Noah's drunkenness, relates two facts: (1) Noah became drunken and "he was uncovered within his tent," and (2) Ham "saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without."

Because of its brevity and textual inconsistencies, it has been suggested that this narrative is a "splinter from a more substantial tale." A fuller account would explain what Ham had done to his father, why Noah directed a curse at Canaan for Ham's misdeed, or how Noah knew what occurred. In biblical psychological criticism, J. H. Ellens and W. G. Rollins have analyzed the unconventional behavior between Noah and Ham as revolving around sexuality and the exposure of genitalia compared with other Hebrew Bible texts, such as Habakkuk 2:15 and Lamentations 4:21.