Noah's Ark

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My daughter asked if Noah’s Ark / the flood really happened. She also read that Noah lived to be 600 or 900 years old.

Are these just stories or real events?

Thank you!
 
The Church teaches that these events did really happen.

From the CCC:

71 God made an everlasting covenant with Noah and with all living beings (cf. *Gen *9:16). It will remain in force as long as the world lasts.

Additionally, Jesus speaks of Noah as if the story depicts a real event.

From Mt 24:

36 21 "But of that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, 22 but the Father alone. 37 23 For as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 In (those) days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day that Noah entered the ark. 39 They did not know until the flood came and carried them all away. So will it be (also) at the coming of the Son of Man.

Noah is counted among Jesus lineage in Luke 3:
36 the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech,
 
I think that it is a historical event, but I don’t know whether the flood is global or local in scope. The English translations of Genesis 6 say that God would flood “the earth”, but it’s unclear to me whether that could mean “the land” or “the planet earth”.

There are texts that indicate that the flood was global, such as in Genesis 7:19-22
Higher and higher above the earth rose the waters, until all the highest mountains everywhere were submerged, the crest rising fifteen cubits higher than the submerged mountains. All creatures that stirred on earth perished: birds, cattle, wild animals, and all that swarmed on the earth, as well as all mankind. Everything on dry land with the faintest breath of life in its nostrils died out.
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However, I don’t know whether this is hyperbole or not. Afterall, Paul said that “all have sinned” and we believe that this phrase does not apply to Mary.
 
jocee said:
My daughter asked if Noah’s Ark / the flood really happened. She also read that Noah lived to be 600 or 900 years old.

Are these just stories or real events?

Thank you!
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The story is the word of God, and is true in the spiritual sense, but probably isn’t history. It might be based on a historical event (maybe Noah was a farmer and brought his livestock on a boat in a regional flood?) but over the centuries became legend and was rewritten and edited to teach spiritual truths.
 
i have heard a number of times that there are flood legends in many cultures in the world. one that i heard from my chinese friend can be found here:
Ancient China must have had a long record of floods, since, like ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, its early civilisation was built near a river.
Consequently, the Chinese must have built boats quite early, and a form of the word must have been written down since early times.
The modern Chinese word for boat or ship ( chuan) is a curious one. It escaped the 1956 character simplification reform in China, but today it is found in two forms.
In both the forms, there is a sailing vessel (zhou) as a radical, and also a character for “mouth” (kou) and finally, one with a component for either “several” (ji) or “eight” (ba) . But which is the correct one?
Assuming that the correct form is that for “several” the word “ship” looks similar to words like the metal lead (qian) , and the word for alongside (yan). However, the pronunciations for all these are rather different, which is very surprising. Certainly “ship” is not a newly created word. The Japanese know of this word, since around 400AD, Chinese books were first brought into Japan from Korea. They call it fune, and it appears similar to the word for navigate. …
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many other flood legends can be found near the end of this link
 
Personally, I would infer from the existence of multiple flood “legends” in multiple cultures a greater probability that there was, in fact, a flood of such magnitude as to be recorded and passed down generation to generation in those various cultures.
 
buffalo said:
Fascinating indeed!
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But…not accurate :cool: - Sumerian is traceable to before 3000 BC, & Egyptian is about as old, while Old Akkadian is recorded not much later, c. 2600 BC: all are well over 5,000 years old.​

As for the characters that we are told “don’t make sense”, unless interpreted as the site interprets them: maybe they both have several different values, all of which could conceivably make sense without that interpretation.

And, while the values “West” & “Wind” may be compatible with the conclusion they are used to explain, compatibility can mask logical errors: for the colour of the White House is compatible with an explanation that has a dragon cause damage to it - but nobody would seriously maintain a dragon was the cause of the need for it to be whitened.

To be sure of the validity of the method of argument the site uses, the method needs testing. So: would the characters be equally convincing if they were tested to see if, by the same procedure, they seemed to point to the truth of something admittedly untrue ? For example, if the same procedure seemed to point to the truth of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”, this would suggest the procedure was flawed. It would be a pity to rest on untested arguments when they can be testested, as this can.

All of which is distantly relevant to the thread.
 
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