Noah
- This article is about the biblical Noah. For other uses of the term, see Noah (disambiguation).
English Noah or Noe, Noach (Hebrew: נוֹחַ or נֹחַ, Standard Nóaḥ Tiberian Nōªḥ ; Arabic: نوح, Nūḥ ; "Rest"[1] ) was the tenth and last of the antediluvian Patriarchs. His story is contained in the Hebrew Bible (Torah)'s book of Genesis, chapters 5-9. While the Deluge and Noah's Ark are the best-known elements of the story of Noah, he is also mentioned as the "first husbandman" and the inventor of wine, as well as in an episode of his drunkenness and the subsequent Curse of Ham. The story of Noah was the subject of much elaboration in the later Abrahamic traditions, and was immensely influential in Western culture.
In Islam, Noah is considered as a sincere prophet of God, widely respected by Muslims. There are several verses in Quran describing Noah's life. He lived for a long time inviting people to believe in God and divinity. According to Islamic point of view, he is among the five ulul'azm prophets and followed God's instructions to invite people. He held the prophethood for around 950 years, and during this time only a few people accepted his invitation.
The story of Noah
The story of Noah is related in the Book of Genesis, chapters 5-9. Noah was the son of Lamech in the tenth generation after Adam. Genesis describes the patriarch before the Flood as living for more than half a millennium. Thus, when Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of his three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth.
God, however, became saddened because of the wickedness of mankind and decided to send a great flood to destroy all living things. Noah was the one exception: He was "a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God." (Gen. 6:9) God warned Noah of the impending flood and commanding him to build an huge floating boat, or ark, in order to save his family. Noah was also instructed to bring enough living animals on the ark to repopulate the earth with them as well. And so the Flood came, and all life was extinguished, except for those who were with Noah, "and the waters prevailed upon the earth for one-hundred and fifty days." Genesis 7:24 Finally, the waters receded, and the Ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat in today's Turkey. Noah sent for a raven from the Ark, and then a dove. Two times the dove returned to him, but on the third flight, she came back with an olive branch in her beak, showing that the waters had receded far enough for trees to reappear and grow leaves.
Disembarking from the Ark, Noah built an altar to God, the first altar mentioned in the Bible, and made an offering.[2]
"And when the Lord smelled the pleasing odor, the Lord said in his heart, 'I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease'."(Genesis8:20-22)
Then God made a covenant with Noah: Noah and his descendants would henceforth be free to eat meat ("every moving thing that lives shall be food for you, and as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything"), and the animals would fear man; and in return, man would be forbidden to eat "flesh with its life, that is, its blood." And God forbade murder, and renewed the blessing he had earlier given to Adam and Eve: "Be fruitful and multiply, bring forth abundantly on the earth and multiply in it." And as a sign of His covenant, He set the rainbow in the sky, "the sign of the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth." (Genesis 9:1-17)
The story of Noah concludes, however, on a less happy note. "Noah was the first tiller of the soil. He planted a vineyard; and he drank of the wine, and became drunk, and lay uncovered in his tent." Noah's son Ham saw his father naked and informed his brothers, who covered Noah while averting their eyes. Noah awoke and cursed Ham's son Canaan to slavery, while giving his blessing to Shem and Japheth: "Blessed by the Lord my God be Shem; and let Canaan be his slave. God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem; and let Canaan be his slave." (Genesis 9:20-27)
Noah died 350 years after the Flood, at the age of 950, the last of the immensely long-lived antediluvian Patriarchs. The maximum human lifespan, as depicted by the Bible, diminished rapidly thereafter, from as much as 900 years to 120 years within a few generations. If the biblical chronology is takenly literally, Noah was still alive at the time of Abrhaham, although he is not mentioned in the stories of the Hebrew partiarchs.
Jewish perspectives
The righteousness of Noah is the subject of much discussion among the rabbis.[3] The description of Noah as "perfect in his generation" implied to some rabbis that his perfection was only relative. They point out, for example, that Noah did not pray to God on behalf of those about to be destroyed, as Abraham prayed for the wicked of Sodom and Gomorrah. Others, such as the medieval commentator Rashi, held on the contrary that Noah did preach to his contempories, and that the building of the Ark was stretched over 120 years, deliberately in order to give sinners time to repent.
Another Talmudic tradition holds that the sin of Ham, which deserved Noah's curse, was actually the homosexual rape of his own father.
Christian perspectives
Noah is called a "preacher of righteousness" in 2 Peter 2:5, and the First Epistle of Peter equates the saving power of baptism with the Ark saving those who were in it. In later Christian thought, the Ark came to be equated with the Church: salvation was to be found only within its walls. St Augustine of Hippo (354-430), arguing allegorically in The City of God stated that the dimensions of the Ark correspond to the dimensions of the human body, an thus to the body of Christ, which is analogous the Church. The equation of Ark and Church is still found in the Anglican rite of baptism, which asks God, "who of thy great mercy didst save Noah," to receive into the Church the infant about to be baptized.
Noah's three sons were generally interpreted in medieval Christianity as the founders of the populations of the three known continents, Japheth/Europe, Shem/Asia, and Ham/Africa, although a rarer variation held that they represented the three classes of medieval society—the priests (Shem), the warriors (Japheth), and the peasants (Ham). At the same time, some European thinkers proposed that Ham's sons in general had been literally "blackened" by sin. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this view merged with the Protestant interpretation of the curse of Ham to provide a religious justification for both racism and slavery. As late as 1964, Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia read the text of the Noah story into the Congressional Record as part of a filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, saying, "Noah saw fit to discriminate against Ham's descendants." Similar arguments were used by white rulers in South Africa and Rhodesia to justify apartheid and minority rule by whites.
Noah is commemorated as a prophet in the Calendar of Saints of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod on November 29.
In the gnostic tradition, Apocryphon of John reports that the chief archon—not God Himself—caused the flood because he desired to destroy the world he had made, but the First Thought informed Noah of the chief archon's plans, and Noah informed the remainder of humanity. Unlike the account of Genesis, in this version, not only are Noah's family saved, but many others also heed Noah's call. There is no ark in this account; instead Noah and the others hide in a "luminous cloud."
In the tradition of the Latter-day Saints, Joseph Smith taught that Noah is the same person as the angel Gabriel: "The Priesthood was first given to Adam; ... He is Michael the Archangel, spoken of in the Scriptures. Then to Noah, who is Gabriel: he stands next in authority to Adam in the Priesthood" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.157.)
Islamic perspectives
Noah is a prophet in the Qur'an. References to نوح Nūh, the Arabic form of Noah, are scattered throughout the Qur'an, but no single narrative account of the entire Deluge is given. The references in the Qur'an are consistent with Genesis, with two important exceptions: 1) in the Qur'an, the Flood is a regional event, affecting only the "people of Noah," and 2) in the Islamic account, Noah does not become a vintner and get drunk on his wine, nor does he fall asleep naked or curse his grandson Canaan to be a slave to his brothers.
The Qur'an emphasizes Noah's preaching of the monotheism of God, and the ridicule heaped on him by idolators. The Qur'anic account contains a detail not included in the Biblical account, namely a reference to another son who chose not to enter the ark.
Contemporary academic perspectives
Documentary hypothesis
According to the documentary hypothesis, the first five books of the Bible, including Genesis, were collated during the 5th century B.C.E. from four main sources, which themselves date from no earlier than the 8th century B.C.E. Two of these, the Jahwist, composed in the 8th century B.C.E., and the Priestly source, from the late 7th century B.C.E., make up the chapters of Genesis which concern Noah. The attempt by the 5th century editor to accommodate two independent and sometimes conflicting sources accounts for the confusion over such matters as how many pairs of animals Noah took, and how long the flood lasted. (See Noah's Ark for a more detailed description of the documentary hypothesis as it relates to the Ark story).
More broadly, Genesis seems to contain two accounts concerning Noah, the first making him the hero of the Flood, the second representing him as a husbandman who planted a vineyard. This has led some scholars to believe that Noah was originally the inventor of wine, in keeping with the statement at Genesis 5:29 that Lamech "called his name Noah, saying, 'Out of the ground which the Lord has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands.'" [4] It has been suggested that the Flood story may originally have belonged to Enoch, Noah's grandfather according to Genesis 5.[5]
The "Curse of Ham" has given rise to much discussion, but seems to express a hope on the part of the the 6th century B.C.E. compilers of the Torah that the Medes (Japhet) would join with the the Jews (Shem) in restoring Jewish rule in the land of Canaan: "Blessed by the Lord my God be Shem, and let Canaan be his slave. God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his slave."
Mythological connections
Many ancient flood stories share similarities to the one above:
- Hebrew: Noah's Ark
- Egyptian: Nun/Naunet
- Hindu: Manu
- China: Nüwa
- Sumerian: Ziusudra
- Babylonian: Atra-Hasis, Utnapishtim, Xisuthrus
- Greek: Deucalion
- Toltec: Toptlipetlocali
The mysterious figure of Enoch is the beginning of a fascinating but inconclusive web of correspondences and similarities between the story of Noah and older Mesopotamian myths. According to Genesis 5:24, at the end of his 365 years Enoch "walked with God, and was not, for God took him" - the only one of the ten pre-Flood Patriarchs not reported to have died. Where did Enoch go when God took him? In a late Apocryphal tradition, Methuselah is reported to have visited Enoch at the end of the Earth, where he dwelt with the angels, immortal. The details bring to mind Utnapishtim, a figure from the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh - the hero Gilgamesh, after long and arduous travel, finds Utnapishtim living in the paradise of Dilmun at the end of the Earth, where he has been granted eternal life by the gods. (Gilgamesh's reason for seeking out Utnapishtim, incidentally, is to learn the secret of immortality - like Methuselah, he comes close to the gift but fails to achieve it). Utnapishtim then tells how he survived a great flood, and how he was afterwards granted immortality by the gods.
Lamech's statement that Noah will be named "rest" because "out of the ground which the Lord has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands," has another faint parallel in Babylonian mythology: the gods grew tired of working, digging the channels of the rivers, and so the god Enki created man from clay and blood and spit to do the work for them. Enki fell in love with his creation, and later warned Utnapishtim that the other gods planned to send a flood to destroy all life, and advised him on how to construct his ark.
See also
- Antediluvian
- Book of Revelation
- Dating the Bible
- Deluge (mythology)
- Deluge (prehistoric)
- Matsya
- Patriarchal Age
- Epic of Gilgamesh
- Gilgamesh flood myth
- Noah's Ark
- Noahide Laws
- Sons of Noah
Notes and references
- ↑ http://www.babynames.co.uk/meaning_origin_name_Noah.htm Meaning of Noah
- ↑ Cain and Abel are described earlier as bring offerings to God, but an altar is not mentioned.
- ↑ http://jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=318&letter=N&search=Noah#982
- ↑ http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=318&letter=N&search=noah#2
- ↑ http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=318&letter=N&search=noah#2
- Bailey, Lloyd R. (1989). Noah, the Person and the Story. South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 0-87249-637-6.
- Best, Robert M. (1999). Noah's Ark and the Ziusudra Epic. Fort Myers, Florida: Enlil Press. ISBN 0-9667840-1-4.
External links
- Jewish Encyclopedia: Noah from the 1901-1906 Jewish Encyclopedia
- Catholic Encyclopedia article
- The site Tanakh Profiles provides a chronology of the flood (Hebrew/English)
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| Creation to Flood | Adam | Seth | Enos | Kenan | Mahalalel | Jared | Enoch | Methuselah | Lamech | Noah | Shem | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Origin of the Patriarchs | Arpachshad | Shelah | Eber | Peleg | Reu | Serug | Nahor | Terah | Abraham | Isaac | Jacob | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nationhood to Kingship | Judah | Pharez | Hezron | Ram | Amminadab | Nahshon | Salmon | Boaz | Obed | Jesse | David | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Prophets of Islam in the Qur'an | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adam | Idris | Nuh | Hud | Saleh | Ibrahim | Lut | Ismail | Is'haq | Yaqub | Yusuf | Ayub | 
| |
| آدم | ادريس | نوح | هود | صالح | إبراهيم | لوط | اسماعيل | اسحاق | يعقوب | يوسف | أيوب | ||
| Adam | Enoch | Noah | Eber | Shelah | Abraham | Lot | Ishmael | Isaac | Jacob | Joseph | Job | ||
| Shoaib | Musa | Harun | Dhul-Kifl | Daud | Sulayman | Ilyas | Al-Yasa | Yunus | Zakariya | Yahya | Isa | Muhammad | |
| شعيب | موسى | هارون | ذو الكفل | داود | سليمان | إلياس | اليسع | يونس | زكريا | يحيى | عيسى | محمد | |
| Jethro | Moses | Aaron | Ezekiel | David | Solomon | Elijah | Elisha | Jonah | Zechariah | John | Jesus | Paraclete | |
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sq:Noah sh:Noa
