Noah's Ark - Safeenat Nuh

The story of prophet Noah is very well known and is taught to Jewish, Christian and Muslim children from a very young age. They produce bright and colourful books with nice drawings of lions, giraffes, zebras, ostriches and various other zoo animals. And there is the drawing of a large wooden ark and aboard it stands Noah with his staff surrounded by his sons, daughters and wives. The story is fun and exciting and encourages the imagination of young minds and for many children it is their first introduction to various exotic animals. The version of the story we got told as kids stuck with us well into adulthood and formed a sugar-coated basis for the version depicted in scriptures.

Were it not for being taught such a simple and impressive story from a young age, and the fact that there is little or no detail about the story while I was growing up, I didn't even consider it for a very long time. In retrospect, if I were to come up with an excuse as to why I believed it, I would argue that I didn't even think to question the story because I just assumed its correctness and enjoyed it as a young child. I was struck with awe as a child at the magnificence of god and how amazing he was to rescue Noah and all the animals. Then as I got older there was nothing to bring me to question the subject. I just thought: "This is quite possible through miracles and god is capable of doing anything", and carried on believing in it. It's not until you look into a subject more deeply and with a grain of scepticism do things become clear. One issue would have led to another and another until the whole story would have unravelled. I now realise the amount of things that are wrong with the whole Noah story is quite profound!

The story related in the Old Testament of the Bible, in the book of Genesis (Gen. 5 - 9), starts by telling us about Noah, who at the ripe old age of 500 years had three sons and was commanded by God one day, randomly, to build an ark (ship), exclaiming that he "saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time" and that he "regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled." How any Christian or Jew can read these verses without some kind of doubt or tribulation is beyond me! They have to excuse the claim that someone lived 500 years and had children at that age while now you look at a 70 year old man and they're practically falling apart, diseased and suffering from dementia. The photo to the right is of Jeanne Calment ¹ who is officially proven to have lived to the very ripe old age of 122. Just look at that photo! Look at it and think how anyone could possibly live to anything older and still be able to do anything!

Jeanne Calment lived to be 122

Then we are told this man only began to have children at the age of 500, while for the past ~480 years was not successful in becoming a father? Also, what was he doing all those years in his life and how had he not accidentally disabled, maimed or killed himself or been killed or injured by some disease, animal, accident or person? Then God suddenly turns up and tells him: "build a boat!"; Yes, instead of finding a young man he finds a 500 year-old and tells him to build a boat. Also, god is not telling someone who lives near the sea and is a skilled craftsman to build a boat, no, he's telling Noah the farmer (Gen. 9:20) from central Iraq, a land-locked nation, to build a boat even though he would not know the first thing about boats. Then god is presented as a being who had no knowledge of what would happen in the future after having created man and that he is regretful that he made humans, meaning he made a mistake. He tells us they all became evil, even the little children and the old and infirm, meaning he had no control or influence on how they would turn out. So this tells me Jews and Christians believe in a god who is (a) not omniscient, (b) not infallible, and (c) not omnipotent. All the people he had supposedly created were deemed evil and deserved to die, except Noah and his family who, conveniently, had somehow managed to evade that noxious factor that made everyone turn into a devil.

Anyway, the story in the Old Testament goes on:

"So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit (0.45m) high all around. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark - you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them." [The Old Testament, Genesis 6]

So Noah built the boat. It took him nearly 100 years to complete it because he was 600 years old when it was finished according to the bible! Talk about inefficiency! He loaded up all the whole earth's land-dwelling animals and the foods they eat, his family and the food they eat and then "all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.", completely flooding the planet... or so we assume, because the bible say that the levels only reached 15 cubits (6.75m=15*0.45) (Gen. 7:20). It then says all land-dwelling creatures perished in the flood and the mountain tops were covered. I don't know how these two things are reconcilable. Genesis 8 goes into more detail about what happened and when. Here's what a transcript might look like if Noah kept a log book:

• (17/02) Rain starts. People try to clamber onto my ship but I set the lions on them.
• (28/03) 40 days later, the rain stops. Hooray! But still can't leave the boat.
• (17/07) 150 days after it started raining, the water levels have receded sufficiently that the ark stops on mount Ararat's peak. Still can't leave the ship though :-(.
• (01/10) Other mountains become visible (7.5 months have passed so far and god has still not said anything to me).
• (10/11) Since god isn't speaking to me, I sent out a couple of birds to check for dry land. Negative result and I may have sadly caused the extinction of a few species :'-(.
• (17/11) I repeated the same experiment seven days later and dove #2 came back with a fresh fig branch. Success!
• (24/11) The birds have stop returning. Not sure if everything is OK but assume they found dry land.
• (01/01) It's been 10.5 months on this ark and today is my 601st birthday. Time to take the waterproofing off the ship and let everyone off the ark. It's dry enough now! Best... birthday... ever! Only family members have been invited to the party, of course.
• (27/02) God smelled the roast I had burnt in offering to him on an alter and came back and started drying off the earth properly but he says it will take him a month. Earth has been flooded for 375 days in total!

Then God made this promise:

"I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth... I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth." [Genesis 9]

Once again god is shown to not be all-powerful because he can't instantly dry the earth and this is how the story ends. There's a bit more about Noah getting drunk, naked and angry at his sons and cursing one of his children and his entire progeny and then Noah dies at the age of 950!

A Muslim reading this will surely trump up and say: "We don't believe this story that is offensive against the nature of God and his holy prophet! The bible is corrupted and imperfect, unlike the Qur'an!", and they would go on to relate some verses from the chapter named 'Nuh' (Noah):

[71.21] Nuh said: My Lord! surely they have disobeyed me and followed him whose wealth and children have added to him nothing but loss.
[71.22] And they have planned a very great plan.
[71.23] And they say: By no means leave your gods, nor leave Wadd, nor Suwa; nor Yaghus, and Yauq and Nasr.
[71.24] And indeed they have led astray many, and do not increase the unjust in aught but error.
[71.25] Because of their wrongs they were drowned, then made to enter fire, so they did not find any helpers besides Allah.
[71.26] And Nuh said: My Lord! leave not upon the land any dweller from among the unbelievers:
[71.27] For surely if Thou leave them they will lead astray Thy servants, and will not beget any but immoral, ungrateful (children).

And they would go on to relate more verses, because the story of Noah is repeated over and over again in the Qur'an that there is an abundance of verses dedicated to him:

[7.64] But they called him a liar, so We delivered him and those with him in the ark, and We drowned those who rejected Our communications; surely they were a blind people.
[11.36] And it was revealed to Nuh: That none of your people will believe except those who have already believed, therefore do not grieve at what they do:
[11.37] And make the ark before Our eyes and (according to) Our revelation, and do not speak to Me in respect of those who are unjust; surely they shall be drowned.
[11.38] And he began to make the ark; and whenever the chiefs from among his people passed by him they laughed at him. He said: If you laugh at us, surely we too laugh at you as you laugh (at us).
[11.39] So shall you know who it is on whom will come a chastisement which will disgrace him, and on whom will lasting chastisement come down.
[11.40] Until when Our command came and water came forth from the valley, We said: Carry in it two of all things, a pair, and your own family-- except those against whom the word has already gone forth, and those who believe. And there believed not with him but a few.
[11.41] And he said: Embark in it, in the name of Allah be its sailing and its anchoring; most surely my Lord is Forgiving, Merciful.
[11.42] And it moved on with them amid waves like mountains; and Nuh called out to his son, and he was aloof: O my son! embark with us and be not with the unbelievers.
[11.43] He said: I will betake myself for refuge to a mountain that shall protect me from the water. Nuh said: There is no protector today from Allah's punishment but He Who has mercy; and a wave intervened between them, so he was of the drowned.
[11.44] And it was said: O earth, swallow down your water, and O cloud, clear away; and the water was made to abate and the affair was decided, and the ark rested on the Judi, and it was said: Away with the unjust people.
[11.45] And Nuh cried out to his Lord and said: My Lord! surely my son is of my family, and Thy promise is surely true, and Thou art the most just of the judges.
[11.46] He said: O Nuh! surely he is not of your family; surely he is (the doer of) other than good deeds, therefore ask not of Me that of which you have no knowledge; surely I admonish you lest you may be of the ignorant
[11.47] He said: My Lord! I seek refuge in Thee from asking Thee that of which I have no knowledge; and if Thou shouldst not forgive me and have mercy on me, I should be of the losers.
[11.48] It was said: O Nuh! descend with peace from Us and blessings on you and on the people from among those who are with you, and there shall be nations whom We will afford provisions, then a painful punishment from Us shall afflict them.
[29.14] And certainly We sent Nuh to his people, so he remained among them a thousand years save fifty years. And the deluge overtook them, while they were unjust.
[29.15] So We delivered him and the inmates of the ark, and made it a sign to the nations.

As can be noted from the verses, there are some marked differences between the Jewish/Christian version of the story and the Islamic version, namely that the flood could be interpreted to have happened locally and only a valley was flooded, that Nuh's son perished in the flood, that more people than just Nuh's family were on board and that the ark's final resting place was mount Judi. The Islamic version however maintains the general story of Noah being instructed to build a ship, to take his family members with him and every animal in pairs - two by two, that water rained from the clouds and emerged from below the ground and that Nuh lived to be 950 years old. What is missing from the Islamic version are the details because the Qur'an is notoriously vague. Why was Nuh so ineffective at converting any people when he had hundreds of years to do it? Not only could he not save his son, but his wife is said to be going to hell and was not saved and she is not mentioned in any of the above verses (66:10) - isn't this unusual? How long was the flood? What animals boarded two-by-two and why just pairs? Was there a reason he could not fit more than two of each animal on the boat? And of his additional livestock, did they too deserve to perish in the flood? Does that mean his animals would resort to incest after the flood? If only a valley was flooded, why did god ask him to go to all that trouble of building a boat and not just ask him to leave on foot and go to a another place? And if only a valley was drowned, what consequence is it really to anyone else in the world - how does it affect me or you now? And finally, what sign according to verse 29:15 did god leave to us that any of this actually happened?

The most important thing to note from the Islamic perspective on the story is that in no verse does it clearly denounce the bible's story or outright say it is all wrong or foolish. The back-story of Nuh is that he and his people had only been around on earth for a few hundred years after god made Adam and Eve. He is the third prophet in chronological order mentioned in the Qur'an and so we understand, and hadith/Qur'an commentators confirm, that there were very few people on earth - perhaps all living in that one valley in Iraq, and thus it may have only been necessary to flood this valley and not the entire planet. But likely it meant the whole known world was flooded. It is clear that it is based on the same tale as found in the Old Testament to the level it mentions all the animals went into the boat in pairs. If it was a local flood then there would be no restriction to the number of animals that could fit into the boat. The Old Testament and Qur'an share too much in common to really negate each other. One is compelled to ask: Shouldn't god put down lies and falsities revealed in previously corrupted scriptures and remove any doubts? Allah just does not do this. And god, being god, would know that in the future this tale would lead people to doubt the Qur'an, his final messenger and even him. He would known the story be proven wrong and foolish but yet he did not clearly explain it in the 'perfect' Qur'an nor did he have prophet Muhammed go into detail explaining it. The story's is of no purpose save as a kind of parable, a story to make people obey and follow religion and it teaches obedience, submission and fear of god. That is why it is repeated over and over in the Qur'an.

There is another dimension to this story. Did you know that is has existed well before the Qur'an and the Old Testament?! A very similar story is related in the Epic of Gilgamesh and other tablets such as  from the same region. The Epic of Gilgamesh is a long Akkadian poem-story written in cuneiform telling the legend of a demigod King Gilgamesh (~2700BC) who was quite likely a real king but a legend grew around him and his tale lived on and was composed after ~2500 BC, at least 1000-1500 years before parts of the Old Testament were coming together! And it is also before the flood is supposed to have happened around ~2300BC ²! The flood story in Genesis 6 - 8 matches the Gilgamesh flood myth to the point actual sentences are lifted from it. Also, the order of the story and some details match up neatly when they could have been ordered and written differently. This indicates that the Old Testament account was plagiarised from the Epic of Gilgamesh. The people who wrote the story of Noah just changed the main character's name from Utnapishtim to Noah (or from Atra-Hasis in an older tablet to Noah). They also changed some of the details of the ship building from the native Mesopotamian circular Coracle-type boat to an ark. And they fixed the problematic mentions of multiple gods and replaced them with just one god to suit the theme of the bible. The flooding of the whole world, our protagonist being from Iraq, the instruction and direction by god to build a huge boat and how, the boarding of all animals in pairs, the flood waters and rains, the release of the birds to find dry land, the resting of the boat on a mountain and the rescuing of the human and animal species are all the same!

"...These are the measurements of the barge as you shall build her: let her beam equal her length, let her deck be roofed like the vault that covers the abyss; then take up into the boat the seed of all living creatures...  I loaded into her all that 1 had of gold and of living things, my family, my kin, the beast of the field both wild and tame, and all the craftsmen... Adad, lord of the storm was riding. In front over hill and plain Shullat and Hanish, heralds of the storm, led on. Then the gods of the abyss rose up; Nergal pulled out the dams of the nether waters... When the seventh day dawned the storm from the south subsided, the sea grew calm, the, flood was stilled... I looked for land in vain, but fourteen leagues distant there appeared a mountain, and there the boat grounded; on the mountain of Nisir the boat held fast... When the seventh day dawned I loosed a dove and let her go. She flew away, but finding no resting place she returned. Then I loosed a swallow, and she flew away but finding no resting place she returned. I loosed a raven, she saw that the waters had retreated, she ate, she flew around, she cawed, and she did not come back... I made a sacrifice and poured out a libation on the mountain top... When the gods smelled the sweet savour, they gathered like flies over the sacrifice." [Epic of Gilgamesh, The Story of the Flood]

As you can see it is no coincidence that the Old Testament version shares similarities to the Epic. And it is no coincidence the Qur'an shares similarities with the Old Testament. One is inspired by the other and the other the one before it. They just change the names of the details but they have the same mythical foundations. One can try to argue that the event of Noah's flood happened before the writing of the Epic of Gilgamesh and that these pagans wrote their story to suit their culture and polytheistic beliefs but the story of Gilgamesh and Atra-Hasis happened a thousand years before the writing of the Old Testament and before it alludes the flood took place even. In addition to this, I need to re-emphasise the personality and purpose of Atra-Hasis in the Epic. He is portrayed as a regular man, not some prophet sent on a mission, and he was certainly no preacher trying to guide an unruly nation to the worship of one god. The Epic portrays him in such a way that no shadow whatsoever of the Biblical or Quranic prophet Noah is present in the description of his personality or his actions. He is like an entirely different person. So if the story is retelling of a true event involving the 'real' Noah, it would likely carry some indication of his divine monotheistic mission, but yet it does not - not even a little bit. What is more, certain parts of the Epic are lifted almost exactly as they are found and put into the Old Testament, especially how he sends out the birds in succession, which if it was a divine book, should never happen! And if you are not willing to even consider the Epic of Gilgamesh and other Akkadian tablets, the story still reveals itself to be mythical in nature for so many other logical reasons:

There are a number of issues with either the Biblical or Qur'anic version of the story. Even if we were to assume that god performed many miracles there are far too many holes and gaps to make the story float. I think some of these criticisms can be applied to the Islamic story but because the details are lacking in the Islamic version it is difficult to be more specific. Thus I leave it to you the reader to decide what criticisms apply to the Islamic version.

• There are far too many species on Earth to have been put onto the ship (estimated to be 8.7 Million ³). Even if just a fraction of the species went on the boat it would be impossible to fit them on.
• If somehow the progenitors of species were present on the ark, it is impossible that so many species, breeds and varieties could have come from them as we see them now.
• There is not enough water on the planet to flood the world such that it covers the mountains.
• Animals need special conditions, temperatures, foods and habitats to survive and the ark could not meet these conditions.
• There are animals living on distant continents that could not possibly have found a way to travel across the thousands of miles of oceans to Iraq, survive the journey and the flood, and then travel all the way back again.
• Animals, including humans, need clean water and specific foods to survive.
• It is not possible for Noah to store a fraction of the food stuffs and clean water for over a year required by his family and all his animals let alone all the animals and their particular diets.
• Noah only had a few dozen livestock animals and a whole family to feed. How did he keep them all alive for over a year?
• Some animals will eat others so how do you stop that?
• Animals get sick and die or spread diseases to other animals - how did he stop that?
• The flood would mix the salty sea water and the non-salty water thus fish and other aquatic life that is dependent on a particular salinity of water would perish.
• Many species of fish, plants, insects and animals would have immediately become extinct because the soil would be filled with salt or its composition changed such that it would not grow anything or be inhospitable to life.
• There would be no pure water after the flood because all water source would have been contaminated so they could not drink it and Noah, his family and all animals would die of thirst.
• Because the soil is salty there would be little plant life that survived and is able to grow in saline soil. There would be a serious lack of biomass, of food and water such that Earth could not sustain complex life any more and everyone would starve.
• There is no layer of soil in Earth's crust that has evenly-distributed salinity, indicates any major global flood and is littered with the remains of all the people and animals that died in the flood.
• There is no evidence of any global flood in the history of the earth.
• There is no evidence of a genetic bottle-neck in the human species that indicates Noah and his family were the progenitors of humanity.
• There is no evidence for a bottle-neck in animal species genetic history that shows only two of each species made the others. 
• If there were two of every species then there would be mass incest at the human and animal level. I assume you agree with me that incest is terrible and non-conducive to the health of any species.
• There is no evidence anyone has lived as long as Noah or many hundreds of years less than him even.
• There is no evidence for Noah's existence.
• There is no evidence for his ark on any mountain.

And there are many more problems with the story and the above list is not exhaustive. While a religious Jew, Christian or Muslim would argue that "anything is possible by God's power" it does not answer why there is no specific global layer of earth that is littered with the corpses of animals and humans and salt water remains. There are no remains of any ship or any other evidence. While I understand it is possible to believe that god does miracles, it is not possible to explain how or why he would have removed absolutely any evidence for his miracles and instead planted evidence that clearly indicates no such event happened. It's not that there is a lack of evidence for the great flood, it's that there is abounding evidence that says no such flood happened and it is practically impossible for it to have occurred. The stories furthermore contradict the scientific perspective on human origins and on how long we have been on the planet, of what we know about animal speciation and genetic history, of archaeology and the remnants of previous human civilisations and of anthropology and how and when we developed tools and techniques advanced enough to build even the simplest of crafts. There is so much evidence against the story of Noah that it is foolish to even attempt to justify any part of it. It's sad that parents continue to twist this story of god's failure with humanity into something else and teach it to children as if it were true and actually happened. I would much rather they told them the original legend of Atra-Hasis along with the other stories from the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Also, check out these YouTube videos:

References:

1 Limit to Human Life May Be 115 (ish) (retrieved 08/10/16)
2 The Date of Noah's Flood (retrieved 13/10/16)
3 Number of species on Earth tagged at 8.7 million (retrieved 08/10/16)