The story of Noah and the Great Flood is sometimes questioned of whether or not it really happened. Some people who take the Bible literally believe that, with the grace of God, Noah was able to accomplish this task and this event really did occur. Others, who take some of the stories from the Bible as a symbol for something else, do not believe that this really happened. They may believe that God was trying to tell us something through this story. The story of Noah and the Great Flood is an issue that historians and theologians have been studying and debating over for many years, and more years to come.
The story of Noah and the flood is basically the second story of creation. The world was turning to evil, so God trusted the only faithful man left on Earth to ride the flood on an ark. (Boadt, 123) he told Noah to build an ark, which was made of gopher wood. After he built the ark, God instructed Noah to get two animals of every kind, one male and one female, and load them onto the ark. Seven days after the ark was built, it started to rain. It rained for forty days and forty nights. When the flood was over, Noah sent out a dove to check for any signs of land. The first time Noah sent the dove, it just came back to him with nothing. The second time he sent the dove, it brought back an olive branch. Noah sent out the dove one more time, and it never returned. Noah now knew that there was land somewhere above the water's surface. The ark finally landed on Mount Ararat. The first thing Noah did when he got off of the ark was build an altar to God. God restored the covenant with the world through Noah. He did this by sending a rainbow as a promise to all of humanity promising that he would never destroy the entire world again. (Bi ...