9 Jan. Genesis 8:1-17

9 Jan. Noah journeys to Aratta on the flood

"But God remembered Noah and all the wild and tame animals with him in the boat. He made a wind blow over the earth, and the water went down. The underground springs stopped flowing, and the clouds in the sky stopped pouring down rain."

"The water that covered the earth began to go down. After 150 days it had gone down so much that the boat touched land again. It came to rest on one of the mountains of Ararat on the seventeenth day of the seventeenth month..."

"Forty days later Noah opened the window he had made in the boat, and he sent out a raven. It flew here and there until the water had dried up from the earth."

"Then Noah sent out a dove to find out if the water had dried up from the ground. The dove could not find a place to land because water still covered the earth, so it came back to the boat..."

"After seven days, Noah again sent out the dove from the boat, and that evening it came back to him with a fresh olive leaf in its mouth. Then Noah knew that the ground was almost dry. Seven days later he sent the dove out again, but this time it did not come back..."

"Then God said to Noah, 'You and your wife, your sons and their wives should go out of the boat. Bring every animal out of the boat with you - the birds, animals and everything that crawls on the earth. Let them have many young ones so that they might grow in number."

(Genesis 8:1-17)

After forty days of rain, God sent a strong wind and the waters receded as “the underground springs stopped flowing, and the clouds in the sky stopped pouring down rain.” (Genesis 8:2)

The water subsided for 150 days as the boat was blown steadily northwards by a southerly breeze. The boat eventually came to rest in Aratta, on the lower slopes of the mountains of the Ararat range, at the northern end of the Mesopotamian floodplain.

After a further forty days, Noah sent out a raven, but it could not find any dry land. Later, Noah let a dove loose, but it also returned. Seven days later, the dove returned with a fresh olive leaf, indicating that the floodwaters were receding. The ground gradually dried out and Noah was told to disembark with all the animals and birds.

The area to the north of Mesopotamia was called the Kingdom of Aratta by the ancient Sumerians. By the time the Book of Genesis was written, the area had become known as the mountains of Aratta or ‘the mountains of Ararat’. The boat in which Noah and his family escaped the flood came to rest at the northern end of the Mesopotamian floodplain, on the lower slopes of the Ararat range.

For centuries, this was believed to be north of Mosul, at Mount Judi (Judi Dagh, in the Zagros Mountains of modern-day Turkey). Local Assyrian Nestorian Christians from the 5th century AD venerated this as a holy place – the ‘Place of the Descent’ where Noah and his family left the ‘ark’ and began their new life.

Only more recently, in the 13th century AD, did European travellers begin to claim that the 16,945 feet / 5165 metre volcanic peak of Agri Dagh (Mount Ararat) – near Dogubeyazit, some 130 miles / 200 km to the north of the Judi Dagh – was the final resting place of ‘Noah’s Ark’.

The photo (by Andrew Behesnilian) shows Kohr Virap Monastery and Mount Ararat.