For how many days did the Ark rest on the mountains of Ararat before the mountain tops appeared?

In Genesis, 74 days passed between the Ark resting on Ararat’s mountains and the mountain tops appearing.

Genesis 8:4 says the Ark rested on the mountains of Ararat on the seventeenth day of the seventh month. Genesis 8:5 then says that on the first day of the tenth month, the mountain tops became visible. Counting the interval between those dates gives 74 days in the narrative’s calendar sequence.

The passage does not say that the Ark rested on a peak called Mount Ararat. It uses the plural “mountains of Ararat,” referring to a region associated with the ancient land of Ararat. The identification of a modern mountain as the Ark’s landing place is therefore a later tradition, not a precise statement in Genesis.

This interval is also separate from the 150 days during which the waters prevailed. Biblical chronology uses several milestones, so the numbers describe different stages of the Flood story.