In the Bible, how many people entered Noah’s Ark?
Answer
Eight people
The biblical account describes eight people entering Noah’s Ark.
Genesis names Noah, his wife, his three sons—Shem, Ham, and Japheth—and the three sons’ wives. That totals eight people. Genesis 7:13 presents this family group entering the Ark before the Flood, and 1 Peter 3:20 later refers to “eight souls” being saved through water.
The biblical text does not give the names of Noah’s wife or his daughters-in-law. Later Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions supply different names, but those traditions are not part of Genesis’s explicit passenger list. This is why “Noah’s family” is less precise than the number eight.
The total also does not include the animals. Genesis separately describes animals entering the Ark according to their kinds, with different instructions for clean and unclean animals. The human count is therefore a distinct, text-based detail.