The Genesis account of Noah’s Ark appears in the Bible book Genesis. The flood narrative begins in Genesis 6 and continues through Genesis 9, describing human violence, Noah’s obedience, the ark’s construction, the flood, and the covenant that follows.
Genesis is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its name comes from the Greek word for “origin” or “ beginning,” while its Hebrew title is Bereshit, meaning “In the beginning.” The Noah narrative is part of Genesis’s primeval history, which also includes creation, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and the Tower of Babel.
The flood account is sometimes compared with older Mesopotamian stories, especially the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Atrahasis Epic. Those comparisons concern shared flood motifs, but Genesis gives its own distinctive theological presentation. The following chapters describe Noah’s descendants and the covenant symbolized by the rainbow.