In which month and year of Noah’s life did Genesis say the Flood begin?

Genesis says the Flood began in the second month of Noah’s 600th year.

Genesis 7:11 gives a detailed date: in Noah’s six-hundredth year, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the fountains of the deep burst open and the windows of heaven were opened. This is one of the most precise chronological statements in the Ark narrative.

The account continues to mark time through Noah’s life. The Ark rests in the seventh month, the mountain tops become visible in the tenth month, and Noah leaves the Ark in the second month of his six-hundred-and-first year. These markers create a narrative calendar rather than a simple statement that the Flood lasted forty days.

Some translations differ in how they render ancient calendar terms, but the month, year, and day recorded in Genesis 7:11 are the standard details. The famous forty-day figure refers to rain, not the date when the Flood began.