276. Almost every ancient culture has some sort of flood or deluge myth that shares much in common with the Biblical flood. In most of them the gods send a catastrophic flood to destroy the world, but one good man is told of the coming disaster and his family is saved to continue human existence. The one most like Noah's story comes from the Babylonian Gilgamesh epic. In this story, the hero, Utnapishtim, also survives the flood by building a boat, which comes to rest on Mount Nisir, which is in the same region as Noah's "mountains of Ararat."
277. Noah made his ark of "gopher wood" (Gen. 6:14), which probably meant the cypress tree. This wood is extremely durable. The doors of Saint Peter's in Rome are made from it and after twelve hundred years they still show no signs of decay.
278. The Bible does not list all of the animals that took refuge on the ark. However, those animals that survived the flood must have been the ones that were best known to the Hebrews and also those mentioned most often in the Bible through symbolism or otherwise.
279. The first bird Noah released was a raven, a powerful flier able to slice through the air or soar with the ease of a hawk on wings that span up to four feet. Its habitat wilderness, and so it was just the bird to scout out any crags that might have emerged from the flooded earth. The raven is noted for its remarkable memory, so this scout would not forget the location of the ark.
280. When the raven failed to give Noah any sign of land, Noah sent out a dove ("doves" and "pigeons," by the way, refer to the same birds.) The rock dove was one of the earliest of all animals to be domesticated. There are Egyptian records, dating back five thousand years, of people rearing them in captivity for food and probably also as carrier pigeons.
281. Very fast fliers, the strong wings of doves make them capable of powerful flight in a straight line, despite storms and high winds. Almost at least five thousand years of using doves and pigeons to carry messages, we are still not certain how a pigeon "homes"-finds its way back to its roost-as the Biblical dove found its way back to the ark.
282. The second time Noah sent out the dove, it returned before evening with an olive leaf. This was evidence that the waters had subsided enough to expose the valleys where olive trees grow. The olive was the most important tree cultivated in the Holy Land. It is native only to the lands bordering the Mediterranean Sea.
283. The story of Noah and the ark yields some interesting analysis as a type of Christ. The ark itself is a type of Christ! God gave Noah every detail of how it was to be built, from its dimensions to its purpose in protecting Noah and his family from the judgment that awaited the rest of the world. Likewise, God planned every minute detail of how Jesus would redeem God's people; not a single detail was left to man. As the big boat brought earthly salvation for Noah, so Christ brings eternal salvation for all who believe in Him. As the ark had but one door, so Christ is the door to God-He is the only way we can gain forgiveness for our sins and come to the Father.
284. The families of Noah's sons "had one language and a common speech" (Gen. 11:1). Babel was the original name for Babylon, which in Hebrew means "gate of God." Situated on the southern part of the flood plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Babylon was the site where builders attempted to erect a tower "that reaches to the heavens" (Gen. 11:4). The builders never completed the tower because their language became confused and they could no longer understand one another.
285. With the destruction of the tower of Babel, the Bible's story of the early history of humankind ends. Abraham, the great patriarch of the Hebrews, is a descendant of Noah's son Shem. Abraham was the man to whom God promised, "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great" (Gen. 12:2
