Noah's Flood: The Genesis Story in Western Thought

by Norman Cohn

The biblical tale of Noah and the Flood has been interpreted in many different ways through the ages, mirroring the many changes in Western beliefs and values. In this masterly and beautifully illustrated book, Norman Cohn, the author of The Pursuit of the Millennium and Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come, explores the origins, development, and varying interpretations of this ancient story and assesses its impact on the history of ideas.

Genres: Religion, History, Nonfiction, Mythology, Judaism

168 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Jewish academic, historian and writer who spent fourteen years as a professorial fellow and as Astor-Wolfson Professor at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom.

His main subject were the connection between medievel anti-semitism and contemporary anti-semitismn.

Reviews

[Adam Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

The intellectual history of one of the most influential myths ever recorded.

I can remember being told by a close family member in my childhood that the folded, rounded mountains around my home in Appalachia had been eroded that way during "The Flood." The Rockies, Himalayas, and Andes ranges apparently were never covered by this "worldwide" event. One year in vacation bible school, the theme was centered on the Noah story and that was all we learned for a week.

This myth that is thousands of years old still captivates many people in our world today. It inspires fundamentalists to deny science or build a life size replica like Ken Ham is doing in Kentucky with the "Ark Encounter" theme park.

While it is obvious to anyone with scientific learning that this story is a myth or at most an embellished regional event, the point is that it both speaks about something deep in the human condition to many and to others it can be used to "explain" much of the world if taken as literally true.

Cohn, in this excellent book, contextualizes the story from its inception borrowing from other myths in the Middle East, to its modern day place in popular thought. Along the way, we see how it has been viewed across the centuries and utilized as an explanatory device by the intellectually influential.

I'd recommend this book to anyone with interest in the subject. The book is also beautifully illustrated in full color (at least in the hard cover version I have).

[Michael Lewyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although this book contains a bit of Jewish midrash, it mostly focuses on how Christians wrote about the Flood. Early Christians mined the flood story for theological meaning: for example, the Gospel of Matthew compares the Flood to the Second Coming of Jesus, and a few centuries later Jerome wrote that the Church was like Noah's ark, which would save an elect few while non-Christians perished. Other Church Fathers compared the Flood to baptism, which would wash away sin.

By the 17th century, geologists in England and France sought natural explanations of the Flood (while continuing to assume that the story as told in Genesis was basically accurate). For example, 17th century writer Thomas Burnet asked how there could have been enough water to cover mountains. He answered that the earth must have been flat and thus more easily covered.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this account of changes in attitudes toward the Christian Flood story, through the Christian era to modern times.