Flood

The Flood (or Deluge) is the catastrophic event recorded in Genesis 6–9, in which God sent rising waters to cover the earth as judgment on the pervasive wickedness of the antediluvian world. The narrative describes forty days of rain and the opening of "the windows of heaven" and "the fountains of the great deep" (Genesis 7:11), resulting in waters that prevailed for 150 days and covered even the highest mountains. Only Noah, his family of eight persons, and the pairs of animals preserved in the ark survived. The ark came to rest on Ararat, and God established the Noahic covenant with the rainbow as its sign (Genesis 9).

The flood stands as the definitive biblical type of judgment and salvation by water. Peter draws this typological connection explicitly: the flood waters that judged the world also "saved" Noah, and this corresponds to baptism, which now saves through resurrection (1 Peter 3:20-21). Jesus uses the days of Noah to characterize the unsuspecting normalcy that will precede the Son of Man's return (Matthew 24:37-39). Hebrews 11:7 commends Noah's faith in building the ark in response to a divine warning about "things not yet seen." The Flood narrative has parallels in Mesopotamian literature (the Atrahasis Epic and Gilgamesh Tablet XI), though the biblical account is theologically distinctive in its ethical-monotheistic framework.