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Summary
- Genesis dates Noah’s time in the ark from the seventeenth day of the second month of his 600th year (Genesis 7:11, 7:13) to the twenty-seventh day of the second month a year later (Genesis 8:14): one year and ten days.
- In thirty-day months that is 370 days, or 371 counting both the first and the last day; in months that follow the moon it is 364 or 365.
- Read as a week inside before the rain (Genesis 7:1–10), as Augustine and Calvin read it, the stay was 377 days in thirty-day months; others take Genesis 7:13 to mean the family went in on the day the flood began.
- The rain lasted forty days and forty nights, the waters prevailed 150 days, and the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat on the seventeenth day of the seventh month (Genesis 7:12, 7:24, 8:4).
- The Dead Sea Scroll 4Q252 makes the flood year exactly 364 days; the Book of Jubilees, on the same 364-day calendar, has Noah leave about two weeks after the year was out; the Greek Septuagint runs it from the twenty-seventh day of the second month to the same date a year later.
- Noah saw dry ground on the first day of the first month but left only after the earth dried on the twenty-seventh day of the second month and God told him, “Go forth of the ark” (Genesis 8:13–16).
- In the Talmud, Shem remembers the year as hard work, feeding the animals by day and by night (Sanhedrin 108b).
Bibliography (Click to show)
- King James Version: Genesis 6:21; 7:1, 7:4, 7:10–13, 7:16, 7:20, 7:24; 8:1, 8:3–16, 8:18; 1 Peter 3:20–21; the ages in Genesis 5:25–28, BibleGateway.
- Brenton Septuagint Translation, Genesis 7 and 8, eBible.org (Genesis 7) and eBible.org (Genesis 8).
- Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 138, tr. Marcus Dods and George Reith, New Advent.
- Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus 3.18–19, tr. Marcus Dods, New Advent.
- Augustine, City of God 15.14, tr. Marcus Dods, New Advent.
- Augustine, Reply to Faustus the Manichaean 12.17–20, tr. Richard Stothert, New Advent.
- Jerome, Letter 69, To Oceanus, tr. W. H. Fremantle, G. Lewis and W. G. Martley, New Advent.
- John Calvin, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis, vol. 1, on Genesis 7:1 and 8:1–16, tr. John King, CCEL.
- Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1857–78), on Genesis 7:13–16, Bible Hub.
- The Pulpit Commentary, Genesis, notes on Genesis 7:1 and 7:13, Bible Hub.
- New American Bible, Revised Edition, notes on Genesis 6:5–8:22 and 8:13–14, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Genesis 6 and Genesis 8.
- Rashi on Genesis 7:4, 7:12, 8:8 and 8:14, tr. M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, Sefaria: 7:4, 7:12, 8:8, 8:14 (on 8:14 the Hebrew says eleven days where the English prints ten).
- Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 108b, William Davidson Edition, Sefaria.
- Midrash Tanchuma, Noach 9, tr. Samuel A. Berman, Sefaria.
- Mishnah Eduyot 2:10, tr. Joshua Kulp, Sefaria.
- The Book of Jubilees 5–6, tr. R. H. Charles (1913), chapter 5 and chapter 6.
- Jonathan Ben-Dov, “Theological and Halakhic Corrections in the MT Pentateuch”, seminar handout with translations of 4Q252 (Commentary on Genesis A) II 1–3, Mishnah Eduyot 2:10 and 1 Enoch 106:15 (tr. Stuckenbruck), Oxford Centre for the Study of the Hebrew Bible.
- Danny R. Faulkner, “How Long Did the Flood Last?”, Answers Research Journal 8 (2015): 253–259, Answers in Genesis.
- Troy Lacey, “How Did the Events of Noah’s Flood Unfold?”, 24 May 2025, Answers in Genesis.
- “The Flood of Noah: What Does Science Say?”, 21 January 2026, Reasons to Believe.
- “How Should We Interpret the Genesis Flood Account?”, last updated 20 November 2023, BioLogos.
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