Undated (Genesis 6–9)·Creation to Babel·Event

Noah's Flood

Scripture: Genesis 6–9

Our verdict

Contradicted

As commonly read, a global flood covering every mountain conflicts with the geological record. Many scholars and some believers read the story as a great regional flood in Mesopotamia, and flood memories there are well documented. The close parallels with Gilgamesh and Atrahasis show the story belongs to a shared ancient Near Eastern tradition.

Contradicted means: Well-dated, widely accepted evidence conflicts with a specific claim in the text as commonly read. We state exactly which claim, and note any proposed reconciliations. How we judge

Spot an error? Report it Deep dive · 15 min readNoah's Flood: The Stories, the Search and the MountainFlood stories appear from Babylon to the Maya. People have spent decades searching Mount Ararat for the Ark. Here is what the evidence shows, and what it would actually take to reach the mountain.Read the deep dive →

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Tablet XI of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Babylonian flood tablet, British Museum · Photo: Wikimedia Commons · CC0 · Source

The claim

God sends a flood that covers the earth. Noah, his family and the animals survive in the ark.

What archaeology found

In 1872 George Smith read a Babylonian flood story on a tablet from Ashurbanipal's library at Nineveh, now known as Tablet XI of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Its hero builds a boat, saves animals and releases birds to find land. The older Atrahasis epic tells a similar story. Leonard Woolley found a thick flood deposit at Ur in 1929, but flood layers at other cities date to different times, which points to local river floods. Geology shows no single worldwide flood layer.

Where it is

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Mount Ararat, TurkeyView on OpenStreetMap

Sources

George Smith, The Chaldean Account of Genesis, Sampson Low (1876)
A. R. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, Oxford University Press (2003)
C. Leonard Woolley, Ur of the Chaldees, Ernest Benn (1929)

Verdict history

Nov 10, 2026ContradictedInitial verdict.

What archaeology found