Portál:Náboženství/ZAHRANIČNÍ ČLÁNEK - FOREIGN ARTICLE
Noah's Ark was, according to Abrahamic religions, a large vessel built at God's command to save Noah, his family, and a core stock of the world's animals from the Great Flood. The story is told in chapters 6-9 of the book of Genesis, with later variations in the Qur'an and a number of other sources.
Genesis 6-9 tells how God decided to destroy the world because of the wickedness of mankind, selecting Noah, a man "righteous in his generation", instructing him to build an ark and take on board his family and representatives of all the animals and birds. God's flood then destroys all life on earth, but at the height of the deluge "God remembered Noah", and the waters abate and the dry land reappears. The story ends with God entering into a covenant with Noah and his descendants.
The story has been subject to extensive elaborations in the various Abrahamic traditions, mingling theoretical solutions to practical problems (e.g. how Noah might have disposed of animal waste) with allegorical interpretations (e.g. the Ark as the precursor of the Church, offering salvation to mankind). By the 19th century, the growth of geology and biogeography as sciences meant that few natural historians felt able to justify a literal interpretation of the Ark story, and biblical critics were turning their attention to its secular origins and purposes. Nevertheless, Biblical literalists today continue to take the Ark as test-case for their understanding of the Bible, and to explore the region of the w:en:mountains of Ararat in northeast w:en:Turkey where Genesis says Noah's Ark came to rest.