Noah and the Flood in Western Thought

While revealing Noah as a pivotal figure in the history of Western religious thinking, Philip Almond demonstrates how the flood story also had a very significant and forgotten role in the development of secular thought, even as it is now a powerful lightning rod for gathering climatic and environmental anxieties.

In a world beset by climatic emergencies, the continuing resonance of the flood story is perhaps easy to understand. Whether in the tortured alpha male intensity of Russell Crowe''s Noah, in Darren Aronofsky''s eponymous 2014 film, or other recent derivations, the biblical narrative has become a lightning rod for gathering environmental anxieties. However, Philip C. Almond''s masterful exploration of Western cultural history uncovers a far more complex Noah than is commonly recognised: not just the father of humanity but also the first shipbuilder, navigator, zookeeper, farmer, grape grower, and wine maker. Noah''s pivotal significance is revealed as much in his forgotten secular as in his religious receptions, and their major impact on such disciplines as geology, geography, biology, and zoology. While Noah''s many interpretations over two millennia might seem to offer a common message of hope, the author''s sober conclusion is that deliverance now lies not in divine but rather in human hands.