The story of Noah’s Ark is one of the Bible’s best-known. For many, it evokes memories of Sunday school children plastering felt figures on flannel boards or coloring cartoon activity pages. Is it just a quaint bedtime story? A major scientific marvel? An allegory? Was there a flood that covered the entire earth? Did a man named Noah build an extremely large boat and fill it with animals? Or was the ark actually designed to be a floating sanctuary?

The Temple Revealed in Noah’s Ark: From Chaos to Order examines Noah and the flood story from an ancient Near Eastern cultural and historical perspective through the lens of creation and order, chaos and tyranny, and kingship. It looks at the cosmos as a kingdom, the mountain as the center of government, the ark as the bulwark against chaos, and the vineyard as a sign of new creation.

The story of Noah replays the creation account. The concept of creation is infused throughout the Bible and represents a radically different view of human life than the one presented by the world. Creation is synonymous with order and order is synonymous with true liberty, equality, and justice that come from a covenantal relationship with the One True God.

Ultimately, Noah building the ark and rescuing his family from the flood is a story of bringing order to a world filled with chaos.

The book encourages the reader to go beyond the limits of our western theological mindset to discover the answers to some of the Bible’s most perplexing questions about the days of Noah.