Did Noah tell others about the flood or keep it to himself?

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It's a common refrain from Christians that Noah spent the entire time the boat was being built preaching to his neighbors. Trying to get them to see the light, but getting nothing but ridicule in return.

Problem: As you've noticed, that ain't part of the story.

In fact, many of the Christian traditions surrounding the Flood story were invented long after the story was written, as could be expected when the story itself only takes up a page and a half in the book....Show more

It is kind of hard to hide that big of a boat!
Every one was warned!
Satan when to God and said "I won, nobody believes in you any more!"
God said "Want to bet!"
Satan replied "I can't loose!"
So God sent the message to every body- "Build an Ark using these dimensions ...."!
Noah was the only one that took notes and started building.
That is why "Noah was accounted righteous in his generation".
Any body else that would have built an Ark would also have received the same recognition.
So God won the bet and Satan was very unhappy.
Read the first book of Enoch....Show more

Noah was described as a preacher of righteousness, 2 Peter 2:5 And he did not refrain from punishing an ancient world, but kept Noah, a preacher of righteousness, safe with seven others when he brought a flood upon a world of ungodly people.
Noah informed all he could of the coming deluge and what they needed to do, but they took no notice of him and when God closed the door of the ark it was too late, sadly many today ignore or scoff at what the Bible says and soon it will be too late for them to listen, all godly and righteous ones will survive Armageddon and the wicked will be gone for good; no more need for locks, children can play safely, all can enjoy all of God's promises....Show more

There is often a real event behind the legend.

The most probable event behind biblical Flood is the Black Sea Event. Epoch and region are consistent with middle eastern Flood myths.
5500 BC The Black Sea was a freshwater lake 200 m below the level of Mediterranea, protected from it by Bosphorus natural dam. We know from other similar places around lakes, that post-neolithic people tended to develop fishing/farming settlements.
Owning a family house, a fishing boat a few chickens and goats (male and female).

So when "the windows of heaven were opened" (in fact when the Bosphorus breached) the probably inhabited and active region was flooded under 200 m of seawater and became what we know now as the Black Sea.
This is considered the deadliest event since the end of the Ice Age.

Hopefully, at least one farmer/fisherman, let's call him Utnapishtim ("finder of life") managed to embark with his family and livestock.

To answer your question:
It's impossible to tell if someone worried about the earliest signs of dam failure, maybe some small cascades at the beginning, or if Utnapishtim and other sailors organized their rescue, or if Utnapishtim just grabbed wife, kids, a couple of chickens and goats and jumped into the boat

The trauma inevitably stayed in local traditions of neighboring populations.
And as usual with oral traditions, narrators embellished the story every time, the boat became a 150 m Ark, and the family livestock the whole Creation.

The Sumerians eventually invented writing 2500 years later (3000 BC), and probably soon wrote Utnapishtim legend. however, the earliest known Sumerian version of the Flood is in a 2000 BC issue of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

While exiled in Babylon around 600 BC, Hebrews read the Epic of Gilgamesh and copied Flood story into their Genesis Book, not without changing Utnapishtim' name to Noah....Show more

oral traditions were always passed on.
then people learned to write and read.

learning is fun.
we all have much to learn.

machigainai...Show more