The Khor Virap monastery in Armenia, and behind it Mount Ararat across the border in Turkey, said to be the place where the Ark finally came to rest. The monastery’s name means ‘deep pit’: originally, an unpleasant dungeon stood on the site, where Grigor, a Christian in the court of pagan King Tiridates III, was kept for fourteen years. Grigor subsequently converted Tiridates to Christianity in 301.
IN the ninth generation of Adam’s descendants, creation had become so corrupt that God was ready to sweep everything from the face of the earth in a great flood.
However, Noah and his family found favour in God’s eyes. For their sake, he instructed Noah in the building of a vast ark, designed to preserve one breeding pair of every animal in creation.
Nothing else survived the storm that followed.
When it was over, Noah waited many days before sending out a dove to see if the waters had subsided, but it found no home. The second time, it found an olive branch, but still no home. The third time, the bird did not return, and Noah knew the world was habitable again. He built an altar, and offered a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God.
And that man should not fear another such flood, God set high in the sky the most beautiful pledge of unconditional forgiveness: the rainbow.
Précis
Creation had gone so badly wrong, that God decided to wash it all away. So that the world could be repopulated afterwards, he showed Noah how to build a ship for his family and one pair of every animal. God later set the rainbow in the sky, as a sign that he would never do that again. (57 / 60 words)
