The above artwork is a sad picture but mankind had gotten so wicked that God needed to start over with the human race. Mankind typically rejects, mocks, and ignores God. Then when bad things happen people criticize God that He didn't do anything to help them. If there would have been any another way for mankind to turn from their wickedness, God would have gone the other way, but there wasn't. That ark represents Jesus. Either a person chooses to be on board or they don't. Once the door is shut then it is too late.
"And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD" (Genesis 6:5-8)
The article below dating Noah's Flood is reprinted with permission. Some have other views with the date being a few years younger or older, but we believe these calculations are within the range of reality. Believing a few years more or less isn't going to change anything.
Genesis chapters 6 - 9 records the events of Noah's flood also called the Great Flood. If the genealogy provided in the chater 5 of the book of Genesis is intended to be comprehensive, we can determine the dates of various events by simply adding up the time spans between fathers and sons, given in Genesis chapter 5:
Adam to Seth — 130 years
Seth to Enosh — 105 years
Enosh to Kenan — 90 years
Kenan to Mahalalel — 70 years
Mahalalel to Jared — 65 years
Jared to Enoch — 162 years
Enoch to Methuselah — 65 years
Methuselah to Lamech —187 years
Lamech to Noah —182 years
According to this method, the time from Adam to Noah was approximately 1,056 years. These are approximate times because we don’t know if the years are counted from conception or birth; also, it is obvious that the years are given in whole numbers but no doubt included (or excluded) partial years. (For instance, Adam was 130 years old when Seth was born, give or take a certain number of months and days.)
So we have Noah’s birth, which occurred about 1,056 years after the creation of Adam. Then, in Genesis chapter 7 verse 11, we are told that the flood came in the 600th year of Noah’s life, so that would mean the Great Flood came approximately 1,656 years after Adam was created in Eden. Using a similar method places the creation of Adam and Eve at around 4004 BC. So, doing the math, Noah’s flood occurred in approximately 2348 BC.
Add that to the current year of 2023 and
we have the flood approximately 4371 years ago.
Similar genealogies are found throughout the Old Testament. Using the same method places Abraham’s calling at 228 years after Noah’s flood or about 1,884 years after the dawn of humanity. We can also use the genealogies to count backward from other dates that we know, such as the fall of Jerusalem. Using this method, Abraham was born about 2166 BC, and the exodus during Moses’ time would have happened about 1446 BC.
Some scholars believe that the genealogies are not intended, and were never understood by the original audience, to be exhaustive. It could be that generations were skipped, as we know happened in the genealogy of Jesus recorded in Matthew. If this is the case in the book of Genesis chapter 5 genealogy, and there are years unaccounted for, then we really have no idea when the Great Flood took place.
The actual year of the flood is less important than the meaning of the flood, which is that God punishes sin but also provides a way of salvation.
Cite: "Date of Noah's Flood" Got Questions Ministries, accessed March 7, 2023, [https://www.gotquestions.org/when-was-Noah-flood.html]
The mountain that the Ark came to rest on, Mt. Ararat in Turkey 