Noah and the Flood in Western Thought

Philip C. Almond is Emeritus Professor in the History of Religious Thought at The University of Queensland. A noted authority in the history of religion and of ideas, he has written many books on subjects as diverse as God, the Devil, the afterlife, witchcraft and witches, Adam and Eve, heaven and hell in Enlightenment England, and early modern demonic possession. His recent works include The Buddha: Life and Afterlife Between East and West (2024), Mary Magdalene: A Cultural History (2023), and The Antichrist: A New Biography (2020), all published by Cambridge University Press.

'Philip Almond is a world-leading authority on the history of religion and a highly versatile scholar. It is this versatility which makes him such a suitable choice for a subject as massive and multifarious as the reception history of Noachic themes in Western thought. There is nothing in the literature as broad-ranging and accessible as this book. It has the potential to become the established leader in the field, with a wide market and an enduring shelf life. There is a rich comprehensiveness in the book that is unrivalled in the scholarly literature. It ranges from the flood stories of antiquity, including the Gilgamesh legend, to the modern biblical theme park in Kentucky devoted to the Ark. Nor does Almond confine his exploration to the Christian understanding of Noah and the flood, but also includes substantial discussion of the story's exegesis in the rabbinical tradition and by Islamic interpreters. Moreover, the book broadens out beyond hermeneutics to explore the relationship of the Noah story to a wider history of notionally secular disciplines – geography; proto-anthropology; demography broadly conceived, and the peopling of the world; zoology; geology; mythography; and even maritime technology. Philip Almond is a scholarly phenomenon, always arresting in the works I have read – as well as authoritative – and his latest book offers a compelling revisionist take on the conventional history of Western knowledge.' Colin Kidd, Professor of History, University of St Andrews, author of The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600–2000

• List of plates; Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations; Prologue; 1. Ancient floods and heroes; 2. Building narrative arcs; 3. Noah and the flood in Judaism and Islam; 4. The late medieval and early modern Noah; 5. Noah and the new science; 6. Noah, myth, and history; 7. Legends of Noah and the ark; Epilogue: a legend for our time; Bibliography; Index.