# When Was Noah’s Flood, and How Do World Flood Traditions Compare? > On the King James ages, Noah’s flood is year 1656 from Adam. The timeline labels Ussher’s date 2348 BC. Hancock dates a cataclysm near 12,800 years ago. - Canonical: https://apologetics.wiki/christianity/dating-noahs-flood - Religions: Christianity - Denominations: none - Beliefs: none - Tags: bible, genesis, flood - Updated: 2026-10-16 Genesis dates Noah’s flood by Noah’s age, not by a year before Christ. [Genesis 7:6](/bible/genesis/7/6) says he was 600 when the flood came. Added to the King James begetting ages in Genesis 5, with no generation skipped, that is year 1656 from Adam. James Ussher’s date, as this site’s timeline records it, is 2348 BC, marked as a traditional view from those Hebrew ages. Graham Hancock’s own page dates a global cataclysm to about 12,800 years ago. That is a different claim, tied to the Younger Dryas, which NOAA describes as a cold interval, not as Noah’s flood. ## Key Points - [Genesis 7:6](/bible/genesis/7/6) and [Genesis 7:11](/bible/genesis/7) put the flood in Noah’s 600th year, the second month, the seventeenth day in the King James. - The addition to year 1656 is on [Genesis 5 and 11](/christianity/genesis-5-and-11-genealogies). Brenton’s 1851 English of the Greek Genesis, added the same way, gives year 2242. Africanus gives 2262 years from Adam to the flood. [(6)](#ref-6) - The [timeline](/timeline) says Mesopotamian texts, Atrahasis, Gilgamesh XI, and the Sumerian King List, also remember a great flood, and that Mallowan linked a deposit at Shuruppak to that tradition. The same entry says no archaeological layer can be tied to the Flood of Genesis. [(2)](#ref-2) - Ussher’s flood stands on that timeline at 2348 BC, “from the Masoretic ages in Genesis 5 and 11,” and “not a scholarly date.” [(2)](#ref-2) [(3)](#ref-3) - Hancock writes that a global cataclysm occurred around 12,800 years ago at the onset of the Younger Dryas, and that an immense flood followed the melting of the North American ice. [(4)](#ref-4) - NOAA Climate.gov calls the Younger Dryas a cold period that interrupted warming after the last glaciation peaked around 20,000 years ago, and says scientists think meltwater changed Atlantic currents. It does not identify that cold period with Genesis. [(5)](#ref-5) ## The Biblical Dates [Genesis 7:6](/bible/genesis/7/6): “And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.” The King James begetting ages from Adam to Noah’s birth sum to 1,056. The flood year on a continuous reading is 1,656 from Adam. [Genesis 5 and 11](/christianity/genesis-5-and-11-genealogies) prints each age. Adam’s 930 years end before that birth, so on this reading Adam does not meet Noah. The Greek tradition is longer. Brenton’s 1851 English still has the flood in Noah’s 600th year and still gives Methuselah 969 years, but its begetting ages sum to a flood in year 2,242, and Methuselah’s death falls after that year. Africanus states the flood at 2,262 years from Adam. [(6)](#ref-6) A Samaritan comparison published by Henry B. Smith Jr. shortens three begetting ages and, added the same way, yields a flood in year 1,307. Three biblical text forms, three totals. None of them is “12,000 years.” Ussher’s *Annals of the World* is the chronology the timeline names for that traditional column, dated 1650 in the timeline’s source line. The edition opened here is the 1658 English printing. [(3)](#ref-3) The timeline puts his flood at 2348 BC and says the Septuagint ages give a much earlier date. It also puts his date for Abraham’s birth at 1996 BC. [How Old Is the Earth According to the Bible?](/christianity/biblical-chronology-and-the-age-of-the-earth) explains why Abraham’s year is not a raw stack of every “begat” in Genesis 11: Terah’s death and Abram’s age at the departure from Haran move the birth. The flood year 2348 is the Hebrew sum set against Ussher’s creation year. The timeline does not offer it as the date archaeologists use. ## Other Flood Traditions The timeline’s flood entry is the sourced summary already on this site. “Genesis 6–9 tells of the Flood. Mesopotamian texts (Atrahasis, Gilgamesh XI, the Sumerian King List) also remember a great flood. Woolley and Mallowan linked river flood deposits at Ur and Shuruppak to those traditions.” [(2)](#ref-2) The disputed note on the same entry says: “No archaeological layer can be tied to the Flood of Genesis. The views differ on the kind of event, not only the date.” One view on that page is Mallowan’s link between a deposit at Shuruppak and the Mesopotamian flood tradition. Another is that Genesis 1–11 does not supply a datable chronology. A third is Ussher’s 2348 BC. Those Mesopotamian poems are flood stories from the ancient Near East. They are not a second copy of Genesis 6–9, and a river deposit is not, on this site’s own note, a layer that has been tied to the Genesis flood. [Genesis 6–9](/bible/genesis/6) remains the biblical narrative: one family, an ark, a flood that covers the story’s world, and a promise afterward. People after the flood, in that narrative, come through Noah. [Genesis 7:2](/bible/genesis/7/2) tells Noah to take clean beasts by sevens and beasts that are not clean by twos. The verse sorts animals the law will later call clean and unclean. It does not name a species that is forbidden to enter. ## Hancock’s 12,800 Years, and the Younger Dryas Graham Hancock’s page for *America Before* says it has been generally accepted that a global cataclysm occurred around 12,800 years ago, at the onset of a period geologists call the Younger Dryas. He says a group of scientists has linked that cataclysm to a disintegrating comet, that the comet hypothesis remains controversial, and that “a global cataclysm did indeed occur.” He places the epicenter in North America and says an immense flood was unleashed as large sectors of the ice cap suddenly melted, sweeping a swathe of the continent, while sea level rose and the world entered a deep freeze that lasted 1,200 years. [(4)](#ref-4) NOAA Climate.gov describes the Younger Dryas in other words. A caption on its page about past warming and cooling says the tundra flower *Dryas octopetala* “gave its name to the Younger Dryas, a cold period that briefly interrupted the long-term warming that had begun following the peak of the last ice age glaciation around 20 thousand years ago.” It says climate scientists think the episode was triggered by changes in Atlantic currents as a result of meltwater from Northern Hemisphere ice sheets. [(5)](#ref-5) That is a cold interval in the melting of the ice sheets. Hancock reads a world-destroying flood and a lost civilization into the start of that interval. NOAA’s paragraph does not. The biblical totals above sit in the thousands of years from Adam, or, on Ussher’s traditional label, in the third millennium BC. A date about 12,800 years before the present is not year 1656 from Adam, and it is not 2348 BC. Treating Hancock’s cataclysm as Noah’s flood requires a step the Genesis numbers do not take. The climate page and Hancock’s page also disagree with each other about what happened, even before either is compared with Genesis. [Evolution and Creation](/moral-questions/evolution-and-creation) is the separate argument about the days of creation and the age of the earth. The flood date does not settle that argument. A reader can accept a local or undated flood in the timeline’s “undated primeval history” view, or Ussher’s year, or a longer Greek total, and still owe Hancock’s 12,800 years a separate case. His page says the comet hypothesis remains controversial. The timeline says no layer is tied to Genesis. Both limits belong in the same paragraph as his date. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### How Many Years Were There Between Noah and Jesus? Genesis does not print that interval. From the flood to Abram, the King James ages in Genesis 11 can be added only after one decides whether Abram was born when Terah was 70 or when Terah was 130. The Greek ages give a longer stretch. A single number from Noah to Jesus hides that choice. [Biblical Chronology and the Age of the Earth](/christianity/biblical-chronology-and-the-age-of-the-earth) keeps the choice visible. ### What Caused a Flood 12,000 Years Ago? NOAA describes a cold period after the ice sheets had begun to melt, and it points to meltwater and ocean currents. Hancock describes a comet impact around 12,800 years ago and a flood from a collapsing ice cap. Genesis dates its flood by Noah’s 600th year in one of the textual totals above. ### Is There Scientific Proof of Noah’s Flood? This site’s timeline states the limit directly: no archaeological layer can be tied to the Flood of Genesis. Flood poems from Mesopotamia, and flood deposits some archaeologists have linked to those poems, are not that identification. ### Did Adam Meet Noah? On the continuous King James ages, Adam dies at 930 and Noah is born in year 1,056. They do not meet. A gap reading, which Genesis does not state, would reopen the question by inserting unnamed generations. ## Keep Reading [Genesis 7](/bible/genesis/7) is the chapter. [Genesis 5 and 11](/christianity/genesis-5-and-11-genealogies) is the arithmetic. [How Old Is the Earth According to the Bible?](/christianity/biblical-chronology-and-the-age-of-the-earth) is the history of those sums. [The timeline](/timeline) is the map of the traditional and the archaeological views. ## Passages Quoted on This Page ### Genesis 7:11 King James Version. > In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. ### Genesis 7:2 King James Version. > Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. ### Julius Africanus, fragment 18 Ante-Nicene Fathers, New Advent. [Open on newadvent.org](https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0614.htm) > This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun. ## Sources Numbered to match the HTML References list. Item 1 is `#ref-1` under `#references`. Scripture links to the King James Version on this site. 1. [Book of Genesis, 5; 6–9; 7:2; 7:6; 11](https://apologetics.wiki/bible/genesis/5). King James Version 2. [Timeline of World and Biblical History, Flood Traditions and Flood Layers](https://apologetics.wiki/timeline) (The flood entry cites Mallowan and Lambert and Millard. It says no archaeological layer can be tied to the Flood of Genesis. Ussher’s date is 2348 BC, labeled traditional.) 3. [The Annals of the World, English edition, 1658](https://archive.org/details/bim_early-english-books-1641-1700_the-annals-of-the-world-_ussher-james-abp_1658) (The 1658 English printing by James Ussher. The timeline’s source line names the 1650 chronology and labels his flood 2348 BC.) 4. [Graham Hancock, America Before, The book’s account of 12,800 years ago](https://web.archive.org/web/20210121042520/https://grahamhancock.com/america-before/) (Hancock’s page for the book, archived 21 January 2021. It says a global cataclysm occurred around 12,800 years ago at the onset of the Younger Dryas, and that “a global cataclysm did indeed occur.”) 5. [NOAA Climate.gov, Hasn’t Earth Warmed and Cooled Naturally Throughout History?](https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/hasnt-earth-warmed-and-cooled-naturally-throughout-history) (The Younger Dryas is described as a cold period after the last ice age peaked around 20,000 years ago, linked to meltwater and Atlantic currents. The page does not call it Noah’s flood.) 6. [Julius Africanus, Extant Fragments, 2262 years from Adam to the flood](https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0614.htm) ## See Also - [Genesis 5 and 11: Masoretic and Septuagint Ages, and the Gap View](https://apologetics.wiki/christianity/genesis-5-and-11-genealogies) — King James ages in Genesis 5 put the flood in year 1656 from Adam. Brenton’s 1851 Septuagint is longer. A Samaritan table shortens three of those ages. - [Did Jesus Abolish the Law?](https://apologetics.wiki/christianity/did-jesus-abolish-the-law) — No. Matthew 5:17 says he came not to destroy the Law but to fulfill it. He presses the commands further and ends the temple shadows in himself. - [Does Archaeology Confirm the Bible?](https://apologetics.wiki/christianity/does-archaeology-confirm-the-bible) — The Pilate stone, the Tel Dan stele, Hezekiah’s tribute on the Taylor Prism, the Siloam tunnel inscription, and the Cyrus Cylinder name people and events the Bible also names. Each find has a limit. - [Does the Bible Contradict Itself?](https://apologetics.wiki/christianity/does-the-bible-contradict-itself) — Some Bible passages look as if they cannot both be true. Judas, the census numbers, and Matthew’s naming of Jeremy are real differences in the text. A contradiction is two claims that cannot both be true in the same way. - [Genealogy of Jesus: Why Do Matthew and Luke Differ?](https://apologetics.wiki/christianity/genealogies-of-jesus) — Matthew 1 names Jacob as Joseph’s father. Luke 3 names Heli. Africanus reads one line as birth, one as law. Others read Luke as Mary’s line.