NOAH, son of Lamech and father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, according to the Hebrew scriptures (Gn. 5:29–30, 6:10); chosen by God to be saved from the universal flood that destroyed the earth. Plausibly, this story has ancient Mesopotamian roots, as do many other features of the biblical flood traditions. But while ancient Sumerian tradition and its reflexes refer to a hero who attained immortality after the flood, biblical tradition speaks of the mortality of Noah.

As one born in the tenth generation after Adam, Noah is clearly linked to Adam. Indeed, his position as an Adam redivivus is more expressly indicated in the popular etymology of his name in Genesis 5:29, which regards him as the one who "will comfort us from our labor and the travail of our hands, out of the earth which Yahveh has cursed," a thematic and verbal allusion (and, indeed, a hoped-for end) to the...