Father Noah's Ark Father Noah's Ark Father Noah's Ark is a 1933 Walt Disney "Silly Symphonies" animated film. It is based on the story of Noah's Ark. The short's musical score is an adaptation of the first dance in Ludwig van Beethoven's "12 Contredanses". The short begins with the building of the Ark. Father Noah makes the plans of the ark and gives commands to its construction. His sons, Ham, Shem and Japheth "build the ark from dawn to dark and make a lot of noise", with some help from the animals, while their wives load up food supplies for the flood. Eventually,
Japheth on his death (the descendants of Shem and Ham respectively correspond to the other two, those of the Ptolemies and Seleucids). As the point of the "blessing of Japheth" seems to be that Japheth (a Greek-descended people) and Shem (the Israelites) would rule jointly over Canaan (Palestine). From the 19th century until the late 20th century it was usual to see Japheth as a reference to the Philistines, who shared dominion over Canaan during the pre-monarchic and early monarchic period of Israel's history. This view accorded with earlier understanding of the origin of the Book of Genesis, which was seen