Noah was the subject of much elaboration in the literature of later Abrahamic religions, including the Quran (Surahs 71, 7, 1, and 21). The primary account of Noah in the Bible is in the Book of Genesis. Noah was the tenth of the pre-flood (antediluvian) Patriarchs. His father was Lamech and his mother is not named in the biblical accounts. When Noah was five hundred years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham and Japheth (). The Genesis flood narrative makes up chapters 6–9 in the Book of Genesis, in the Bible. The narrative, one of many flood myths found
The Log of the Ark the animals eat porridge with a dollop of treacle.) This sinister development is described alongside a good deal of slapstick humour. For example the nautically naive Noah initially constructs the ark with all the large animals quartered together for social reasons, only discovering the consequences for its stability when the flood waters surround it. Like many later fictionalisations of the Noah story, from Gary Larson to Julian Barnes, it introduces mythical beasts such as the unicorn into the Ark's passenger list, a device with obvious dramatic potential: we assume that such creatures are unlikely to survive the voyage. Here, as