Noah (vegetarian): Venerated Antediluvian Patriarch and Messenger of God, Part 1 of 2

“Then the Lord said to Noah, ‘Enter the ark, you and all your household, for you alone I have seen to be righteous before Me in this time.’” – Genesis, Holy Bible

Noah was chosen by God to be the father of a new humankind at a time when the world became so wicked that it led to the Great Flood. Heeding Divine instructions, He built a giant ark that would protect Him, His family, and representatives from all species of animal-people during the disaster. During His time, Noah was the only man who loved God and worshipped Hirm. In the Book of Genesis, it was stated that Noah was “righteous and blameless in His generations and walked with God.”

During a 1992 lecture in Japan, Supreme Master Ching Hai expounded on the world’s situation during Noah’s time. “In the Bible, it describes clearly that because of the world's backward situation, people were depending entirely on material things and lacking morals, so God created the flood to clean up the Earth.”

When people started noticing Noah building the ark, they were curious and gathered around Him. Noah explained God’s commands and urged them to pray to God. In 2008, Supreme Master Ching Hai mentioned Noah’s story through Master Rumi’s poetry. “When the flood happened, Noah had already built an ark, and put a pair of animal-people, each, in His ark already, and all His family members, and belongings, and necessities, and supplies for a while already in the ark. And He came in, but His son did not come in and did not want to. who wouldn't get in the ark in the time of emergency like that, and still rebelled against a good intention. Maybe he hates his father, but by doing this, he goes not against only his father, but he goes against his life, right? The flood is there, so the son also feels like, it hurts his pride, his ego, that his father is even right, because all this time he has never believed in his father.”

As the Book of Genesis explains: “For forty days the flood kept coming on the Earth, and as the waters increased, they lifted the ark high above the Earth. The waters rose and increased greatly on the Earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. Every living thing on the face of the Earth was wiped out; people and animals… were wiped from the Earth. Only Noah was left, and those with Him in the ark. The waters flooded the Earth for a hundred and fifty days.”