Question
Gramps,
Some snarky online haters doubt the flood story because there wouldn’t be enough room on that boat for a pair of every animal species alive at the time. How do I rebut their assertions that the story is a fairy tale?
Robert
Answer
Robert,
Let’s be honest—at some point, almost everyone has paused while reading about Noah and thought, wait… did this really happen? A man builds a massive ark, gathers animals two by two, and survives a flood that wipes out the rest of the earth. It can feel less like history and more like something you’d find in a children’s picture book.
So is it just a fairy tale?
Well, that depends a lot on how you’re approaching it.
If you’re looking at the story strictly through a modern scientific lens, it raises some pretty natural questions. How could enough water exist to cover the entire Earth? How did all the animals fit? How did they survive for that long? Those aren’t silly questions—they’re thoughtful ones. And interestingly enough, skepticism about Noah wasn’t unique to our time. According to Spencer W. Kimball’s teachings, Noah himself was mocked by those around him. He was building a giant boat when there was no sign of rain, warning people about something they had never seen before. To them, it probably sounded just as unbelievable as it might to someone today.
That detail actually adds something important to the conversation. The story itself acknowledges doubt. It doesn’t pretend everyone just nodded along and said, “Yep, that makes sense.” People questioned it, dismissed it, and moved on with their lives.
In Latter-day Saint belief, Noah is not viewed as a fictional character. He’s considered a genuine prophet, called by God to warn his generation. Church teachings consistently present the flood as a significant event tied to God’s relationship with His children. At the same time, there’s often more emphasis on why the flood happened than on breaking down every logistical detail of how it happened.
One way LDS leaders have described the flood is as a kind of cleansing—a fresh start. Some have even compared it symbolically to a baptism of the earth, washing away widespread wickedness and preparing for a new beginning. That idea shifts the focus a bit. Instead of getting stuck on measurements of water levels or ark dimensions, the story starts to feel more like a message about renewal, accountability, and change.
Teachings from George Albert Smith highlight another layer that’s easy to overlook. He taught that Noah didn’t just build the ark quietly in the background—he preached repentance for many years, even decades. The people around him had time to respond. They weren’t caught off guard; they made choices over time to ignore what they were being told.
That turns the flood into something more than just a dramatic disaster story. It becomes a story about human behavior. About how people respond to warnings. About how easy it is to dismiss something uncomfortable when it doesn’t immediately affect you. And honestly, that part feels pretty familiar.
Another LDS leader, Ezra Taft Benson, used Noah’s story to talk about preparedness. He pointed out that Noah built the ark before the rain started. The people who waited until they could see the storm were already too late. That idea shows up a lot in Latter-day Saint teaching—being spiritually and temporally prepared in advance, even when there’s no visible urgency.
When you look at it that way, the story starts to feel less like an ancient oddity and more like a pattern that repeats itself. Warnings come. People choose whether to listen. Time passes. Consequences follow.
Now, where things get interesting is that within the Latter-day Saint community, there isn’t always complete agreement on every scientific or historical detail of the flood. Some people see it as a global, literal event exactly as described. Others wonder whether it may have been more regional or whether parts of the story are told symbolically or in a simplified way. What’s consistent, though, is the belief that Noah was real and that the message behind the story matters.
And that leaves room for something really valuable: you don’t have to turn off your questions to engage with the story. You can wrestle with it a little. You can sit with the parts that feel hard to reconcile and still find meaning in them.
Because at its core, the story of Noah isn’t just about water covering the earth. It’s about trust. It’s about acting on belief before there’s visible proof. It’s about choosing whether to follow what you feel is right, even when it seems out of step with everyone else around you.
If someone defines a fairy tale as a made-up story with no real purpose beyond entertainment, then the flood doesn’t really fit that category—at least not in Latter-day Saint thought. But if you think of it as a story that uses powerful imagery to teach deep, lasting truths, then it starts to make more sense why it has endured for so long.
Whether a person reads it as strictly literal or allows room for symbolism in the details, the themes are hard to ignore. People often delay change until it feels urgent. Warnings are easy to dismiss when life feels normal. Doing the right thing can look strange from the outside. And sometimes, preparation makes all the difference.
So maybe the better question isn’t just, “Did this happen exactly like this?” Maybe it’s also, “What is this story trying to show me?”
Because in the end, the people in Noah’s time weren’t really separated by how well they understood the mechanics of the flood. They were separated by whether they were willing to listen.
And that part of the story? That still feels very real.
Gramps
