Illustrating Mrs. Noah

How do you depict a woman you have never seen? Not only has no one alive today seen her, no physical description of her exists. To make the depiction task even more challenging, she is the great, great, great . . . grandmother to every person on earth, so her appearance could display a wide range of the attributes we see today.

At the future Ark Encounter in northern Kentucky, we will be portraying each member of Noah’s family, including his wife. What clues can we draw from Scripture to aid us in our task?

Mrs. Noah, as will be depicted at the Ark Encounter.

If Noah’s wife were close to the same age as her famous husband, she would have been about 600 when the Flood began. This would make her about 500 years older than her sons and presumably that much older than her daughters-in-law. Given that people of her generation lived over 900 years, someone at her age would probably look the equivalent of a modern woman in her 50s or 60s. According to our genetic studies, she should have middle-brown skin, dark hair, and brown eyes.

Noah’s wife had given birth to three sons by the time of the Flood, so she could be shown to have some postpregnancy characteristics (although there are certainly many women who return to their pre-childbearing size and build).

Mrs. Noah was probably in fairly good shape. Diets of that time were likely not high in sugars and saturated fats. Plus, they surely maintained an active lifestyle during the Ark-building years. Since they lived closer to the time of Adam and Eve and would have had fewer genetic problems, we will depict her as being rather fit.

Of course, we know our depiction of her appearance is speculative, but we want people to understand the rationale behind it as we show Mrs. Noah at the Ark Encounter.