Which is why it's confusing to me. And untrustworthy.
The Bible was written in a different time, a different language, and for a different culture. English is subjective, where as Hebrew is more picturesque. The subjective 'angry' in English is 'nostrils flared' in Hebrew. Also, there are 33,000 words in the Hebrew language and over 170,000 in English.
Modern culture is used to newspapers, textbooks, Encyclopedias, dictionaries--the written word. Ancient culture presented a lot of information orally in story form.
In our modern Western culture, many sum up the story of Noah as a cruel God destroying the world and killing babies. In ancient Hebrew, one of the most striking themes in the story of Noah is the power of the spoken word. We skip right past that, don't we? What caused mankind to bring evil into the world? The power of the spoken word. We are introduced to Noah, who speaks not a word and is considered righteous. Noah remains mum until well after the flood...and his first spoken words? A curse, which explains why tribes/nations were once again at each others throats. The power of words.
Noah is not considered as great as Abraham, because while Noah watched his words, he did not use words and their power to try to persuade, either.
Old Testament stories are best understood through rabbinical scholars who know Hebrew. Once I began studying rabbinical commentary, the Old Testament was no longer as confusing. However, to really get the gist of it, study the languages, cultures, and histories of the time as well.
