why does the Royal Ark Mariner degree use Noah and the deluge instead of Solomon's temple

Chronologically, the building and voyage of Noah's Ark precede the construction of Solomon's Temple by hundreds of years, placing the degree's narrative long before the characters met in Solomonic Masonry existed, Mark Masons' Hall states. Rather than focusing on Temple architecture, the degree draws on Genesis to commemorate divine providence and mercy, using the perils of the deluge to symbolize the dangers of human life, Mark Masons' Hall records.

The story of Noah and the flood provided a distinct tradition of instruction within Masonry well before modern degree systems were organized, appearing in traditional histories as early as the fifteenth-century Cooke Manuscript 1. In the Royal Ark Mariner degree, as well as in Noachic symbolism more broadly, the legend offers a symbolic vocabulary centered on divine preservation, moral precepts, and the ark as a vessel of safety rather than the structural and operative metaphors found in the Craft or Mark degrees 1.

The narrative of Noah and the deluge was incorporated into traditional Masonic history long before it entered degree rituals, appearing in the manuscript Old Charges through texts such as the Cooke Manuscript 1. As a matter of working ritual, an early version of the raising ritual centered on the legend of Noah and his sons following the deluge appears in the Graham Manuscript, dated 1726, as a paper read before Quatuor Coronati Lodge notes.

In the Craft, James Anderson expanded references to Noah in the 1738 edition of the Book of Constitutions, designating Noah and his sons as Grand officers and noting that early Masons were termed Noachidae 1. By the late eighteenth century, distinct degrees centered explicitly on Noah had developed alongside the standard system, such as the Royal Ark Mariner degree—whose members called themselves Noachidae or Sons of Noah—which was recorded as an organized body meeting in London by 1798 1.