>Was the Flood global? I don't know of any scripture that says it wasn't,
>but on the other hand, I don't believe that it says it was, either. The
>idea that it was global seems to come from reading the word 'erets as
>`earth'. This word is translated, for example in the KJV, as `land' in 62%
>of its occurrences and not infrequently refers to a single nation, and so
>that ought to be considered as a possible meaning in the Flood account.
I wouldnt want to define global with too much finality. I think the air
breating thing is pretty universal sounding, but I know others I respect
who are not as anxious to buy into that.
>
>Was it a few thousand years ago? Maybe so, but it would be safer to say AT
>LEAST a few thousand years ago. We don't know how many generations may
>have been skipped in the genealogy from Noah to Abraham. Comparisons of
>genealogies with each other and with other Biblical data show that it was
>quite normal for them to skip a number of generations.
We don't disagree here.
>
>How destructive was the Flood? The Bible says quite a bit about
>air-breathing land animals perishing, but what justifies claiming that it
>goes much beyond this? It also mentions a tree that survived the Flood as
>well as geographical features from before the Flood that remain to this
>day.
You figure out how to cover the tops of the highest mountains, to kill all
the air breathing mammals, and still have a local flood...I have trouble
with that one. Then there is the whole thing about building an ark (which
took how many years??? Anything we built would have been rotted to pieces
long before they were finished) and filling it with reproductive animal
populations. That sounds like a lifeboat more than a symbolic gesture.
These are my thoughts.
Art
http://chadwicka.swau.edu