I do not believe that the ark was a symbolic gesture. I don't know what I
said that gave that impression.
If 'erets is interpreted as a very large land area, then it would seem
reasonable to save representatives of the various animals in that area.
Genesis indicates that all the high mountains (or hills) under all the
heavens were covered. This same phrase `under all the heavens' occurs in
Deuteronomy 2:25, where it doesn't seem to indicate the whole earth unless
we think that the Indians in South America had heard of the Israelites and
were living in great fear of them. Perhaps all we should conclude is that
all land features which would have been visible from the ark had been
covered.
Gordon Brown
Department of Mathematics
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309-0395
On Wed, 22 Oct 1997, Arthur V. Chadwick wrote:
> 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