WCH

Is it possible for the Flood in Genesis to be talking about a flood of the area rather than the whole world? This is something that has been suggested by a few more liberal Christians and I'm wondering if there's anything to it. Will have the specifics of the theory tomorrow when I can talk to my dad about it (he's well aquainted with it). Something like a natural dam breaking causing a huge amount of water to pour through the area and lead to the state of the bodies of water in the area that are there today, but I can't remember exactly what it was. One of the flaws in it was that the mountain traditionally thought to be where the Ark landed isn't in the right area for that to explain it, but there are other hills which it could have been mistaken for or something like that.

Anyone heard anything like this?

Skeptic Pete

Not only possible but highly probable.

Why are you looking for evidence to support a biblical flood?
Whatever theory you have heard would certainly not account for the waters reaching the tops of the mountains of Arrarat and staying at that level for a year surely?

Why don't you accept that the flood myth was most likely just an embellished version of previous flood myths that could possibly have been based on a "real" flood although almost certainly nothing like that described in the bible?

Regards

Skeptic Pete

Asha'man

The Genesis flood myth is clearly based on the Babylonian myth of Gilgamesh. (It was even added to the Hebrew story collection during the Babylonian captivity.) The Babylonian myth is clearly based on an earlier Sumerian myth.

In the original story, the flood was indeed local, it was simply a larger version of the annual flooding of the Tigris river. (And archeology has confirmed that the Tigris has occasionally had some really big floods while the Sumerians were living along side it.) The hero of the story was probably a wealthy merchant who traded along the river, using a boat or barge to move livestock. According to the story, he was on his boat for a whole week(!) as the water carried him into the Persian Gulf.

However, this story grew in the telling until it became the pure fiction of the Genesis tale. The whole point of the Genesis story is that all of mankind was wicked, so God was going to commit genocide. He didn’t want to depopulate the world of animals in the process, so an ark was needed. Both of these points would be utterly lost if the flood was intended (by the authors of the story) to be read as local. If it was a local flood, animals and men from other areas would simply re-populate the flooded area from the outside. Clearly, the story demands a global flood interpretation, which is also exactly how it reads.

So, while the Noah flood story had it’s origins in a previous story of a local flood, I think the story is quite explicit that it refers to a global flood, and is therefore pure fiction.

Amlodhi

Hi WCH,

Sounds like what you are specifically referring to is the hypothesis that at the end of the last ice age, the rising ocean levels eventually breached through the Bosphorus strait and flooded what is now the Black Sea area. Thus turning what was once a fresh water lake, into the, now, Black (salt) sea.

It is an interesting theory and seems to have some evidentiary support but, even if true, I don't know that it was necessarily the event that spawned the flood epics.


Amlodhi

Rhaedas

Most info I've ever been able to find point to a flood that created the Black Sea from the Mediterranean, although I recall a book that explored the Mediterranean's origin as a possible large scale flood from the breaking of the natural dam that existed at Gibraltor.

One thing's for certain, floods do happen, and to a primitive culture, even the minor ones must have been difficult to understand without resorting to supernatural causes. The rare large scale floods to them would seem to be caused by displeased gods, drowning the world.

ArchAngel

I don't know how accurate it is, but there is a book titled "Uriel's Machine" that discusses evidence of a world wide flood around 7,600 BCE and then another one local to the middle east around 3,700 or so BCE. I forget the exact dates. The world wide flood was said to be caused by several fragmented pieces of comets falling into the oceans and causing massive tsuanmi's 3 miles high. The evidence is interesting and really makes you think. Maybe we are arrogant to discount these legends so quickly. I know the stories are embellished but I think they are based on some truths.

Rhaedas

Interesting, I'll have to check that out. Otto Muck had used some impact areas in the Carribbean and off South Carolina's coast to be the cause of his devastation that suck the Atlantis continent. Without going off on a tangent there, the impact areas do exist (many fragments along SC's shoreline, and apparently a big, deep hole farther to the south underwater), although I'm not sure on the dating, but Muck did place them at 10,000 years ago, also corresponding with the Mayan calendar's start. I take much of this type of thing with a grain of salt, but when many things seem related (and Muck did tie a lot of seemingly unrelated things together), there may be some event that helped spark the rest, that developed into the myths we know.

BeansRBad

I suppose it is possible for the Genesis myth to be only that of a local flood although it is rather senseless to have Noah spend 100 years building an ark to escape it when he simply could have used that 100 years to MOVE TO ANOTHER LOCALE!

However, if we accept that the flood in Genesis be local then it certainly seems at odds with the belief of others in the larger volume (canon) we call "The Bible". I think some propose a local flood because modern science supports that conclusion whereas there is no credible support for a global flood. I think it an attempt to keep the Bible credible. There are verses and passages in other biblical books, however, which lead me to the conclusion that the Bible writers entertained and believed in a worldwide, global deluge. Here are a few aside from the utter senselessness of having Noah build a huge ark in order to escape a local flood when he could simply have had Noah move to an unaffected region.

II Pet.3:3-7: "... knowing this first, that in the last days mockers shall come with mockery, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they wilfully forget, that there were heavens from of old, and earth compacted out of water and amidst water, by the Word of God; by which the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: but the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men."

Here, the author of II Peter draws a comparison to the flood with Christ's second coming and the attendant destruction of the world associated with that coming. To what extent will be the judgment is the same extent of the flood. If the judgment be universal then so too was the flood in the Bible. To what extent be the fire of destruction is the same as was the destruction of the flood waters. Do the local flood advoctes entertain the idea that the second coming will be only local or regional?

LK.17:26-30: Jesus is made to say, "And as it came to pass in the days of Noah, even so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They ate, they drank, they married, and were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them ALL. Likewise, even as it came to pass in the days of Lot, they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded, but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them ALL: after the same manner shall it be in the day that the Son of man is revealed." (emph. mine)

Jesus here places his second coming alongside the destruction of the flood as well as that of Sodom where "All" were destroyed in those stories. Jesus warning to the "ungodly" of future generations at his second coming is significantly weakened as a threat if we knew that some had escaped the doom of either the intended targets of the flood or of Sodom. The "ungodly" would be given a "false hope" of escaping if they knew that some had escaped these judgments. Therefore, "All" that dwelled in Sodom means everyone that was in Sodom and "all" of the human race which were not on the ark were likewise destroyed. I think "all" as used in Lk is universal in scope.

THE RAINBOW COVENANT: God promised three times (Gen. 8:21; 9:11; 9:15) never again to destroy "everything living" and "all flesh" by means of a flood. He set a rainbow in the heavens as a sign of that promise. If the Noahic flood was only a local flood then God has broken that promise innumerable times since local floods are frequent that have claimed the lives of countless thousands. This would contradict that sentiment of God expressed in the Bible in Titus 1:2 that "God cannot lie."

GEN 7:19-20: "And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high mountains that were under the whole heaven were convered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered."

The word "all" can be used in either a relative sense (fitting with a local flood theory) or a distributive sense (Global). "all the high mountains" could potentially mean all the mountains in a region. However, these verses state that it is "all the high mountains" that were "under the whole heaven". Since I would interpret the "whole heaven" to mean "all of the heaven" and since I would interpret "all of the heaven" to encompass the whole earth, then, I interpret "all the high mountains" to be all the mountains on the whole earth that were covered in water. A global flood.

Now, please do not misinterpret me. I'm an atheist. I think the Bible contains silly stories such as the flood story. However, since the topic concerns itself with the Biblical flood then I am as interested in dissimenating what the Bible teaches on the subject as anyone else. I think it teaches a global, worldwide flood. But, you know, as an atheist, the bible is no authority to me in anything.

Cubeless Academian

The problem with the local flood theory is that, after the flood is over, Yahweh promises that it will never happen again. But local floods have happened thousands of times since then. If the flood was local, then the story of Yahweh's post-flood covenant with Noah is just a myth (either that or Yahweh was lying).

If you accept that the Noah story is a myth and you're asking what real-world event inspired the myth, then, yes, it was probably inspired by a local flood.

But if you're suggesting that the Noah story is basically true except that the flood was local, then I think you're wrong. If the flood was local, the whole story falls apart.

Magus55

I agree it falls apart if it was local, although regarding God promising never to flood the earth again, i have heard local flood proponents emphasize that God says He would never destroy everything with a flood again. Local floods don't destroy all life. However, thats not the only problem with scripture and a local flood.