WAS THE BIBLICAL FLOOD GLOBAL OR LOCAL?
It has been discussed
many times from the 19th century, if the flood described in Genesis
chapters 6 to 8, had a global scope or was just universal, meaning just local enough
to kill all humans in existence at the time, and the animals that surrounded
them.
Though
traditionally Christians have understood the event to have global reach; from
the time of biblical criticism, the idea extended, that if the flood was sent expressly
to annihilate humanity, it would have been unnecessary to flood the whole
planet to do it, and a local event could have achieved that.
THE ARGUMENTS
FOR LOCAL FLOODING
There are three
main reasons the ones who profess a local flooding hold:
1 – LIMITED
POPULATION
Given the birth
of humanity around Mesopotamia, it is assumed all humanity exited only around
the Middle East. God only needed to flood from the coasts of the Mediterranean
to Iran, and from Turkey to the Arabian Peninsula to annihilate all humans.
2 – THE WORD
‘ΚΌΣΜΟΣ’
2Peter 2:5 calls
the area flooded ‘world’ (Κόσμοσ), which means the habitat we live in, not the physical
planet itself.
In this case,
only the ‘world’ of men could have been destroyed, not the whole planet which
was not part of their world.
3 – THE WORD
‘חָרָבָה’
(CHARABAH)
In the same way, Genesis 7:22 speaks of the ‘land’
being flooded, not the planet, by the use of the word ‘Charabah’.
The argument gets deeper and complicated, trapped in specific
terminology.
However, certain things are clear in Scripture, and
from here we need to start any consideration.
1 – THE WORD ‘אֶרֶץ’ (ERETS)
The term ‘Erets’ is used every time the narrative of
the flood is mentioned, as the area affected. This term means mostly ‘Earth’,
but sometimes it can also refer to country or land, depending on the context.
By the inclusive language of the narrative, the reader
cannot come to another conclusion that in this context, it is referring to the ‘Earth’,
as a ‘planet’. This word is also used to talk about planet Earth in Genesis
1:1.
2 – THE DEPTH OF
THE FLOOD
The flooding is said to have overpassed mount Everest
over 15 Cubits (Around 6 and half meters), and from the moment started raining
until Noah came from the ark, nearly a year passed (Genesis 7:12, 24; 8:4-6,
10, 12-14).
If the flooding had been local, it would have been
impossible to submerge Mesopotamia under 6 meters of water over the highest
mountain for nearly a year.
3 – THE NEED OF THE ARK
If the flooding would have been global, God could have
translated Noah and his family to a dry land, unaffected by the rain. The fact
that Noah was ordered to build the ark and save animals in it, it is indication
that there was not a place to run away to. Animals could have survived if the
flooding was local.
The whole contextual reference to the flooding seems
terminal and without scape. The term “all the high mountains under the whole
heaven were covered” (Genesis 7:19), can hardly be taken as only meaning a
section of the Earth.
If the flooding had been local there is a high
possibility that the border people could have escaped, and the animals would
have survived. No need to rescue them.
RESPONSE TO THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST
1 - Even though population was limited, still if God’s
intention was to wipe out humans, the possibility exists that humans that lived
at the edge of the flooding, could have saved themselves by scaping to dry land.
They died because they could not escape anywhere.
2 – The word ‘world’ (Kosmos), was used by Peter, because
he referred to the habitat the ancients and which they lost. The fact that the habitat
they knew disappeared, it does not take away the global scope of the flooding.
3 – The Hebrew term ‘Charabah’ or ‘land’ speaks of the
death that occurred on the place the ancients lived, but does not deny that the
flooding could have exceeded the ‘land’ they knew.
CONCLUSION
The study extends into other related texts, like Psalm
104:6-8; or the NT epistles, considering specific words and literary contexts,
but overall, it seems that the Genesis narrative implies that the whole planet was
covered once under water.
Omar Flores.
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