The Genesis Flood was a local, not a global flood

I must say I'm surprised that someone who selected "Atheist" for their religion in their profile would take the stance that the Genesis flood was global. Most atheists I know don't believe in Noah's flood, so I'm surprised RainbowDash took this challenge. Unlike the Young Earth Creationists and others who assert a global flood, I do not believe that could be a rational reading of the story of Noah found in Genesis. The word typically translated "earth" is אָ֫רֶץ (eretz). For those familiar with Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, the Strong's number is H776. You can find it here: http://www.blueletterbible.org... Eretz appears 2503 times in the Hebrew Scriptures. In the NASB version, it is translated as "earth" 655 times. It is translated as either "land", "lands", or "ground" a total of 1757 times. The remaining translations of the word sometimes refer to people, dust, or similar things. Given that land is the most common translation of the word, it is entirely possible that land would be a more appropriate translation. To the modern English speaker, there is a difference between saying that the flood covered the whole earth and covered the whole land. Land may be a local area, but the earth is the entire planet. It is important to know what the most appropriate translation is to get the best understanding of the author's intent. By reading the scriptures themselves, we see that the English translation in verse nine does not make sense in light of verse 5. Genesis 8 KJV 5 And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen. 6 And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made: 7 And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth. 8 Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground; 9 But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole [eretz]: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark. https://www.blueletterbible.org... If you look closely at the Masoretic text in the link, you'll find the word for whole (kol כֹּל H3606). http://www.blueletterbible.org... If the waters in verse 9 covered kol eretz (translatted whole earth), then that would mean that mountains (which are part of the face of the earth) would not be showing. Clearly, mountain tops were already showing as described in verse 5 just shortly before. You may dismiss that as a weak argument, which it might be if it stands by itself. However, if we were to find all of references to kol eretz in the Hebrew text that refer to a location (as opposed to a people as is sometimes the case), then we would find such insistence laughable. For example, Leviticus 25:9 requires the Jewish people to blow horns in kol eretz. Surely the author did not mean that the Jewish people were to spread out on the day of atonement to cover the entire face of the earth and blow trumpets. It means throughout the entire land of Israel where they were. There are many other examples found here: http://www.godandscience.org... and also on some random person's blog: http://austind90.wordpress.com... So where the word for all is used throughout the scriptures, it often means all of a local region, not all of the entirety of everything possible. Therefore, it is not logical to say that the interpretation of kol eretz in this context must mean the entire earth. If we are to take the scriptures as being true, we must also understand them in context of reality. The following is a long quote from a work cited article listed below it: Augustine presciently wrote, "In matters that are obscure and far beyond our vision, even in such as we may find treated in Holy Scripture, different interpretations are sometimes possible without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such a case, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search of truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it."43 Copernicus and Galileo were castigated by the Church for advocating the cosmological theory of heliocentrism (earth revolving around the sun), which the Church deemed contrary to their geocentric understanding of Scripture (Psalm 93:1, Psalm 104:5, Ecclesiastes 1:5). Ultimately scientific discovery helped clarify Scripture and prompted correction of a faulty interpretation. http://www.godandscience.org... There is geological evidence for a local flood. Keep in mind that the area described in the scripture would be Mesopotamia. I don't mean to quote so much, but here's another one: Two rivers, the Euphrates and Tigris flow through Mesopotamia, which is now the country of Iraq (Figure 1). There are several layers in exposed rocks near these two rivers in southeastern Mesopotamia (Iraq) that are likely flood deposits. Most are about a foot (0.3 m) thick, but one is as much as 3 meters thick (MacDonald 1988). Flood debris from this same thick deposit along the Euphrates River near the ancient Sumerian city of Shuruppak about 200 km southeast of Baghdad has been dated by the C14 method, giving an age of 2900 BCE (Best nd). Flood deposits 2.4 meters feet thick are also reported by MacDonald (1988) as far northeast as the ancient Babylonian city of Kish (120 km south of Baghdad). At any rate, the many flood-deposit layers show that flooding in southeastern Mesopotamia was not unusual in ancient times. http://ncse.com... For your convenience I will copy the reference to MacDonald 1988 from the source. MacDonald D. 1988. The Flood: Mesopotamian archaeological evidence. Creation/Evolution 8 (2): 14"20. The article goes on to explain how the area of Mesopotamia could possibly be flooded by a storm such as the one described in the Genesis account. You may notice that carbon 14 dating (which is admittedly the least reliable form of radiometric dating that I'm aware of) put the flood about the time we would expect Noah's flood to have occurred using inference from the genealogies from the scriptures and known dates. Furthermore, according to geological models, the time it would take for the water to receded in the area of Mesopotamia matches the time described in the Genesis account. To summarize this round's arguments, the Genesis account of Noah's flood matches scientific models for such an event local to Mesopotamia, and there is scriptural precedent for interpreting the Hebrew text as a local flood rather than a global one. In the past, the Catholic church persecuted scientists who went against the common interpretation of the scripture at the time. Today, the very men the Catholic church persecuted are venerated for their scientific discoveries for which they were persecuted, and almost no one argues that their findings were in error. In future rounds I plan to present evidence that a global flood never occurred. Although I know there is evidence for used by some to suggest a world wide flood, most of that evidence does not hold up under scrutiny. Con, would you please put forth any such evidence in your first statement so we may maximize our opportunities to discuss them. In the past, I've seen people put forth all their arguments in the last round so as to not provide me an opportunity to address them. Please do not employ this dubious tactic.