The Genesis Flood was a local, not a global flood

Con "As a reminder, the terms of the debate only state we will assume that Genesis is accurate, not that we would assume the entire Bible is accurate. My opponent referenced scripture outside of Genesis and assumed them to be accurate." Con has misjudged my argument. The stories I quoted need not be assumed true. They were included in my argument to show there is a reasonable argument in favor of Noah building a boat for a local flood. I assert that Con has failed to show that G-d would have had Noah move instead of build an ark in the case of a local flood. Con's argument is out of speculation, and thus should be ignored on the basis of lack of supporting evidence in contrast to other equally likely scenarios. By reading the tail in Con's second reference, I notice two things. First, the fail told there shares only two things in common with the story of Noah: the Sons of god(s) were having children with the daughters of man, and there was a flood (no mention of global here, but perhaps implied). One of the gods in this story protected a single family, but it is not specific as to how. Even if I were to assume it was by an ark, that would still not be enough evidence to show it is the same story as Noah's flood, because there are other myths with many more similarities. I previously gave a link to a near-exhaustive list of flood stories as compiled on talkorigins. Although I disagree, just for sake of argument, I will conceede Con's point that the stories are the same. I will point out that the Sumerian flood story was not agreed upon to be accurate, thus the 125,000 years ago date is questionable. Second, if you read Con's first link (the one to Wikipedia), you can read that modern humans did not migrate out of Africa until 125,000 years ago. Coincidentally, the dates are exactly the same! So, if we did assume both of her sources to be reliable, we would conclude that all of the human species were still in Africa at the time of the flood. As a disclaimer to that, Wikipedia distinguishes among the various species of sapiens. I will give a direct quote from Con's source 1. ---- The expansion of H. erectus out of Africa was followed by that of H. antecessor into Europe around 800,000 years ago, followed by H. heidelbergensis around 600,000 years ago, who was the likely ancestor of both Modern Humans and Neanderthals.[1] The ancestors of the human species H. sapiens evolved into Modern Humans (i.e. our current day subspecies H. sapiens sapiens) around 200,000 years ago, in Africa. Migrations out of Africa occurred some time later. Around 125,000 years ago Modern Humans reached the Near East from where they later spread across Asia and Europe.[2] ---- We are, of course, assuming evolution here, which was not agreed upon; yet, I will, for sake of argument, agree with mainstream science. I maintain that these two links actually show that all "Modern Humans (i.e. our current day subspecies H. sapiens sapiens)" could be wiped from the face of the earth 125,000 years ago according to the Sumerian flood myth and evidence provided by Wikipedia. Let me remind the reader that we are assuming the Sumerian story is an account of Noah's flood and that the myth is accurate, including dates. It is interesting the the 125,000 years match between the two sources, because post-flood would be an expected time for humans to spread out over the earth. Con: "He was referring to the Sumerian flood story, but Genesis flood story and the Sumerian flood story are extremely similar [3] to the point that Genesis must have been taken from the Sumerian flood story and they are both referring to the same great flood." The wording Con uses in conjunction with with the reference may lead the reader to believe that the epic of Gilgamesh is the same as the Sumerian myth. This is simply not true, and I wanted to make that clear. The epic of Gilgamesh is much more known for mirroring the flood of Noah than the Sumerian myth. It appears to get more comparisons than any other flood myth (1) (2) (3). The Wikipedia article on Noah's Ark mentions the Sumerian flood myth as being the earliest, but then gives the new couple paragraphs to the Gilgamesh and Atrahasis flood myths (which as compared as being very similar to each other). Just because the Sumerian myth comes first, does not mean it is most credible. Supporters of the Noah's flood myth strongly disagree with the 125,000 years ago date (4) (5) (6). I want to point out here that the website for sources 5 and 6 is a secular website dedicated to promoting science of evolution and climate change. It is an anti-Christian source promoting archaeological evidence the dating Noah's [local] flood somewhere between 3000 BCE and 2600 BCE. The Christian source, which uses Biblical genealogies as a means of estimation, arrived at the date 2348 BCE, which is relatively close to the date supported by archaeological evidence. Con poses that fish fossils found in some varve layers could not possibly have been preserved long enough for to be fossilized in many varve layers that take years to lay down. Under typical conditions, this is correct. However, science shows us there are conditions which allow for this to occur (7) (8) (9). My reference 7 gives a claim and rebuttal on the topic. So readers need not go searching for it, I will provide the rebuttal here verbatim. --- REBUTTAL: There are many factors that go into fossil preservation. Time is not the only consideration. However, time is the only variable that the young earth creationists allude to. The condition of the water in the lake is extremely important. Consider the bog people of Europe. These bodies are very well preserved after many years, in some instances in excess of 2,000 years. In terms of the GRF, that would be 4,000 varve layers. How could this happen? Decay is slowed dramatically in conditions of anoxic water. In other words, there is virtually no oxygen at the bottom of the lake, and thus other living organisms could not reach the bottom of the lake to scavenge the carcasses. This is what we see with the bog people. When you throw in the two additional variables of oxygen level and scavenger population, the young earth theory clearly does not pose a threat to the standard geologic explanations. --- I have previously argued that when the Genesis account refers to "all" (Hebrew: kol), it means all locally, as is the vast majority of all uses of the Hebrew word throughout the Tenahk. Mainstream science contains evidence to show that there were humans living outside the area of the flood who would then have survived the flood. Other groups believe the evidence shows human kind had not ventured out of the flooded area at the time. The former case is not an issue unless Con can prove beyond reasonable doubt that the rational interpretation of Genesis account is that the flood killed every human on the entire earth, not every human living in the land to be flooded. 1) http://www.icr.org... 2) http://en.wikipedia.org... 3) http://www.talkorigins.org... 4) http://bit.ly... 5) http://ncse.com... 6) http://ncse.com... 7) http://www.oldearth.org... 8) http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu... 9) http://www.pbs.org... 10) http://www.godandscience.org... As this is my last round, I will give a closing. I want to think Con for taking this debate with me. I have enjoyed it, and I have learned new things in the process. I know sometimes I come across differently than I intend, so if I have ever offended you, please forgive me. It was never my intention to come across as sarcastic or prideful. I wish you the best luck in the future, and perhaps we'll debate again. :) Con put forth two types of positive evidence that the Genesis account says that the entire earth was flooded. I argued that the most common way the same Hebrew words are interpreted only refer to local areas (10) . Then God said, "Behold, I am going to make a covenant. Before all your people I will perform miracles which have not been produced in all [kol] the earth [erets], nor among any of the nations; and all the people among whom you live will see the working of the LORD, for it is a fearful thing that I am going to perform with you. (Exodus 34:10) (There would be no need to add "nor among any of the nations" if "all the earth" referred to the entire planet.) 'You shall then sound a ram's horn abroad on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the day of atonement you shall sound a horn all [kol] through your land [erets]. (Leviticus 25:9) (The Hebrews were not required to sound a horn throughout the entire earth) Con argued that there is scientific evidence for a flood: "polystrate" fossils and fossilized fish in varve layers. I have addressed both of these arguments by showing modern examples where we have observed these naturally occurring without a global flood. Con failed to address or even mention the scientific evidence from many religious and atheistic sources I put forth supporting a local flood. I showed that this scientific evidence agrees both with the description of the flood in Genesis and the date predicted by modern Creationists.