Noah's flood of genesis is a historic event

You have to understand, when these events took place, much of the world was still undiscovered by most people. That being said I do believe it is more or less a "local" flood. Think of it this was, when Hurricane Katrina hit Florida most of Florida was flooded, but they knew that the rest of the US existed, but what if Florida was unaware of any of the other states or countries? Without the knowledge of an outside world, people in Florida would have described it as world wide, because that is all of the world that they knew of. When I was talking about the world going through different phases, my point was, we do not know the exact topography of the Mesopotamia at that time, all we know is that it was mainly an agricultural stated that depended on the constant flooding of the surrounding rivers to have fertile soil to farm. You asked "How was the world different?". Well, the contents moved across oceans and thousands of miles, and there is scientific evidence of Pangeai, so is it a large stretch to say that ground levels where a few meters lower than current day? It might be scientifically impossible for a world wide flood, but I am focusing on the historical evidence. Between the years 2600 and 3500 BC, the two Mesopotamian civilizations of Kish and Ur, went through a series of floods, one of the floods could be the one that is referred to in Genesis. Out of all the floods that took place is Mesopotamia, the flood of Shuruppak is most likely the flood that because that is where most people believe Noah to be from. As for an arch being built and taking two of each animal, again, Noah did not have knowledge of every single animal that was in existence, he took every animal that was known to the Mesopotamian people at the time and put them on the arch. If he took every animal, how would it be possible to get animals that are native to places like North America, and Australia? People only knew as much as they have seen, most people never saw more than Mesopotamia. You continue to use the examples of tree rings and the flood not leaving traces of the ocean floor, these are all solid facts, but the only problem is, they are irrelevant. Even if a world wide flood took place in the 1300s tree rings of the Red Wood Forest would be irrelevant, because they would have not yet been discovered. As for the sea floor traces, irrelevant, the only bodies of water that could be effected by a flood of Mesopotamia are the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. If you are going to show evidence of flood damage to bodies of water, show places relevant to the agricultural world. Polar ice caps, again, not yet discovered. Noah's arch landed on the mountains of Ararat, which are in current day Iran, which is home to many historical Sumerian cultures, which is evidence to the arch landing there because Moses was a Sumerian and he would have brought is culture and culturally diffused it and pass it down to his children, who would eventually populate the whole region. If it was just a local flood, why did Noah have to relocate into the ark and bring two of every creature? Back to the example of Hurricane Katrina, the flood was local to Mesopotamia and its surroundings, It in no way would have effected people in Asia and the Americas. While many people where displaced from their homes when Hurricane Katrina hit, they relocated to other states that where not hit by the hurricane, and once the water was gone, they where able to go back to Florida. The place where Moses landed the arch was the first place that either recovered or was unaffected by the flood. He had to create the arch in order to escape the flood that engulfed most of the Mesopotamian world that he knew. Wouldn't God be breaking his promise each time there is a local flood? The Tigris and Euphrates rivers' floods can be predicted and where used to produce fertile land. The flood was a step above local, but was not "world-wide". Hurricane Katrina was not just a "local flood", it was more than the average flood that most people from Florida have ever seen. So no, each time the rivers flooded, God would not be breaking his promise, because that was a normal event. A flood of that scale was something that never happened before. Just a side not that is not really reliant to the debate; The difference between the Bible and other many religious texts and writings such as the Quran, is that the Quran is a first person account and has not been translated or manipulated in anyway, it says exactly what it was intend to. The Old Testament of the Bible was written by many different people and mostly second hand accounts of events and stories that took place a long time ago. Also the bible has been translated into different languages and has multiple versions. Even the Latin and English bible has slight differences, just keep that in mind when you talk about the literal interpretation.