One of the most easily debunked absurdities of young earth creationism (YEC) is its reliance on so-called 'flood geology.' To account for the massive geological evidence for an ancient earth, YECists try to bring in Genesis chapters 7 to 9 to save chapter 1. The global flood in Noah's days can, they argue, explain the very evolution-friendly fossil record, and it can explain the evidence elsewhere attributed to ice ages.
While this is probably very satisfying to the typical YEC, it is a total embarrassment for any thinking, or educated, Christian. The whole idea that this planet should have been totally covered in water any time in the last 5000 years or so is so absurd that thinking Christians who want to believe in the literal truth of the Bible have to use a different explanation. The flood account in Genesis, they say, only describes a local flood, perhaps some flooding in the Tigris-Euphrates valley or elsewhere in the Middle East.
To debunk the global flood scenario is totally outside the scope of this text, which concerns a local flood. For a serious summary of arguments against a global flood, consult the Talk.Origins archive, especially the article Problems with a Global Flood.
It is worth noting that a large number of, if not all, proponents of a local flood are also either old earth creationists or evolutionists (believers in 'theistic evolution'). They are not concerned with saving any Genesis creation account with water acrobatics. Their concern is to preserve the flood account in Genesis 7-9 as a literally true account while still accepting the facts discovered by modern science.
Those who assert a 'local flood' may actually believe in a number of different things. This text only concerns those who believe that the flood account in Genesis actually happened more or less as described. In other words: it addresses those who believe that Noah and his family are historical persons who really escaped a flood by living on a large wooden vessel, the ark, for many months, and that they had brought a large number of animals with them.
Many, and that includes non-Christians, have argued that various local floods in the past have inspired the flood accounts like those found in the Gilgamesh epic and Genesis. Actually, I doubt that anyone will deny that actual flooding in the past somehow inspired these tales. Most known are probably Sir Charles Wooley's reports of water-deposited layers in the ancient Sumerian city of Ur, or more recently, William Ryan and his colleagues who suggested that the sudden inrush of water from the Mediterranean into what became the Black Sea around 7000 years ago inspired various flood legends (Ryan and Pitman: Noah's Flood, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998). What is important to note is that none of these scenarios suggest that people and animals had to escape using an ark. In fact, the Black Sea scenario clearly contradicts any reading of the Genesis text. After all, we find (Gen 8:1-5) that the water receded to allow the Ark to land on dry land. The Black Sea is still there.
However, it is helpful to summarize the arguments that debunk a global flood, and see if a local flood explanation saves the day. Here's an outline of the most important problems with a global flood:
Where did the water come from? (it will take 4.4 billion cubic kilometers to cover Mt. Everest) The 'water canopy' theory creates far more problems than it solves, for example how anyone could survive the intense pressure before the flood, and how the energy release necessary for the condensation of all that water could fail to cook all life forms.
How were sediments formed during a flood? Even Mt. Everest is formed of sedimentary limestone. Also, how were a number of geological formations, fossil raindrops and warves formed during a flood?
How did a chaotic flood sort the fossil record without ever dumping e.g. one single mammal in the cretaceous? Not to mention, how could it avoid mixing modern plankton with the pre-historic plankton?
How can a flood account for more than a 100,000 countable annual layers in the Arctic and Greenland glaciers?
How did all the animals come to the Ark, and how did they get back? Some species, like the koalas, are not fond of moving, and cannot live in any environment found on the way back and forth to Ararat.
How did all the plants survive? How did the fish, so sensitive to salinity, survive the sudden surge of fresh water?
How could all the animal species in the world find room on this ark, not to mention their food and water? Typically, creationists must reduce the number of species and assume a post-deluvian evolution rate no evolutionists have ever accepted to account for this.
How could such a massive wooden vessel, around 140 meters (450 ft) long, even float, and even worse, survive the turbulent waters of the flood? No such vessel has ever been built even in the industrial age. With solid iron reinforcements, it could possibly have stayed together, but only if it was constantly pumped by machine pumps.
How was the Ark ventilated to get rid of the excess heat? How did they get rid of the excrement? How did they get rid of the smell (yuck)? How could only eight humans feed so many animals, and keep them and their tiny habitat clean? How did they feed the lions? How did they avoid feeding the lions with the lambs?
· And so on…
As we can easily see, the local flood scenario solves many, but not all, of these problems. If the flood was local, there is no problem for ice layers, fossil records or geological formations.
However, some very serious problems remain. First, we will discuss those relating to the Ark.
Why the Ark?
One obvious question, often asked by global flood proponents, is: If the flood was only local, why should Noah and family have to build an ark to survive? It would have been much easier to just relocate. Given the long warning, they could have relocated practically anywhere on the planet. Also, why all the work to save the animals? Animal species would easily survive elsewhere. Also, why birds? If the water started to rise, the birds would be better off flying away than staying inside a ship. This is certainly a strong argument against a local flood scenario. The internal logic of the Genesis story strongly implies a global flood.
Even if we leave this question aside, the Ark story is not much easier to defend from the perspective of a local flood than a global one.
It is the obvious fact that whoever wrote the Genesis flood legend was not a member of a sea-faring nation. Ancient Israel was not famous for its ships, and the description of the Ark shows that the author hadn't the faintest clue about how to make a seaworthy vessel. It is safe to say that the story would look very different had it been written in Phoenicia, Britain or, for that matter, Norway.
Anyone growing up by the sea in Norway, as I have, would learn the sad truth about wooden vessels: they leak. Always. A lot. Even a small wooden rowboat will accumulate so much water during a few hours in the water that you get very familiar with a scoop and, if you're not used to it, painful blisters in your hands.
A wooden sea vessel 140 meters (450 ft) long is simply impossible. First, it would leak so much and so heavily that even a battery of modern engine pumps would be hard pressed to save it from a watery grave. Second, the structure would not be strong enough to carry its own weight in calm water, and much less during a violent flood. Large wooden vessels have hardly been possible even in the industrial age, and then they needed to be reinforced with iron and of course they required constant pumping.
To the landlubber who wrote Genesis, pitch may sound like it's sufficient to make a boat watertight. It is not. Obviously, extrapolating experience with pitch on roofs that only had to sustain rain to what is needed for a boat is very inadequate. Wooden vessels must also be allowed to swell for a period in water before they are sea worthy. The Ark in Genesis didn't even go through this process. No wonder the Hebrews stayed on dry land.
Others have, much better than myself, explained the logistic nightmare involved in locating, collecting, organizing, feeding and cleaning after the thousands of animals in the Ark. The local flood scenario, of course, would help solving this problem. Local flood proponents, while having a hard time explaining why an Ark was needed to save animals in the first place, will generally argue that only animal species living in the area affected by the flood would have to be on the Ark. This solves the ludicrous idea that two individuals (seven for 'clean' animals) of every species of land dwelling and flying species on the Earth could find space in this ark.
Depending on how many animal species were represented, the Ark scenario may be from absurd to almost possible, in this respect. Where it breaks down is the amount of work necessary to feed and clean after the animals, heat dispersion and the smell.
Where was the Flood?
The arguments against the flood outlined above are really just included for completeness, because there is one topic where the local flood scenario breaks down completely and proves to be almost equally absurd as the global flood: the geographic location of the flood.
In debating flood proponents, I have had serious problems making them understand this very simple fact: a local flood requires a totally enclosed area, where all of the mountains or hills making up the enclosing rim around the flooded area must be higher than the flood itself. A simple kitchen experiment will confirm this. You can try from here to eternity to fill up only half of the area of your kitchen sink with water, while allowing the other half to remain dry. Without making some sort of wall, it is simply not possible. Given a chance to escape, water will run out of the enclosure. That is why we have rivers, and that's why the few land areas in the world lower than the sea level are not connected to the ocean by a channel or river.
Where was the local flood? Most casual Bible readers will assume this to be a silly question. Everybody knows that the Ark landed on Mt. Ararat. This is the reason fundamentalist Christians from time to time are engaged in the silly exercise of trying to find the Ark somewhere on this mountain.
Obviously, if the Ark landed on Mt Ararat, the local flood scenario is physically impossible. This mountain is actually by far the highest in the whole region, with the highest peak 5,137 meters (16,854 ft) above sea level. If the water stood higher than the top of Mt Ararat, then only a small handful of peaks, like a few mountains in the Himalayas, were visible above the water. The flood would have to be global. End of story.
However, the Bible does not actually say that the Ark landed on Mt Ararat. It says:
Genesis 8:3,4 "The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat."
Ararat, in this text, does not describe a mountain, but a region:
"The name Ararat, as it appears in the Bible, is the Hebrew equivalent of Urardhu, or Urartu, the Assyro-Babylonian name of a kingdom that flourished between the Aras and the Upper Tigris rivers from the 9th to the 7th century BC." Encyclopædia Britannica, "Mount Ararat" (article no longer freely available online)
We actually find the region, or kingdom, mentioned in four different verses of the Bible (two of which reads the same):
Genesis 8:4 "and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat."
2 Kings 19:37 and Isaiah 37:38 "One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer cut him down with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son succeeded him as king." (These two scriptures are the same)
Jeremiah 51:27 "Lift up a banner in the land! Blow the trumpet among the nations! Prepare the nations for battle against her; summon against her these kingdoms: Ararat, Minni and Ashkenaz. Appoint a commander against her; send up horses like a swarm of locusts."
The Ararat area thus was a remote, but known, area to the Hebrew authors of Old Testament books. It corresponds, actually, to the region where we find Mt Ararat, so the tradition of placing the Ark on this mountain is not contrary to the Bible, but it must be noted that the quoted verse, in isolation, allows the Ark to land on any of the mountains in this area.
According to Black's Bible Dictionary, the Ararat area is
"A section of E[ast] Armenia E[ast] of the Araxes River, somewhat N[orth] of Lakes Van and Urmia, today belonging to Turkey. Ararat provides part of Euphrates' source." (M. S. Miller and J. L. Miller. 1973. Black's Bible Dictionary. London: A. and C. Black Limited. Page 31.)
If the reader is to take the Bible's word as fact, and accept that the Ark landed on some mountain in the Ararat area in East Armenia, then obviously the whole discussion about how to translate the Hebrew word 'har' (discussed later) is totally moot. To adapt the old joke saying there is no such a thing as 'half a mile' in Australia, it is obvious that the Ararat area has no hills, only mountains. When the Bible says that the water rouse above the 'highest mountains' in this area - which actually is Mt Ararat itself - this makes a local flood scenario absolutely impossible. Look up this area on a map. Lake Van is 1,662 meters (5,452 ft) above sea level. The area is, as far as it's possible to see on a good map, more than 200 kilometers from any area as low as 500 meters above sea level, and twice as long to any area below 200 meters. Naturally, any flood rising to such levels would have been a global disaster. The local flood proponents still face an impossible scenario.
The local flood believers thus have to relocate the flood to some other region. Disregarding the exact geographic designation found of the Bible - the whereabouts of the Ararat area is known both from Babylonian and Bible sources - they go searching for some area where they can find room for a local flood and an ark. Somewhere, presumably, with hills but without mountains.
One favorite location for many local flood proponents is the Euphrates-Tigris valley, also known as Mesopotamia. This, they say, is an area without many tall mountains (at least in the southern part), and it is also not too far away from the Biblical lands. Presumably, not moving the Ararat area too far away from where it historically was is also a concern with these apologists, even though their thinking here seems a bit hard to understand.
Again, local flood proponents demonstrate a total lack of understanding of topology and geography. If you look at a map of an area, and a river runs through it, you can know quite a bit about elevation even without further investigation. If a river runs from the north to the south, as the Euphrates and Tigris rivers generally do, you can be certain about one thing: the land will consistently tilt southwards. Following the river, at no part of the run will the land rise notably. If the land flattens, or especially rises, the river will have to run around it or form a lake that rises to the edge, and then allows the water to run on. This is pretty self-evident.
So, since the Mesopotamian valley contains two rivers, it necessarily cannot contain any mountains or other formations that can form an enclosure for a large flooded area. If it should rain so heavily that it makes the water rise temporarily in some area, the water will quickly escape through any opening. The Biblical flood lasted for many months, which is physically impossible without a totally enclosed area.
We also have to ask how large the flooded area would have to be. While local flood proponents will have to demonstrate imaginative exegesis generally, it can't be seriously denied that the Genesis text insists that Noah and the other people on the Ark did not see land during many months when they sailed around on the water:
Genesis 8:3-5: "The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible."
As we can see, only some time after the Ark had landed on a mountain did other tops become visible. From this we can easily conclude that this mountain was the tallest in the region, except, presumably, the enclosing mountains that were too distant from the Ark to be visible.
A rule of thumb, well known to sea men, is that the distance to the horizon in nautical miles is 1.17 times the square root of your height of eye in feet. So, since the Ark was 45 feet high (and the window was at the top), we find that an observer would be able to see the horizon 7.85 nautical miles (14.5 km, 9 miles) away. What we are looking for, of course, is how far away an observer could see the enclosing mountains, and since there is no totally smooth crater top of comparative size anywhere in the world, the edge can't be expected to be totally smooth. Also, since the water resided over a number of months, the relative height of these mountains must steadily have raised. (Gen 8:3 says: "The water receded steadily from the earth.") Yet, nobody on the Ark could see them, so it had to be outside the area that could be seen from the Ark.
Even if we assume the height of the flood enclosure to be no more than 45 feet (same as height of Ark), we would need a circular area with a radius of around 20 km (12.4 miles). That would mean 40 km either way. And this, of course, assumes that the Ark was totally immovable, standing in the exact middle of the flooded area. Is that possible in a turbulent, violent flood? It goes without saying that such a scenario is impossible. And it gets worse. Anyone who has forgotten to moor a small boat, or done it badly, will know that even in smooth waters, only a few hours later the boat will be a speck on the horizon. If it is windy, the situation will be even worse. And the Bible says:
Genesis 8:1 "But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded."
This wind blew for 150 days, and a big, rectangular vessel like the Ark would be strongly influenced by this wind (large boats are not allowed to enter narrow channels in strong wind, because they can easily be pushed off course). Even if we assume that the Ark only held a speed of one knot (unrealistically slow), this could take the ark more than 6500 km (4000 miles). That would actually allow the Ark to cross the Atlantic Ocean in 150 days. With a more realistic speed, the strong wind God sent would send the Ark around the Earth many times. Of course, this presumes a global, not a local, flood, which is exactly what the Genesis text describes.
Two Hebrew Words
When you look at a number of apologetic texts defending a local flood scenario, what strikes you is the total absence of exegetical analyses of the source text: Genesis chapters 6 to 8. The reason is not very hard to see when you open the Bible. There is hardly a line in the flood narrative that doesn't yell out 'global.' Any local flood proponent must be totally embarrassed at quoting any relevant Bible text at length, since it would undermine his position totally. So, they don't.
Instead, local flood proponents are very, very fond of Hebrew dictionaries. Grabbing one word out of its context and playing around with it to make an inconvenient Bible verse say something else is a well-known hobby of amateur (and, sometimes, alas, not-so-amateur) Bible exegeters. Any Bible-thumper worth his salt owns a few feet worth of Bible dictionaries. One day, apparently, he'll learn the alphabet so he can use them.
In the context of the local flood, there are two words usually brought up, those translated 'earth' (erets) and 'mountain' (har). They point out, quite correctly, that erets can be just as easily translated 'land' or 'ground' as 'earth.' Likewise, the word for mountain, har, can also be translated 'hill.' Indeed, a typical local flood proponent may quote a Strong's for these words, which points out that they are translated in many different ways in the Authorized, or King James, Version:
AV - land 1543, earth 712, country 140, ground 98, world 4, way 3, common 1, field 1, nations 1, wilderness + 04057 1; 2504
AV - mountain 261, mount 224, hill 59, hill country 1, promotion 1; 546
How, then, do translators decide which word to use when, as in these cases, one Hebrew word can properly be translated into a number of different English words? The answer is, of course, context. Sometimes the answer is obvious, other times it may be grounds for some reasonable doubt and discussion.
Mountain or Molehill?
It is a simple fact that since water can only be contained in an enclosed area (which we have discussed earlier), it follows that the water of the flood could not have covered mountains (or hills) higher than the rim of the enclosure. If it did, the water would spill out. So, if the flood covered real mountains, it would have to be global. Local flood proponents need to argue a very shallow flood. How, then, do they explain the text saying the flood covered the "all the high mountains under the entire heavens"? (Genesis 7:19) They have to argue that when the Bible says 'mountains' here, it simply refers to small hills in a reasonably flat area.
The word translated 'mountain' (har) can, they argue, also refer to a "hill."
One very obvious fact typically ignored by local flood proponents is that if a language has one single word to cover the meanings of both 'hill' and 'mountain' in English, they may still have ways to distinguish between those two. How would a Hebrew express that he was talking about mountains and not much smaller hills? Easy. He would write 'a high har' or even 'the highest hars'. And that is precisely what the author Genesis did. Genesis 7:19 says that "all the high mountains" were covered by the water. As we have already seen, the Ararat region is a mountainous one indeed, and any 'high har' in this area would have to be a real mountain.
It would also be very ignorant to claim that the author of Genesis did not know about high mountains, and thus could designate small hills as 'high mountains.' No serious attempt has ever been made to trace the origin of the Book of Genesis to Denmark or Holland, after all. Israel is itself a mountainous area. The sacred places known to all Hebrews are all located on mountains, like the temple in Jerusalem. No Jew could be ignorant about the Temple Mount; even the mere idea is absurd. Thus, no author in this tradition would write about 'the highest mountain under the heaven' and actually mean some hills considerably lower than the famous mountains in Jerusalem.
At this point a local flood proponent may come up with a quotation from one of the world's countless translations, a few of which that translate this text 'high hills.' Now, this does not invalidate the logical argument made in the preceding paragraph. Translators may have other motivations than the textual accuracy we seek here. Also, the translation most known for using "hill" in this verse is the Authorized, or King James, Version, which has so high regards in the English speaking world that this may well be enough to explain modern usage of this rendering as well.
It is worth remembering that, 1) KJV uses "mountain" and "hill" interchangeably in Genesis 7:19,20, when it translates the same Hebrew word. This indicates that stylistic concerns have overruled technical ones. 2) The KJV was translated in 1611 in England. It is well known that the English language has changed quite a bit in all this time. England hardly has any mountains at all, and I doubt that the translators had any experience with really high mountains. Be that as it may, the argument outlined above still stands.
Here are a collection of various translations of Genesis 7: 19, 20:
NIV: They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet.
KJV: And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.
NKJV: And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed fifteen cubits upward, and the mountains were covered.
NASB: The water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered. The water prevailed fifteen cubits higher, and the mountains were covered.
RSV: And the waters prevailed so mightily upon the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered; the waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep.
Darby: And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth; and all the high mountains that are under all the heavens were covered. Fifteen cubits upward the waters prevailed; and the mountains were covered.
YLT: And the waters have been very, very mighty on the earth, and covered are all the high mountains which [are] under the whole heavens; fifteen cubits upwards have the waters become mighty, and the mountains are covered;
JPS Tanakh: When the waters had swelled much more upon the earth, all the highest mountains everywhere under the sky were covered. Fifteen cubits higher did the waters swell, as the mountains were covered.
NJB: The waters rose higher and higher above the ground until all the highest mountains under the whole of heaven were submerged. The waters reached their peak fifteen cubits above the submerged mountains.
Obviously, then, the renderings preferred by local flood proponents have little support in fact.
What local flood proponents often overlook is the obvious fact that the author of Genesis had a specific reason for choosing Ararat as the final destination of the Ark. This area contained, as far as any Hebrew could know, the highest mountains in the world. It was the 'roof of the world' to an Israelite author, like the Himalayas are to a modern person. As a literary effect, the objective of putting the Ark on top of Ararat is obvious.
Earth or Land?
When the Genesis text uses the Hebrew word erets, it may refer to a number of different things. The word can signify the earth, ground, soil, the land or similar meanings. Based on this word alone, it could be feasible to believe the author of Genesis referred to a local flood that covered a more limited area.
As it is with the word for mountain, the author had to use other effects if he wanted to make the reader understand that the flood covered the entire earth. As we have already seen, this he did in abundance. The text says the flood covered "all the high mountains under the entire heavens," an expression repeated throughout the account. He also has God say, "I am going to put an end to all people" (6:13) and "I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made," (7:4) a direct reference to the creation account and a confirmation that the flood had to be global. Otherwise, creatures outside the area affected by the flooding would naturally survive. Such statements are repeated throughout the text, and a local flood proponent must find the actual Genesis text a depressive read.
The only resort of the local flood proponent is to claim that all these statements are "hyperbole." They admit such statements may look like they indicate a global flood, but the author were just using poetic or strong language to get the point across. This is, they may argue, not a text written by a modern historian, but a highly poetic text.
First, this line of argument totally undermines their whole case. The whole reason that local flood proponents exist is that many modern, educated Christians know that a global flood is physically impossible. That means, naturally, that all the millions of believers in pre-modern times who read this text interpreted the flood as a worldwide event. Local flood belief is a modern phenomenon. The original author would have known that all readers that he could perceive of would assume he was talking about a global flood. Then, the only rational conclusion is that the author intended to convey a story about a global flood.
Second, the appeal to literary effect is truer than they may at first understand. The whole problem has aroused because many conservative Christians - global and local flood proponents alike - don't really understand what religious texts are about.
A Problem With Genres
The modern reader who wants to understand a text first has to ask: What was the objective of the author? What message did he or she intend to convey to the reader? Those who believe in a literal flood - local or global - must claim that the author actually wanted to tell real history. The theological objective would be limited to giving a warning to non-believers that if they did not change, God would kill them. In NT references to the flood account, like 2 Peter 2:5, this is the message learned. However, the NT authors had a very different audience than the author of Genesis many centuries earlier.
The author of the Genesis story was telling a religious message. As for most religious writers, there was a point of view he was arguing for, and another he was arguing against. To understand the author's intent, we must know something about the religious and social climate in which this text was written. Christian conservatives will often insist this text was written by Moses. His opponents at the time, if we believe the Torah, were 'idolaters' - followers of religious traditions competing with Yahweh.
However, it is most common among Bible scholars to accept that these texts are exilic or post-exilic. The opponents were believers in the polytheistic myths of Babylon and other 'pagan' nations (Remember the golden calf. Egypt, for all its animal deities, is notable for the absence of a sacred calf. Babylon, on the other hand, used calves in worship).
An important tool used by Babylonian priests in propagating their Marduk-centered religion was epic stories - now often called 'myths' - that also coincided with impressive festivals. The Babylonian creation myth, the Enuma Elish, is an important example. Myth and ritual confirms each other. The epic tale tells how the Earth and everything was created by the gods. But more than this, it tells how Marduk - the main god of the Babylonians - came to become the supreme god. That, naturally, justified the Babylonian political supremacy of the region. No surprise that other nations told a somewhat different story.
The Yahweh-worshipping Israelites had to endure the political and military dominance of Babylon. How should they avoid being religiously dominated? Soon, they came to see their suppression as Yahweh's punishment for their own sins of the past. It was not Marduk's power but their own God who had caused their defeat. This way, Yahweh priests - who didn't have the luxury of their Babylonian competitors who could point to political success - could explain the sad order of things while still maintaining the supreme position of Yahweh. The Yahweh priests also were able to take the popular Babylonian myths - like the Enuma Elish - and rewrite it with Yahweh as the superior protagonist.
The same happened to the flood myth. Flood legends were popular in the Mesopotamian region. The most famous is the partly extant Gilgamesh epic. The flood is only a small part of this myth, but in it we see the gods of the Babylonian pantheon as responsible for a horrible flood disaster of the past. Since myths were important in defending religion, Yahweh priests used the flood story to explain something about the nature of Yahweh. It made an interesting contrast. While intrigue and childish gods played the important part in the Babylonian myth, we see that Yahweh's act is justified on moral grounds. People were evil, so God punished them by drowning. Only Noah and his family were righteous, and they were spared.
Appendix: Analyzing The Genesis Text
Genesis 6
9 This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.
10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.
11 Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence.
12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.
13 So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.
As we have noted earlier: God's act of destruction is justified in the moral corruption of mankind. They were violent, Yahweh notes, so he will destroy them.
One can speculate why the priestly author/redactor pointed out the "violence" as the supreme sin. Normally, we see Yahweh as a violent deity, and some of his prominent followers - like Moses, Joshua or King David - are described as extremely violent. However, in the situation where the Israelites were exiled and captured by the brutal Babylonians, it was perhaps not difficult to point to their God as someone who punishes the violent.
14 So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out.
15 This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high.
16 Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the top. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks.
17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.
Emphasis in the text that all will be destroyed, nobody spared. It is hard to see any local flood in this.
18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark--you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you.
19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you.
20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive.
Note that in this verse, there is no mention of the 'seven pairs' of each 'clean' animal, as we can find in 7:2. As pointed out by most Bible scholars, but beyond this discussion, it is obvious that two different literary traditions are merged into one text.
21 You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them."
22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him.
Genesis 7
1 The Lord then said to Noah, "Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation.
2 Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate,
3 and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth.
The Yahwist text mentions seven pairs of all clean animals. The Elohist text (above) speaks only of one pair of each. Note that based on what should be an entirely arbitrary criteria - if conservatives were correct - namely whether the author chose to call his deity "Yahweh" (in this text: Lord) or "God" (Elohim), we can split the text into two different stories, and both make sense independently, sharing some similarities and some differences. It would be a remarkable coincidence if it weren't for the fact that this criterion is not arbitrary: there are two different texts here.
4 Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made."
5 And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him.
6 Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth.
7 And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood.
8 Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground,
9 male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah.
10 And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth.
It is ludicrous to imagine that two (or fourteen) of every land animal species on this planet should be taken into the ark in just seven days. The local flood proponents may save this part of the account by arguing that only a few, local species were preserved on the Ark.
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month--on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.
The absurd ages of early Bible heroes may not pose a problem to religious conservatives, but to others this indicates a story more legendary than factual in content.
12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
Those who believe in a global flood will have a hard time explaining how the ark - or anything - could have survived rain that caused the water to rise up to 9000 meters in forty days. Even heavy monsoon rain in the Far East doesn't come close to such a magnitude.
Rainfall is normally measured in mm/day. The average intensity of the rainfall during these forty days and nights would then have been 9M mm/40 days equals 225,000 mm per 24 hour period, compared to the 1,870 mm listed as the world record for 24 hours in the Guinness Book of Records 1990. The rainfall would equal 156.25 mm per minute, compared to the modern record, which is 38.1 mm in one single minute at Barst, Guadeloupe on Nov 26, 1970. Such rainfall is known to cause destruction even besides the flooding.
Even if we reduce the necessary amount of rainfall to accommodate for a local flood scenario, we see that the rain would have to be beyond anything actually recorded on this planet.
13 On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark.
14 They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings.
15 Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark.
16 The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord shut him in.
Repetition supports the documentary hypothesis.
17 For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth.
18 The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water.
19 They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered.
20 The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet.
This pretty well rules out a local scenario.
21 Every living thing that moved on the earth perished--birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind.
22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died.
23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.
The author goes to great lengths to explain that all life and all the dry land were covered in water. It's hard to see how local flood proponents can seriously argue that the author does not intend to convey this idea.
24 The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.
This long period would require a totally enclosed area (or the whole Earth), otherwise the water would have followed the easiest route and disappeared. Such an area cannot be found anywhere, and certainly not in Mesopotamia.
Genesis 8
1 But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.
It is hard to imagine how a strong wind would help the water recede. It indicates a belief in a flat Earth (which is consistent in the whole Bible), and also a somewhat fuzzy idea about how water behaves on top of a flat surface.
A strong wind would of course cause a large, rectangular vessel to move quite quickly. In a hundred and fifty days, it would be able to go around the world. If the flood were local, it would certainly find land.
2 Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky.
The author had a primitive view of geology, to say the least. He believed that rain was caused by the floodgates in the dome above the heavens being opened. What he believed about the "springs of the deep" is a bit unclear.
Some will claim that such language is 'poetic' and doesn't necessarily indicate the author had this view. Naturally, the only reason such 'poetic' expressions exists today, is because people have a high regard for ancient texts in which such expressions are used. And when those ancient texts were written, people actually believed these things.
3 The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down,
4 and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.
5 The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible.
This means that for as far as they could see, and for several months, the mountaintop where the Ark had landed was the highest point. If the Ark landed in the Ararat area, this would be Mt. Ararat itself.
6 After forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark
7 and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth.
Indeed, there was no land to be found anywhere within flying distance from the Ark.
8 Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground.
9 But the dove could find no place to set its feet because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark.
The dove is, unlike the raven, a clean animal. Perhaps the author thought it more fitting that it found land.
10 He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark.
11 When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth.
Amazing how fast this olive tree has grown up from an area covered in water (salt water, even).
12 He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.
13 By the first day of the first month of Noah's six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth.
Making us question, of course, where all that water had gone. Over the edge of the Earth, presumably.
13 Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry.
14 By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.
15 Then God said to Noah,
16 "Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives.
17 Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you--the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground--so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number upon it."
18 So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons' wives.
19 All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds--everything that moves on the earth--came out of the ark, one kind after another.
The important question is: How did they come down from this tall mountain? Ararat is a quite tough mountain to climb. The mountain goat obviously had no problems, but what about the Koala? I'd also like to see how the crocodile made its way down a mountainside to finally find the rivers where it likes to live.
20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it.
21 The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
22 "As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease."
It is worth noting that a large number of, if not all, proponents of a local flood are also either old earth creationists or evolutionists (believers in 'theistic evolution'). They are not concerned with saving any Genesis creation account with water acrobatics. Their concern is to preserve the flood account in Genesis 7-9 as a literally true account while still accepting the facts discovered by modern science. 