I've been meaning to start this thread for a while but I wasn't sure what to put in the OP.

As far as I can tell, the story of the great flood is easily the most accessible story in the Bible that shows that the Bible cannot be inerrant. If you're one of those Christians that believes the Bible does not contain any errors or falsehoods, this thread is for you. AFAIK there are two interpretations of the story, one involving a global flood and one involving a local flood. The global flood idea is so lol ridiculous that I hope we can focus on the still ridiculous but less so theory of the local flood. THIS is the best article I could find that supports the local flood theory. If someone has something better I'd be glad to read it.

To get the thread started I'll make one specific claim and we can go from there. My claim is that Genesis 7:18-20 is in direct contradiction to the idea of a local flood. Those verses say:

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.

Please comment.

ok so it was a global flood then

I suggest that you read this article. It goes a little more in depth.

http://www.godandscience.org/apologe...ocalflood.html

Here is an excerpt that deals with your mentioned passage.

Funny how they leave out Earth and how many times it is stated...

"the earth" isn't really Earth right?

my next argument was "So He destroyed all living things which were on the face of the ground" but they seem to cover this as well with:

When "all" does not mean "all"
The flood passage uses many universal descriptions, which suggest global proportions. However, the universal text contradicts itself, if it is to be interpreted globally. For example, the Genesis text tells us that all flesh had become corrupted.12 However, the same passage tells us that Noah was a "righteous man, blameless in his time."13 It is clear from the text that "all flesh" did not actually refer to all flesh, since there was at least one exception.

ugh

Metaphorical obviously.

Which reminds of something I wanted to say a while back...

How is anyone ever supposed to interpret the Bible correctly when EVERY SINGLE VERSE could be a possible metaphor?

And what is your basis for believing this is possible?

I actually was going to start a thread about this a while back, but just forgot.

You obviously did not read the article.

this site is insane - http://www.godandscience.org/apologe...ocalflood.html

"the earth" is only meant to be local whereas "all the earth" means worldwide is pretty much what they are getting at. So anywhere "the earth" is used in the Bible it is just referring to something happening locally described in scripture?

The following verse is just something that happens locally:

Isaiah 24 1-3

1 See, the LORD is going to lay waste the earth
and devastate it;
he will ruin its face
and scatter its inhabitants-

2 it will be the same
for priest as for people,
for master as for servant,
for mistress as for maid,
for seller as for buyer,
for borrower as for lender,
for debtor as for creditor.

3 The earth will be completely laid waste
and totally plundered.
The LORD has spoken this word.

My basis is that you must be a literalist for the Bible to have any significant (in an absolute sense) meaning. Once you start exercising your own judgment in determining what the Bible says (or ought to say IYO), you immediately introduce a relative perspective that nobody can disagree with and you invalidate the truth aspect of its claims.

Please do. We can start off right where we are now and not hijack this thread.

There are stories about the flood that predate the Bible, and the flood in question was local, although people living at the time had no idea how big the Earth was or that there was more to it than their immediate surroundings, so they thought it was global. The parts of the Ark story that are LOL ridiculous are the Ark itself and its passengers.

This.

Forget which flood we're talking about, just imagine all MILLIONS (?) of different species' we have alive now fitting onto one boat...
















...and then multiply that even more for all the 99%ish that have already gone extinct!

so Noah needed a 450ft long wood boat for a local flood?

To be fair, Local was probably the Entire Mediterranean.

Edit: But I would love to see what percentage of today's species we could fit on it.

I will read that article tomorrow.

First though, even if the word in question is translated as hill, all of the hills under the entire heavens would have needed to be covered. That's still global.

I'm speaking to Christians that believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God, so ancient people thinking the flood was global is no excuse for what is written in the Bible.

Just to play devil's advocate, if it were indeed a local flood then all the species on earth would not need to be taken aboard, just the local ones.

Of course this contradicts the verses that say all of the animals and humans perished, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Edit/ I just reread the passage and I especially like the part that says, "Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out."

Jib, I don't know your position on the Noah's ark story. Do you actually believe this story happened, animals on the ark and everything?

You didn't read the rest of my post or the posts after. I'm asking if all scriptures that say "the earth" refer to "earth," "land," "country," or "ground." as stated on that site... This means that all places where "the earth" are mentioned in the Bible can be interpreted as only referring to something happening locally...

I don't see why they can't admit that the people who authored this part of the Bible had no concept of how big the Earth was. They can say:

So they blame this on interpretation of the Bible? They can't admit that these people thought the Earth was about 200 miles in diameter?

Yet another scientific claim (size of the Earth) that theists claim the Bible doesn't make any of.

"the earth" doesn't really mean the Earth...

Sure. I believe currently that it happened. But I do not hold dogmatically to it. If someone was able to show me biblically that it is more likely to have been some sort of allegorical story I would not have a problem switching my view.

ONLY when a scientific fact is staring the Bible in the face do words have to be twisted around to become "translated incorrectly", "interpreted incorrectly", or "metaphorical/allegorical".

How do you people not see this when it happens???