laptoppop said:
Actually it comes from the story itself - Noah was 500 years old when he received the command from the Lord, and 600 years old when he and his family went into the ark.
Isn't that how old he was when the kids were born? It doesn't say he was warned about the flood then.
To me it does, through the use of the word "all",
To understand the meaning of 'all' we need to look at the context, which in the case of the flood was the land (
erets) Noah lived in.
the covering of the mountains (including the mountains where it landed - many thousands of feet high),
I think there are real difficulties understanding what 'the hills of Ararat'. Mount Ararat wasn't know by that name until long after the bible was written. The word Ararat is used later in the bible for the kingdom of Urartu centred around lake Van, but then again, the kingdom of Urartu stretched as far as the Mediterranean.
The big problem is that the Kingdom of Urartu only existed from 1000 BC, long after the time of Noah or even Moses, which is why the other references to Ararat are in 2Kings, Jeremiah and Isaiah.
This leaves us not knowing where the hills of Ararat really are. Urartu was the Assyrian for hill country. Or Ararat may come from the Hebrew for 'cursed'. So we are told the ark came to rest in the hill hills (so good they named it twice) or in the cursed hills, a good description of the land after a flood, but it doesn't tell us where, or how high the ark was.
taking all the animals on board to preserve the various types, etc.
An extensive flood could wipe out many unique species as well as all domesticated breeds.
I appreciate your talking about "under the heavens" and "heavens" etc. but in this case I think the context is pretty darn compelling. You can disagree -- that's fine.
Try reading it through early bronze age eyes, understanding the terms as they meant to the people of that time.
I typically don't just cite these articles, but here's an example article with various reasons that the flood is seen as global:
http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=print&ID=440
Obviously I can't deal with this point by point and many have already been dealt with, but to take one of the points:
Henry Morris said:
2 The Physical Causes for the Flood. The Bible explains that the breaking open of "all the fountains of the great deep" and the "windows of heaven" (7:11) were the primary causes. The "deep" is the ocean; thus the "great deep" could hardly be the cause of a limited local flood. The "windows" seem to refer to the "waters above the (atmospheric) firmament" (1:7). These were global causes, producing a global effect.
Actually the deep can also refer to the depths of the earth, especially talking about springs of water gushing up from the deep. I'm using Young's here because it shows the Hebrew words better.
Deut 8:7 For Jehovah thy God is bringing thee in unto a good land, a land of brooks of waters, of fountains, and of depths coming out in valley and in mountain: (we have a differnt word for fountain here, but that doesn't make any difference.)
Psalm 78:15 He cleaveth rocks in a wilderness, And giveth drink--as the great deep.
Now while the deep can be land or sea, the word fountain refers to a spring or water source on land. The Hebrew says the opposite of what Morris claims.
Of course, I'm not sure I agree, but Chuck Missler and others talk about the strange little verses about the "sons of God" and the daughters of men -- they see it as a satanic/demonic attempt to pollute the species such that man would be unredeemable, and the bloodline of the messiah would be ruined. Interesting perspective. If true, a worldwide flood and destruction of the corrupted (gene pool?) makes more sense.
-lee-
That is I am afraid, conjecture built on conjecture. We don't know that 'sons of God' passage is talking about angels actually breeding with humans and Jesus statement about angels not marrying seems to contradict it. The idea that it was a Satanic plot to pollute the messianic bloodline is unsupported by scripture which tells us the reason was the women were so pretty. Then you have a further conjecture that the reason God sent the flood was to keep the gene pool pure. That is not the reason given in the bible. I think you are right to be cautious about it.