> Nowhere in Genesis or the Bible in general is the flood described as local

I know. You don't seem to be following what I'm saying. What I've written is:

* "The author uses the language of universality to get his theological point across."
* "We have to interpret the text to get back to the intent of the author. We can't just read it shallowly in English and expect that we have it, especially a complex text like this one."
* "This is a case of hyperbole, a rhetorical device to make a theological point. A local but cataclysmic flood is intentionally described as a global flood for rhetorical and theological purposes."
* The terminology can be interpreted in different ways.
* "The Bible uses hyperbole to describe historical events ... And since we know the bible is not at all averse or slow to use hyperbole in its writings, it's plausible to think it's hyperbolic."

> Is that the extent of your reasoning then?

No, I can't give you all of it. It's too much for the limitations of the forum. I'm just giving you highlights and important peaks.

So it seems all your reasoning for the Bible implying a local flood is entirely non-Biblical. Nowhere in Genesis or the Bible in general is the flood described as local. Is that the extent of your reasoning then? Reinterpreting the plain reading to remove all clear mentions of a global flood and worldwide destruction, and reinterpreting other parts using non-Biblical ideas and perspectives to implant the idea of a local flood in?

It's impossible to read the text reasonably as a global flood.

* Such a cataclysm doesn't fit the ancient cosmological view of the earth as a flat plate surrounded by and under washed with cosmic waters.
* The earth doesn't have that amount of water.
* The sky doesn't have that much rain.
* For water, even if there were that much, to rise that fast would have created currents that would have destroyed the ark.
* That much water would throw the earth off its orbit.
* The ancients didn't have the technology to make a wooden boat that size. I'm not sure we even have the technology to make a wooden boat that size. It's never been done.
* Our science tells us it's impossible on SO many different levels.

But what in the text tells us it's hyperbole?

When read plainly, the text speaks of a global flood. As I've said several times (maybe to you, maybe to others), the author uses the language of universality to get his theological point across. But there's more to the text than "reading plainly."

* The Earth was not destroyed (6.13)
* A wooden boat of that size (6.15) is impossible, and they knew it.
* "All" (6.17) in Genesis is used elsewhere for a particular population (Gn. 41.57). It is used in Exodus where "all" is not what happened (the plagues). It is used in Deuteronomy for local populations (2.25). These books are all from the same authorial source.
* "The great deep" and "the floodgates of the heavens" in Gn. 7.11 refers to an ancient cosmological perspective where the subterranean waters below the surface of the earth were joined with the waters of the firmament above. This is obviously figurative language, and the extent of their scope of hyperbole.
* The vast upheaval described (6.11) would have overturned any boat.
* Rain for 40 days and nights is impossible (6.12). "40" is always (as far as we know) a symbolic number in the Bible.
* Neither ravens nor doves can fly at the altitudes required for the text to be "read plainly."

So let’s assume for the moment that your rescuing devices intended to refuse a plain reading of the text are sufficient.

So what in the text, when read plainly, specifically denotes a local, non-global flood that didn’t wipe out all land life in the planet nor cover the mountains up to 15 cubits high?

You seem to have the mistaken idea that the deepest knowledge of the universe, of God, and of spiritual realities should be expressed in simple, child-like English, translatable to other cultures and other languages without any prospect of cultural misinterpretation or erred translation. If that's what you require, then you understand neither the nature of God, the capacities of human understanding, or the nature of communication. Terminology for these concepts barely exists. Cultures differ in how they use and understand terms. Languages have words that are untranslatable in other languages. Even 2nd grade English can be misunderstood. Even the simplest phrases need to be translated. For example, a girl walks past a guy and says hi. Now he wonders what that meant and has to interpret it: being friendly or making a pass? It was ONE WORD. And you expect the Bible not to require interpretation? It's absurd and lacking a grasp on the realities of communication.

> The clarity of the communication (the locution) sometimes has little to do with the agreement of the perlocutors (the interpreters).

I think if the communication is clear, people agree on what it was.

> Sometimes I tell people, "Put the blue bowl next to the red plate in the 2nd cabinet from the right by the kitchen door." It hardly gets more clear.

I think if you told a few million people that, most of them would get it.

> It comes from a culture thousands of years before our own, in a different language, and a different world view.

Exactly. A way no all powerful and wise being who cared and wanted to communicate His message would use.

> We have to interpret the text to get back to the intent of the author.

No we don't. We can read something else entirely.

> This is an ancient narrative, and we have to worm our way back to the ancient mindset, and also consider its context in Genesis, to get at what the author was meaning.

Yes, as I say, not a good way for someone who actually wanted us to understand His message to communicate.

> Too many people are just lazy scholars. They take it at face value, in English, in 2018, without thinking there is more to it than meets the eye. I'll agree it's a big problem. But I wouldn't agree that the writer is to blame.

Well, had He wanted us to understand it, He could express it in English in 2018. Also 12th century Japanese, 8th century Inuktitut and 17th century Swahili. That is, if He actually existed and was those things.

> Here is a claim. Let's examine it. We see that His followers, who want deeply to understand it, can't agree on what it is.

The clarity of the communication (the locution) sometimes has little to do with the agreement of the perlocutors (the interpreters). Sometimes I tell people, "Put the blue bowl next to the red plate in the 2nd cabinet from the right by the kitchen door." It hardly gets more clear. And then they put it somewhere else. Makes ya tear your hair out, it does. How could they get it wrong, and yet they do. It's astounding. Again, I will tell something to a high school kid and they do different from what I say. When I question them, they say, "Well, it didn't seem sensible to me, so I..." Whatever. That's not what I told you, and I couldn't have said it any more clearly. My point is that you can't always judge the quality and the clarity of the communication by the actions of those who interpret it.

> This, for example, is your interpretation. Millions believe that it was real, as described. Millions more believe the whole thing is a parable. So confusing.

Yes, it is my interpretation. After all, this is a debate forum. "Millions believe it was real as described." Yep, they do. I believe it was real, but we have to interpret it. The thing is, this writing is ancient, not modern. It comes from a culture thousands of years before our own, in a different language, and a different world view. We have to interpret the text to get back to the intent of the author. We can't just read it shallowly in English and expect that we have it, especially a complex text like this one. Some texts in the Bible are very straight forward. This is an ancient narrative, and we have to worm our way back to the ancient mindset, and also consider its context in Genesis, to get at what the author was meaning. Too many people are just lazy readers. They take it at face value, in English, in 2018, without thinking there is more to it than meets the eye. I'll agree it's a big problem. But I wouldn't agree that the writer is to blame.

> The all-knowing, wise and caring creator chose a very straight-forward way to transmit his message to his people.

Here is a claim. Let's examine it. We see that His followers, who want deeply to understand it, can't agree on what it is. They can't even agree on whether the Bible is literally factually true, or mostly metaphors and parables. For centuries they slaughtered each other as a way to try to resolve these differences. If people can't agree on what it means, it cannot be straight-forward or clear.

> nor that the flood is a myth. Instead, the flood was a historic event, written in a rhetorical way using hyperbole to express a theological point

This, for example, is your interpretation. Millions believe that it was real, as described. Millions more believe the whole thing is a parable. So confusing.

> But Genesis 8 specifically says that it was Mt. Ararat.

The ark came to rest on Mt. Ararat, probably down towards the base. It doesn't say it came to rest on the top of Ararat. The Ararat Mountains are a range, for one. "Ararat," along with "Minni" and "Askenaz," is found extensively in cuneiform sources. These names are the modified names of three political entities in the mountainous north of Mesopotamia that correspond to the realms of Urartu, Manna, and of the Schtyhians. "Ararat" is the Bible's transcription of the cuneiform spelling of "Urartu." When the Bible speaks of the mountains of Ararat, it refers to a region and a state, not simply to a mountain. All attempts to identify the specific mountain and the specific location have to date failed.

Secondly, he sent out birds to test the waters. Ravens and doves can't fly at the altitudes of the high mountains. The dove, in particular, is a valley bird and wouldn't survive at high altitudes. We know the ark came to rest fairly low on the slopes somewhere on the mountain range. If the dove flew down into a valley to get an olive leaf (only growing in low elevations, how did it manage to fly back up to 17,000' to the ark? Doves can't do that. Instead, we know the ark settled low on the slopes.

> Gen. 17.19-20, ... "the text says that every single mountain...were covered."

Yeah, this is a case of hyperbole, a rhetorical device to make a theological point. A local but cataclysmic flood is intentionally described as a global flood for rhetorical and theological purposes, which were (1) an act of judgment marred out by God in response to oral degradation, and (2) God uses the flood to reestablish a modicum of order to obliterate disorder (evil and violence). Though it doesn’t eliminate disorder (8.21), it resets the ordering process, and God indicates that the established order will not again be reset by a flood. He establishes order by using nonorder (the flood waters) to wipe out disorder. In this way the flood is a re-creation (mirroring Genesis 1). This is why the narrator includes the story. He is showing how God had worked to bring about order in the past (creation and flood). This serves as an introduction to YHWH’s strategy to advance order yet again through the covenant (Gn. 12). The covenant is an order-bringing strategy.

> If you were being metaphorical, you might say "My lawn is covered in leaves!", but not "My lawn is covered in leaves up to fifteen feet deep!". If you were being metaphorical, you might say "That guy is filled to the brim with pie!", but not "That guy currently contains 4.8 pies."

Seriously? You've never said, "There were a million leaves on my lawn," or "I've told you 100 times"? Numbers in the Bible are often symbolic. A lot of numerological studies have been done on biblical texts. Some people think, for instance, that the depth of Gn. 7.20 refers to the draught of the ark (the ark sank into the water to a depth of more than 20' [15 cubits]) when fully laden, so that whatever "covering" the author is talking about, the ark cleared what was below because it had a draught of 20'. Numbers are pretty tough in the Bible.

"40" usually denotes a time of judgment or trial, and doesn't necessarily mean "40". We use "100" in the same way to describe a lot. "I had 100 mosquito bites on my arm." No one counted the bites, it's the way we talk. "40" was like that for them. 40 days, 40 years, 400 years—symbolic.

You've been using the word "metaphorical." I've never said the story or the elements of the story were metaphorical. I've said rhetorical, symbolic, and hyperbolic. It's different. It's not a metaphor.

> So let's talk about the tops of the mountains covered in water by multiple cubits. First of all, in the ancient world, the high mountains (what we call the Himalayas and the Alps, for instance) were not considered "mountains" but pillars holding up the firmament. These pillars were the abode of the gods. It's very possible that what the text is talking about when it speaks of the mountains is the lesser mountains, the hills, and such, not things like Everest, Ararat, and K2.

But Genesis 8 specifically says that it was Mt. Ararat.

"4 And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat." - Genesis 8:4

> But still, what about the terminology of "covering the mountains"? Well, it depends what one means by covered. A few days ago I said my lawn was covered with starlings, because there were about 30 out there. It wasn't COVERED, but I used that word because of the quantity. And the people who heard me understood exactly what I was talking about. It's no different with the Bible.

But if you said your lawn was covered in starlings up to 3 feet, then people would think you are actually saying that the total amount of starlings measured 3 feet deep.

"19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.
20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered." - Genesis 7:19-20

The text says that every single mountain under the whole heavens (ie: the atmosphere, or space) were covered. Even if you want to argue that the mountains weren't entirely covered, and that covered here simply means that some water was around it, then there would still be a global flood because the water would have to get to all the mountains. Also, the Bible is specific about the the measurements about how high the water went. If you were being metaphorical, you might say "My lawn is covered in leaves!", but not "My lawn is covered in leaves up to fifteen feet deep!". If you were being metaphorical, you might say "That guy is filled to the brim with pie!", but not "That guy currently contains 4.8 pies.". Why would the text be specific about the measurements of the water if it was only being metaphorical or hyperbolic?