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Remember it was not only in recent times that intelligent Christians rejected the standard YEC view. Augustine certainly did.

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ORIGINAL: PolarBear

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ORIGINAL: DanJames

Rarely, if ever is it said in no less than 9 different ways that it IS referring to the whole earth. All the animals were killed. All of humanity was killed. All the mountains under the entire sky were covered. Yes, the whole earth is made reference to in other places, but never with the kind of global emphasis like we see in this passage. The author emphasized that all the birds that inhabited the land were killed. Of course it was global. Are you gonna kill all the birds with a local flood? Did God include a wave of stupidity in every animal and person so that none of them managed to swim or fly out of this valley?

I don't think you get it. All the uses of "every" in the entire flood story are bound by the limits of the frame of reference. Is that really so complicated?

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Besides all this, I don't think that that exactly answers the question. There's no textual evidence at all that we're reading this passage from a third person limited perspective as you have suggested. If there was, perhaps a place where it said, "And Noah looked out, and indeed every mountain under the entire sky was covered... every bird... every spider, etc." then maybe you could say that we have reason to believe that it is third person limited. But it doesn't indicate that, so what reason do we have for believing that it is limited to Noah's frame of reference?

I think Genesis 6 sets it with God's declaration that wicked humans are to be wiped out.

How is it different where Moses writes that "all the world" came to buy grain from Joseph, and when Paul wrote that "the whole world" has heard about the faith of the church of Rome in Romans 1? Did the Australian aboriginies go to buy grain from Joseph and hear about the faith of the church in Rome? If not, then your position is not consistent. Why would those two examples not also be from God's global perspective?

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ORIGINAL: PolarBear

Imagine a wide area relatively flat, like Florida or Kansas, surrounded by vast mountain ranges. Sure it's possible.

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ORIGINAL: drmark

Then let me ask this, DJ. Why do you want to believe a "global deluge" occurred simply because the Bible said so? Is this essential Christian doctrine?

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ORIGINAL: drmark

Okay, that's fair. I guess I would consider the lessons to be learned from the Noahic Flood to be a bit more spiritually significant than understanding nephilim, but that's merely my personal opinion.

At any rate, Dan, it's quite obvious that you and I place great stock in the clarity of God's Word and a whole lot less confidence in the objectivity of man's science. I truly believe that is the one characteristic uniting YECs everywhere. Thanks for your posts, brother!