Noah's Flood (part 1) - Global or Regional

When talking about Noah's flood, or the flood of Genesis (if you are not familiar with the details of the flood story, read Genesis ch. 6-8), the conversation will at some point come around to the controversy surrounding the extent of the flood. Up until about 100 years ago, the idea that the flood was global was never questioned. If you believed the Bible was the inspired word of God, you believed the flood was global. It says right in Genesis (6:17; 7:4, 10, 12, 17-24) that the earth was flooded. This was understood as the entire planet being under water. Not until geology as a science began to develop, and its fundamental ideas and principals were understood, did scientists began to observe the lack of evidence for a worldwide flood. So, does this only serve to bring us back to the science vs. scripture debate, or can we reconcile what scripture teaches with what science teaches? Remember earlier I stated that when scripture is rightly understood and when science is rightly understood there will be no conflict? I also stated scripture doesn't always say what we think it says. And, "all truth is God's truth", if something is true, it does not threaten God or His word. Well, all of that is just my form of an introduction.
Lets begin with what some of the theologians are saying. Now, since this is just a discussion and not a research paper, I can get away with not following strict reference criteria. I will only make broad references to theologians or teams of theologians for this discussion. Please also recognize there are many theologians who are good honest men, and who will fight with their dying breath to protect the literal interpretation of the flood story; I am not going to criticize them. I may be wrong! But I do want to show you something I noticed as I re-read the flood story. (Note: when I study the bible, I use the NASB study bible, copyright 1999 by Zondervan; a very solid bible for serious students). In the study notes I noticed something particularly interesting, and I will quote sections from the notes related to Gen. 6:17, specifically this statement, "flood of water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh...under heaven". The notes read as follows, "...nothing in the narrative of chs. 6-9 prevents the flood from being understood as regional - destroying everything in its wake, but of relatively limited scope and universal only from the standpoint of Moses' geographic knowledge. "Earth," e.g., may be defined in the more resrticted sense of "land." "all flesh...under heaven" may mean all life within the range of Noah's perception." And later, "Since the purpose of the floodwaters was to destroy sinful mankind, and since the writer possibly had in mind only the inhabitants of the ancient Near East, this flood may not have had to be world wide to destroy them." That is what the writers say about it!
Let's take a look at another section of scripture. In 2 Peter 3:6, Peter is making a reference to the flood and says, "through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water." I find it interesting that Peter says "...the world at 'that' time...", implying that even in his day the known world was different, or what was known as the world was different from that in Noah's day. The study notes say this, "The term "world" may refer to the earth or, more probably, to the world of people. All the people except Noah and his family were overcome by the flood and perished. This does not necessarily mean that the flood was universal. It may simply have extended to all the inhahited areas of the earth." These study notes are not developed by religious liberals who really don't believe the word of God is inspired, this team comprises an impressive list of mainstream theologians. Here's what I see in this shift, this new way of thinking about the flood. First, we are seeing the beginnings of an important and necessary integration of science and scripture. Second, Christians are starting to listen to what reasonable, diligent, honest scientists are saying. Third, theologians are going back and taking a hard look at what we traditionally believe scripture says, not to dilute scripture so that it becomes more palatable to science minded people, but because we really need a closer examination to determine if we have really dug out the deep, essential truths of scripture (not just what we want it to say). Please comment if this hits one of your 'hot buttons'. I hope this gets you thinking in a slightly different way, no matter which side of the argument you fall on. Let me know what you think.