If
global warming enabling politicians let the ice of Greenland and
Antarctica melt down and raise sea level enough to drown most of
Florida, would that be considered a local flood? Some right-wing
Biblical literalists, though they read the Bible differently from
one another interpreting the text differently, disdain a
Mesopotamia-only Biblical flood as a local flood rather than a global
flood.
Genesis
relates that the Ark came to rest on a high point called Urartu as
the high water mark of the flood (Ararat after Jewish transliteration
circa 6th century B.C.). That means it was just a
regional flood that went as far as the ancient kingdom of Urartu
located in ancient times half-way up Iraq toward the Iranian slope.
Readers
of Genesis in the old days began naming highest points 'Ararat' and
thus Mt. Ararat in Turkey was given its name long after the flood. If
there had been many Jews living in Tibet they would have named Mt.
Chomolungma not Mt. Everest, it too would have been named Mt.
Ararat.
Noah
notably did not venture to Australia to gather kangaroo nor
Antarctica to collect penguin. Collecting samples of local animals
that might have their habitat lost ain Mesopotamia and saving them
until it was safe to reintroduce them is one environmental technique
that could be used today too in some cases, such as that of white
rhino or mountain guerrilla, however it also would have been logical
in the case of collecting samples of all domesticated animals and
fowl that resulted from generations of breeding from that soon lost
first human civilization.
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