>What about the Genesis 6:17 "Look! I am going to cover the earth with a
>flood and destroy every living being -everything in which there is the
>breath of life. All will die.
>
'earth' in that verse is 'eretz' the word which is used when God told
Abraham to leave his 'eretz'. Surely God didn't make Abe go to Mars. As to
the animals, all the animals on the land died. During the Messinian period,
hippopotamus's walked down the Nile and up river's coming off of Cyprus and
Crete. African Hippos, who are unable to swim the ocean lived on those
islands for a while in the Pliocene. Any hippos in the basin, when the
Gibraltar Dam gave way, drowned.
>Genesis 7:21 Amd all the living things upon the earth perished -birds
>domestic and wild animals and reptiles of all mankind - everything that
>breathed and lived upon dry land.
>
>It becomes harder to argue that the flood might have been a local one,
>according to the bible.
Not if "earth" is properly translated as 'land'.
This verse would then read
And all the living things upon the land perished--birds domestic and wild
animals and reptiles.... everthing that breathed and lived upon dry land."
That doesn't sound so universal to me.
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm