[Avodah] Local, Non-Global or Global Flood

[Micha Berger]

Another cross-over from Areivim.

We were commenting on a chart that listed positions on science (or
academics)-vs-Torah issues, and tried categorizing four stripes of O
Jews by their responses to it.

On Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 02:38:02PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote to Areivim:
> On 16/11/2010 2:29 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
>> As to the chareidi portrayal... What chareidi, no matter how moderate,
>> would claim the flood was local?

> My zaida z"l, who was quite charedi, saw no reason to believe the flood
> was global.  Indeed, there *must* be room in everyone's theology for
> belief in a non-global flood, since there's a valid opinion that EY was
> not flooded.

I didn't say "non-global", I said local.

Yes, "aretz" often means region or country. (E.g. eretz Kenaan.)
But "qeitz kol basar ba lefanai" (6:13), "leshacheis kol-basar asher-bo
ruach chaim mitachas hashamayim" (17), "nivqe'u kol ma'yenos tehom raba"
(7:11) and "vaychassu kol-heharim haggevohim asher-tachas kol-hashamayim"
(19) would require a whole new approach in the parshanus not offered
by Chazal and Rishonim. 6:17 and 7:19 and their reference to everything
under the sky seems pretty clearcut LAD.

The medrash RZS notes would also require explaing "kol" to mean "rov",
far less of a chiddush than "part of the Middle East". (To repeat what
I wrote about about non-global vs local in different words.)

See the thread
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=E#EMUNAH%20PERAKIM%20AND%20THE%20MABUL>
or <http://bit.ly/dC5dXJ>, from early 2006.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate,
micha at aishdas.org        Our greatest fear is that we're powerful
http://www.aishdas.org   beyond measure
Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Anonymous