[Avodah] Local, Non-Global or Global Flood

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 12:27:12PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
> OK.  IIRC, my zaida told me this in response to my question about
> the Ararat mountains being much lower than the Himalayas.  He asked,
> how did I know the flood reached India?  If humans were confined to
> Western Asia then there was no reason for anywhere else to be flooded,
> and the Ararat mountains (the Kurdish mountains, as Onkelos calls them)
> may well be the highest in that region.

But where did your Zeide get his peshat from? The medrash doesn't say
it was "all of the inhabited area except Israel", but all of the world.
Recall the baseline assumption, "leshacheis kol basar asher yeish bo
ruach chaim" (6:17) Wouldn't any medrash that says the flood was more
local than the spread of all sorts of fauna actually explicitly say so --
or at say something that would require you to conclude so?

As for your question, perhaps the Himalayas were already well exposed
before Harei Ararat. However, the teiva wasn't near the Himalayas at
the time, and therefore didn't come to rest on them.

I also wonder why someone would posit a local flood while still denying
the age of human habitation of India, China, Tanzania (think Kilimanjaro),
etc...

(In any case, my original point on Areivim was just that it's not a
typical "Moderate Chareidi" position to posit a local flood; you'll find
few chareidim of any sort considering the idea.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             If you won't be better tomorrow
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