Another important point worth knowing is the issue of the “2 versions of the flood.” Biblical critics maintain that there are 2 versions of the flood because the story contains details that appear contradictory, such as bringing every pair into the ark in one place and bringing 7 of every pure animal somewhere else.
The Talmudic interpretation, which does not accept division into different sources, argues that a pair of every kind of animal was brought in, and 7 of the pure animals—in other words, both. Biblical critics always claimed these were excuses.
What people don’t know is that in the book The Uniqueness and Antiquity of the Book of Genesis, a book by Yehoshua Grintz, head of the Bible department at Tel Aviv University, he writes a very crushing and decisive answer to this claim. He argues that in the Babylonian flood story too there are pairs + 7 of each pure animal, meaning this is not a forced interpretation by the Sages; it is also the version of the story in the ancient Near East, and from this it follows that the claim about documentary division in this story is utterly baseless (this is one example from that comparison; he demonstrated it also regarding other “contradictions” in the story).

Professor Yehoshua Grintz*

Well said. Still, it is a major stretch to fit this into the text that says “fifteen cubits, and the high mountains were covered!” But perhaps two explanations can be pushed:

1. There is B. Z. Luria’s somewhat strained explanation in Beit Mikra, 68, 1977 (quote):
Wilcox writes that in the language of the Arabs who live in the Euphrates and Tigris valley and in the Nile valley, the word “jebel” does not denote a mountain but a desert. Jebel is an Arabic translation of a similar term, which the Arab conquerors had received from the earlier inhabitants of that land, and it is possible that the ancient Akkadian term preserved more than one meaning with the change of population and language. A rise of fifteen cubits in the waters of the rivers of Babylonia could cover only the low and desert area nearby. One should understand the verse as though it said: “The waters prevailed fifteen more cubits and covered the desert.” In Wilcox’s opinion this was a misunderstanding of the ancient translator when the Akkadian tradition was transferred to Canaan, and this misunderstanding persists in all modern translations as well… The Akkadian flood story was translated twice: with Terah’s migration from Ur of the Chaldeans to Haran it was translated from Akkadian to Aramaic, and with Abraham’s migration from Haran to the land of Canaan it was translated from Aramaic to Hebrew, and during these translations insufficient attention was paid to the special meaning of “mountain–desert” that it had in its original Shinar setting. The translations gave this special word its general meaning, and afterward added to it, for emphasis and exaggeration, the adjective “high,” and thus the apparent contradiction was created, that fifteen cubits of water covered the high mountains.” End quote.

2. The second is that when the Torah describes the mountains being covered, its purpose is to say (and it appears immediately afterward) that “He blotted out all existence,” meaning that there was no way to survive. It may therefore be that in order to convey this message the Torah chooses to describe a situation in which there was no escape, and even the mountains were no refuge (the opposite of verses like Genesis 14, “and those who remained fled to the hill country,” or the two spies in Canaan who fled to the mountains).

3. Support for the last explanation, if we say that the mountains were covered with snow (=water), a kind of ice age, to a height of several meters—something entirely realistic—and that this freezing there caused there to be no survivors: not down in the valley because of the flooding, and not on the mountain tops because of the snow. (The rights to this interpretation are reserved.)

And behold, Rabbi Michi, with holy inspiration, merited to answer the flood question that has flooded the site for ages, precisely on the day that the study was published revealing a giant tsunami that struck the coast of the Land of Israel 5,500–6,000 years ago. Perhaps this was the local source of the flood story—or more precisely, of the mysterious testimony of the Sages about the ocean flooding a third of the world:

http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-5003149,00.html

Talmud, Shekalim 17a: “And he said to me, ‘These waters go out toward the eastern region… into the sea’—this is the Great Sea. And why is it called ‘the sea of goings-out’? Because it went out twice, once in the generation of Enosh and once in the generation of the Dispersion, etc.” That is, by this, the generation of Enosh and the generation of the Dispersion were washed away and lost from the world. And see Rashi at the end of Genesis (6:4), who wrote that even though they saw in the destruction of “the generation of Enosh” that the ocean rose and flooded a third of the world, the generation of the flood was not humbled to learn from them, end quote.

May Michael save us from the mighty waves of wickedness and heresy washing over us in this generation of the flood, and may he be for us a religious-intellectual Noah’s ark, as he opens for us the window to the light of understanding, until the day comes when they shall all know the Lord, “as the waters cover the sea.”

Thank you, Rabbi,
Does the Rabbi know the evidence from Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel of blessed memory?
I simply don’t know where one can get his books…

It’s hard according to the plain sense of the verses, but to claim that the flood was local—no? Especially since it says that the mountain tops were covered, etc., and according to the law of communicating vessels….

In any case, if there are words of the Sages on the matter, then of course nothing is better than that.

The Torah speaks in human language. In the consciousness of the reader or listener at the time the Torah was given, “the high mountains” are the high mountains in the region—the Ararat mountains. If Moses our Teacher had spoken to those who left Egypt about Everest in Nepal, whether it was covered or not covered, and about dinosaurs billions of years old, he would have seemed to his listeners like a complete madman, and his whole mission would have been in vain. It was hard enough for them to believe him as it was, so would the Holy One, blessed be He, complicate things for him with statements that sounded absurd to the average listener of his generation?

With blessing,
S. Z. Levinger

And regarding the questions themselves, one must understand that they proceed from the assumption that the events of the flood occurred in subjection to the laws of nature.

But from the plain sense of the verses, it appears that the flood was an event contrary to nature, a divine intervention changing the order of creation—so what comes about not by way of nature does not have to operate by way of nature. It need not follow the “law of communicating vessels” during the flood, nor need it leave natural traces, and so on. What comes about outside nature can also behave outside nature and disappear outside nature. So it is not clear that any remains or traces should be found.

On the contrary, the defining characteristic of miraculous reality is that it is temporary, and once the need for the miracle has passed, nature returns to its original condition. As Maharal says in his introduction to Gevurot Hashem, the world of nature and the world of miracle are separate worlds—so why should a miraculous event leave any remnant once the world has returned to natural governance?

With blessing,
S. Z. Levinger

One remnant does seem to have remained. In almost all cultures of the world there is a story about a flood that inundated the world, and these are stories from different continents where it is hard to see cultural influence between them. It is more reasonable to assume that the distant traditions are rooted in a shared traumatic event that all humanity experienced.

Following S.Z.L.’s last remarks, I’ll just note what I already wrote in the past. For some reason, when there is a story like the flood that has very similar testimonies (like Gilgamesh) in several cultures and different sources, people take that as evidence that this is a myth with no basis in reality. To me this is bizarre, because usually cross-checking sources is a way to verify testimony. Something requires further study.

I’m not claiming that the multiplicity of sources is necessarily strengthening, because maybe they borrowed from one another. But to see the multiplicity of sources as a weakening? That’s already really strange.

More power to you, S. Z. Levinger. Very well said.

Adi, if you want, I’ll send you a photo on WhatsApp of the pages in Rabbi Gedaliah’s book; it’s a bit long. Though the evidence doesn’t add much beyond what was said above. If I recall, there is a source claiming that Saadia Gaon was the first to argue that the flood was regional.

As for the matter itself, it is not at all clear to me what is so troubling about assuming that the flood story is an aggadah, something like the profound aggadot of the Sages (perhaps based on a historical core, needless to say). As Rabbi Chaim Hirschensohn elaborated. Think about it: before the method of collecting different books according to different genres (like Midrash Rabbah as opposed to Ketzot HaChoshen), what was Moses our Teacher supposed to do, by God’s command, when before him there were collections of laws, history, and aggadot? He would act exactly as they did in the Babylonian Talmud—and write them all mixed together. Therefore it is possible that the flood, like Adam and Eve, belongs to aggadic material that circulated among the people and in the surrounding culture, and Moses’s options were either to ignore it and leave it as the people told it, with all its theological distortions, or to bring it into God’s Torah in a newly revised form.

It seems that the decision to include it in the Torah was because it needed to be recast according to the new monotheistic version (relevant here: the flood happened not because the gods got annoyed that human beings made noise for them—as in the Babylonian version—but because of a grave moral sin of humanity), and also for the sake of the polar message that emerges from the flood story—that God will not bring another flood or total destruction upon the earth: “I will not again strike down every living thing,” etc. In other words, the novelty of the flood story is not that there was a flood, but precisely that there will not be another flood! Just for this revolutionary verse—which gave a major calming signal to Israel and saved them from the crushing fear of the idol worshipers, who always feared that at any moment the destruction of the world would come, something that dragged them into foolish magic and also moral corruption because in any case all is vanity—just for this verse, it was necessary for the flood aggadah to be written in the Torah. (As Shammai Glander wrote nicely in his pamphlets introducing Genesis.)

Add to that that the “aggadah” is indeed based on universal historical events; add its mythological depth, which was also widespread in all cultures, all of which display a primal fear of water and its enigmatic power—bringing life and taking it away at once (see Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, dreams about water as expressing a need for rebirth); add the ability to explain the story’s figures of speech in such a way that the deeper reader understands them as literal descriptions, only in a softened form (as S. Z. Levinger and Rabbi Gedaliah explained nicely, etc.)—

all of which greatly lowers the difficulty of the question. Obviously, these things are not true with respect to the story of the Exodus from Egypt, which according to the Torah is presented by Moses our Teacher, who brought the people out and testifies before them that they are the generation that experienced the revelation and miracles with their own eyes, and that on that basis they are obligated in the commandments of remembrance in memory of those events (“Because of this the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt”… “Not with our fathers did the Lord make this covenant, but with us,” and more). The gates of answers are not closed even for that topic—but the straightforward view is as I wrote. That is to say: true historicity for the generation receiving the Torah, and fictional/aggadic/figurative history for the generations prior to the recipients of the Torah. (On the difference between the stories of the patriarchs and the stories of Noah and before him, this is not the place.)

To us this seems bizarre or deceptive, that God would include aggadot in His Torah, but that is our problem because we are used to rational modes of thought. For earlier generations, historical descriptions were seasoned with aggadot and this was entirely understandable to them, either because they knew how to distinguish them well (through hints, like a talking snake which immediately reveals that we are dealing with aggadah), or because from the outset the historical events as they really happened were not important to them, since in an age before documentation and writing, whatever vanished into the past was anyway destined to be forgotten and die, with its memory passing only through an oral tradition that changes by its very nature from mouth to ear, and everyone who adds aggadic-story elements is praiseworthy. Just as is accepted today in hermeneutics, that once a story is written it is given over to the reader’s interpretations even at the price of diverging from the author’s intent—how much more so in oral tradition, which by definition was flexible, and whose power lay not in transmitting the true and precise information but in transmitting the message born in the hearers when they heard of the historical event. Think carefully; enough said; not the place to elaborate.

Friends, Rabbi Gedaliah’s book is online here:

בתורתו של ר' גדליה – הספר המלא

I don’t know about copyright and the like.

gil, to that one should add Maimonides’ interpretation of several Torah passages as parable or dream (like the visit of the angels to Abraham). And as is known, the allegorists expanded this further (Yedaya HaPenini and his colleagues).

With God’s help, 26 Av 5777

To gil—dear gil,

Regarding the plausibility of a metaphorical interpretation of the historical statements in the Torah, one must remember that Moses came to a critical people: stiff-necked Jews, rational and opinionated, who did not readily buy “old wives’ tales,” and who had clear traditions from their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. After all, Moses was the great-grandson of Levi, who was the great-grandson of Abraham our Patriarch, who was contemporary with Shem son of Noah, and from him he could hear firsthand about the events of the flood. They even had a detailed list of the generations, their names, and their exact ages.

What Shem and Eber saw—they transmitted to Abraham, and the traditions passed on to the children of Israel until Moses’ generation. By contrast, what was outside the region, in Nepal, Australia, Scandinavia, and America in the days of Noah, as well as what was before the creation of the first man—Shem and Eber did not know, and there was also no need for the Master of the Universe to reveal it to them by prophecy. In their time such questions were in the category of “what is above and what is below, what was before and what was after,” which even the Holy One had no need to reveal to His creatures in the plain sense of Scripture.

Therefore it seems to me that regarding the reality close in time and place to the days when the Torah was given, it is unlikely that the Torah would convey parable and metaphor rather than literal facts, whereas regarding “what is beyond the mountains of darkness” or from before the creation of rational man—there is more room to think in a metaphorical direction. (And Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook already explained that “the Account of Creation” is among those things in which “the glory of God is to conceal a matter.”)

With blessing,
S. Z. Levinger

Thank you very much for all the many responses! Good thing there’s a place to ask. 😉

But all these things—taking the verses away from their plain meaning. [Maybe only to me] they “don’t smell right”…
Did the Israelite public 2,500 years ago really feel that way?
Isn’t this just sophisticated apologetics? Just in order to defend religious faith?

1. Keep asking whatever seems right to you. That is the only way to clarify things, and that is why the site was established.
2. The question is whether there is really taking verses away from their plain meaning here, or alternatively simply our own anachronistic reading… When Genesis says that “all the earth came to Joseph to buy food,” do you think the ancient reader understood that as “the whole world” or as “the whole region”? It is important to understand that ancient writing style was different. Cassuto’s whole project was precisely to interpret the stories against the background of ancient writing style and show that our simplistic reading today was most likely not the original intent of the text. And this arises not only from ancient Near Eastern literature but also from our own sources, for the idea that the flood was not over the whole earth and that this is only “the Torah speaking in human language” is ancient (for example, according to tradition there was no flood in the Land of Israel. And so on). So it’s not certain that there is any wrenching of verses away from their plain meaning here.
3. More generally, whether this was the intent of the verse or not, in my opinion the approach to these stories should be similar to how Rabbi Kook viewed them in his famous paragraph in Adar HaYakar about Assyriology: in ancient times myths and customs prevailed, and the Torah adopted them and stylized them in its own way. This myth (and in my opinion not only this one) was probably based on a real underlying story (because it is widespread in all cultures and because it has actual findings), but it is far from certain that the Torah’s goal was to teach history rather than to adopt the age’s assumptions and turn them into a moral message, etc. In other words, the main problem is that we assume from the outset that the Torah is trying to describe history in exact detail, and therefore we feel that we are forcing the verses—but that assumption itself requires proof.

With God’s help, eve of the holy Sabbath, “And all your children shall be taught of the Lord,” 5777

To Adi—greetings,

What is the problem in the plain sense of the verses to say that “the high mountains were covered” means the high mountains in the region, namely the Ararat mountains, which the listener at the time the Torah was given knew as the highest mountains?

The peshat level addresses the understanding of the ordinary Jew to whom Moses is speaking. For pieces of knowledge that would only be added for Torah students many generations later, the Torah embeds statements in the levels of midrash, hint, and secret. But peshat by its nature addresses the ordinary person of the time to whom Moses speaks.

With blessing,
S. Z. Levinger

And even if we insist that the high mountains are Everest, there is no difficulty from the law of communicating vessels or where the waters evaporated to, etc.—for an event that transcends nature does not operate according to the laws of nature, and “the question from the outset does not arise.”

Did not the prophet Ezekiel rebuke the Land of Israel by saying: “You are a land that is not cleansed, not rained upon in the day of indignation,” whose plain meaning is that there was no flood in the Land of Israel? (And I seem to recall having read at the time that in Canaanite literature too there is no mention of the flood.)

With blessing,
S. Z. Levinger

M,
The universality of the flood is emphasized in the verses many times. It is not similar to “all the earth came to Joseph.”
The instructions to Noah also seem to show that this was not local. Instead of an ark, one could have told him to go to Nepal and wait in the Himalayas, and certainly there would have been no need for the whole animal operation.
Do God’s words after the flood fit a regional event?!
And what about the separation of the nations from Noah’s sons—there too the description is that all the nations came from Noah (because he was the only human left).
By the way, even if it was local, it still doesn’t seem to me that there would have been room in the ark for all the animals in the region and food for them.

It seems to me that everything written here about a regional flood is very unconvincing apologetics.

Yishai—I tend not to think so, because it seems to me one can answer relatively simply most of what you wrote (the number of animals is lower, the survivors dispersed and laid the foundation for new cultures, etc.), but I know this is all very subjective.
Precisely because I knew some would see it that way, I also brought the possibility that this is indeed an adoption of an ancient myth (with a historical core, which I showed exists). In any case, everyone has his own way of seeing it, and there’s no point in arguing about it.

Here are piles of discussions on the flood and science over at Otzar HaChochma’s forum:
http://www.bhol.co.il/forums/forum_search.asp?forum_id=1364

There was also an attempt by someone in the newspaper Olam Katan a few years ago to reconcile the story in new ways.

And to Rabbi Michi, who rightly noted to me the allegorical interpretations, I’ll mention here a lesser-known source from Gersonides that is also relevant to the numbers of those who left Egypt (I’ll expand on that elsewhere) and to the listing of the desert journeys. The idea expressed there is that an overload of details is meant to give the story an air of credibility. And perhaps this does not necessarily fully reflect the historical truth in all its details and precision, but rather is meant to make this myth function as an educational myth—and that can only be done if it conveys real historical credibility. Therefore the details are meant to give the story the feeling that it really was documented precisely, and if so, the message expressed in it—as myth—is realistic and true. In short, it is a literary device:
Genesis 7:24: “And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days.”
“And now this story is complete, and it was expanded upon at length, because of the great benefit that comes from it. Therefore he was precise in the number of days that the rain fell upon the earth without interruption, and in the other details, in order to settle more firmly in our hearts the truth of this story. For we tend to believe stories more when many details are told about them.”
There is room to elaborate—and to disagree.

With God’s help, 29 Av 5777

To Yishai—greetings,

Science describes the laws of nature, not what lies beyond nature. In terms of the possibility of a flood occurring by natural means, there is indeed not much difference between a regional flood and a global flood; either way we are dealing with a miraculous event that departs from the natural order. If we assume that the Creator of the world can change the order of creation—then there is no question at all. The whole discussion of a “worldwide flood” or a “regional flood” has implications only for interpreting the verses.

As for the scope of “all the earth” in the flood story, the list of nations from which “all the earth was dispersed” can testify to it. See Daat Mikra on Genesis chapter 10, which gives identifications for each of the nations, and see there the map on p. 249, where everything stretches from Iran in the east to southern Italy in the west, and from the Caucasus and Asia Minor in the north to the southern Arabian peninsula and the lands of northeast Africa across the Red Sea. This is the “world” that people in the lands of the Middle East knew, and that is what the Torah spoke about—not what lay “beyond the mountains of darkness.”

***

As for your question why it was necessary to build an ark and surround it with floodwaters—it seems that the founders of the “new world” needed to return to the state of a fetus immersed in water on all sides, to undergo a year of “pregnancy” in an atmosphere where all creatures live together in harmony, and to be “born” anew with new understandings.

The state in which all creatures live together already existed in the Garden of Eden, and will return only at the end of days when “the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid… and the lion, like the ox, shall eat straw; the nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:6-9).

With blessing,
S. Z. Levinger

M. In one of the responsa threads on archaeology you said you have a comprehensive article on the Bible and archaeology—is there any chance I could get it by email? I’m very interested! It would help!

Hello Neriya,
The article in question that I have deals only with the Exodus from Egypt. I have many articles by others on archaeology and the Bible, but those, as stated, are not mine. If you want, I’ll direct you to them (preferably under the designated question on the site about that topic).

As for “my article” — first, it isn’t finished; second, as I promised, I’m trying to challenge it critically so that it really will be reliable. This criticism raised important points that were dealt with. During this process of self-criticism, I found (about a month ago) one problem in the thesis that I still don’t know how to solve (although it is a problem that also exists in the other alternatives, but I had hoped it would be solved in my approach; that was supposed to be one of the article’s important pieces of good news). Until I solve this problem, there’s no point in continuing to write and publish the article.

Indeed, it will still contain a concentration of all the existing data (+ significant new material of my own) in an orderly and structured way (something that to the best of my knowledge does not exist anywhere on the internet), and a counter-response to claims against the Exodus story, but in my view, until the “problem” is solved, all this does not justify publication.

Of course, I’m working on it. This very week I’m supposed to receive a dedicated book containing relevant information on the issue, and in addition I am going to meet with a professional (unrelatedly) soon and consult with him. But these things take time—under the assumption, of course, that a reasonable solution will be found. I have a direction, but I still don’t know if it is sufficiently well-founded.

Isn’t it funny to write an article and “solve” a thesis?

When researchers work objectively, they don’t mark the target at the start.

Tell me, Eli,
Have you ever heard of someone non-objective publicly stating that he has a “bug” in his own theory? (And a bug which, in consultation with a well-known researcher, he himself told me no one would even notice because it’s really a foolish one.) Does a non-objective person try to challenge his theories? How do you know the target was marked from the beginning?
What’s really funny is that you’re talking about something you never read and a person you never met.

And more than that, in my opinion your basic failure is that you don’t know anything about how the humanities—or science in general—work.
At first one sees a phenomenon, raises a hypothesis, and tries to check whether it is possible, whether the findings support it, and whether more things continue to be found that fit with it.

Sometimes one sees that there is one finding with which it does not fit. At that stage there are 3 possibilities: to ignore it—sadly, that happens with many, even among famous researchers; another possibility, and the most common reasonable one, is that if it is only one finding, to try to find a way to fit the two things together (for example, an unexpected find in an archaeological layer will be explained as an older find that was dragged there); another possibility is to abandon the entire thesis. That is what one does when one is truly convinced that this is evidence that brings down the whole thesis (which is based on many other pieces of evidence, and otherwise one has to find another way to explain them), and when one succeeds in putting forward another alternative explanation. Therefore, usually one needs very significant evidence (and usually more than one piece) in order to refute a thesis that seems well-founded.

In short—it seems to me (only seems to me, because unlike you I don’t determine facts about someone I don’t know) that you have never read an academic book presenting some theory in the humanities, the critiques written about that theory, and its subsequent development. It also seems to me (same qualification as above) that you have never read any book teaching scientific method; otherwise you would not be writing this nonsense. Talk is cheap….

(P.S. I already solved the difficulty in my theory, which in any case was not meant to discuss “whether the Exodus from Egypt happened” but “whether it is true that there are no finds at all,” but I am not publishing until I am sure that the things are really correct. Again, because obviously I’m not objective.)

Hi M,

Any chance of more archaeology links?

Be more specific—what are you looking for?

Hi M,

I saw that you wrote here about articles on archaeology, so I’d be glad to get links to those articles (you spoke about the Exodus from Egypt, but I’d also be happy to get others). Thank you very much.

In the question about the Exodus from Egypt here on the site –
https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%d7%99%d7%a6%d7%99%d7%90%d7%aa-%d7%9e%d7%a6%d7%a8%d7%99%d7%9d-%d7%91%d7%90%d7%A8%D7%9B%D7%99%D7%90%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%92%D7%99%D7%94-2/

there are many links.

If you’re looking for more articles on specific topics (patriarchs / conquest / monarchy, etc.), write and I’ll give them to you.

Hello M.
And I need your help… as someone who researched the subject of archaeology and the Bible.
Could you send me an email?
neriyalevi11@gmail.com

There is discussion of many of the questions here:
https://www.hidabroot.org/article/68426

Beyond that, I don’t understand his first question:
“If the mountain tops were covered by water, and it is known that Mount Everest is over 8,840 meters high, we are talking about pressure that would totally destroy every fossil, every ancient tree, every structure, and every artifact.”

After all, the depths of the various oceans are roughly in that order of magnitude of several kilometers (the Pacific Ocean, for example, reaches a maximum depth of 11 km, and on average 4,000 km), and yet there is life there. See here:
https://davidson.weizmann.ac.il/online/askexpert/life_sci/How can there be life in the dark depths of the sea, Eli

So can one really say with such certainty that every fossil would be totally destroyed under such pressure??

If there are living creatures that can withstand the pressures in the ocean depths, then it seems very likely that fossils and other inanimate things could withstand it too.

Good week, Rabbi,
Following this ancient discussion, I wanted to ask about your initial answer, where you wrote that perhaps the flood was local and that solves all the difficulties. According to that approach, why did the Holy One instruct Noah to save the animals:
“Of every pure beast you shall take to yourself seven and seven, a male and his mate; and of the beasts that are not pure, two, a male and his mate. Also of the birds of the heavens, seven and seven, male and female, to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth. For in seven more days I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and I will blot out every existing thing that I have made from upon the face of the ground.”
With blessing,

Maybe it was to educate Noah and us toward caring. And maybe there are animals in this region that do not exist elsewhere.

What about verses like:
“The end of all flesh has come before Me”
“Behold, I am bringing the flood, waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life from under heaven”
“And I will blot out every existing thing that I have made from upon the face of the ground”
“And all flesh that moved upon the earth perished—birds, cattle, beasts, and every swarming thing that swarms upon the earth—and all mankind. Everything on dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life died. And He blotted out every existing thing that was upon the face of the ground, from man to beast to creeping thing and to the birds of the heavens, and they were blotted out from the earth; and only Noah remained, and those with him in the ark.”

From these verses it sounds like a general worldwide flood. How can they be understood otherwise?

There is no doubt that the plain sense of the whole passage is that it is speaking about the whole universe. Only with some strain can one interpret it as the known world (the ancient Near East).

So how do you explain the flood story to yourself? Do you see it as an educational myth? Or do you adopt the straightforward understanding that everything happened literally? Or do you reluctantly reconcile it by saying it was a local flood?

I haven’t thought about it enough. Since there is always the possibility that it is an educational myth, and that dismisses the theological difficulties out of hand, I have no interest in getting into various explanations that I have no way to test. Again, not because that (the educational myth) is necessarily the correct answer, but because it is enough to neutralize the theological landmine, and therefore it stops being interesting.

Oren, see the sources I collected here
https://www.knowingfaith.co.il/%D7%AA%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%94-%D7%95%D7%9E%D7%93%D7%A2/%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%91%D7%95%D7%9C

Broadly speaking, it’s not just an educational myth. Rather, it’s a kind of consciousness-fact in the days of the Torah that there had been a world flood, and in the definitions of historical truth of that time this was considered a fact.

Thank you very much, Gil (Witness)!

And many thanks to the Rabbi too, of course 🙂

With God’s help
I would like to make a number of comments on what is said here. Most of the points were already said above, but perhaps there is some value in what is added here –
1. It was mentioned that the expression “all the heavens” in the Torah is not necessarily to be taken literally, just like the expression “and there was famine in all the lands.” The source is Nachmanides on the Torah, who writes that “all the lands” means all the lands relevant to discuss in this context.
“And there was famine in all the lands” — that is, in the lands around Egypt, for what concern would there be with distant places if they too had such a famine. And so they said in Genesis Rabbah (90:6): in three lands—in Phoenicia, Arabia, and Philistia.
The Sefer HaIkkarim also explains that the expression “all” in the Torah and in the words of the Sages does not necessarily mean there is no exception, but rather that the matter is essential. Our Sages said: “Whoever answers an orphaned amen, his children will be orphans.” The meaning is not that every person on earth therefore did not answer an orphaned amen, but that this is a fitting punishment for one who answers an orphaned amen. There are endless examples of this.
2. Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz already, in his commentary on the Torah, wondered whether the flood fell in America, and that predates by far both modern researchers and Rabbi Gedaliah Nadel. The Torah generally speaks about lands that it is relevant for the Torah to discuss. [One must remember that in the words of the medieval authorities concerning the international date line, especially in Yesod Olam by a student of the Rosh, the starting assumption is that there are no human beings in the lower hemisphere, and therefore the verses can likewise be interpreted as the Torah speaking in human language about those places. Exactly as the expression “Solomon ruled over the globe” does not mean that he ruled also over Australia.

3. The Sages say that the constellations did not function during all the days of the flood. According to some of the medieval authorities, this means there was no alternation between day and night either, to the extent that commentators discussed how one can speak of a “day” when the sun neither rises nor sets. [See Akeidat Yitzchak, Gate 13; and see Hizkuni on Genesis chapter 8: one should not ask how they sent out the raven, since there was no light in the world—this is not a difficulty, because even though the heavenly bodies did not function, meaning the sun, moon, and stars, and one could not distinguish between day and night, there was nevertheless light.] We are dealing with a phenomenon that has no scientific possibility whatsoever unless by a divine act not limited by the laws of creation. Consequently, why should we ask how the water did not spill from place to place and how there was enough water to fill the whole universe? All the more so when the Sages say that the waters of the flood were boiling and blotted out the whole world. In my view, water cannot be at thousands of degrees without turning into vapor or steam, but that is how it was in the flood.
In general, it is impossible to understand the animals entering the ark without a miraculous act, if only because there is not enough oxygen for all the animals to breathe in the ark. Also, there are creatures that do not live twelve months (as the Sages said regarding a creature without bones), so how did they last twelve months without multiplying? Nachmanides and Abarbanel already wrote that in the natural way it is impossible to fit all the animals in the ark. We must conclude that this whole passage depends entirely on miracle. Therefore there is no room for the question of how and in what physical way the flood occurred.
The Talmud also explains in tractate Zevachim that the water was boiling all over the world, while around the ark it was cool, and therefore Og king of Bashan held onto the ark and survived without being burned.
In my opinion, one must understand the whole flood as Abarbanel says: that the flood was a new act of world-creation, and it must be understood in the context of creating a world, not as using the existing laws of nature.

4. The question is asked: how was the world rebuilt after the flood with botanical and zoological distribution by continents if Noah did not go everywhere? Nowhere do we find that Noah brought seeds into the ark apart from figs and vines (see Gur Aryeh on the Torah regarding other foods), so it is clear that the world’s restoration did not happen in a way understandable to us. The question is why the Torah does not discuss that.
First of all, one must understand that the Torah does not detail even outright miracles when there is no need to specify them for the Torah’s purpose of guiding man. For this reason, the Torah did not write explicitly about the miracle that Yocheved gave birth to Moses at age 130, even though that is a greater miracle than Sarah giving birth.
And see also Haamek Davar on Genesis 46:7, that Jacob had daughters besides Dinah, but the Torah need not detail what is not relevant for future generations. Likewise, Maimonides in Guide of the Perplexed (1:7) writes that Adam, during the 130 years when he was under rebuke, fathered human beings who were called demons and apes because they lacked good traits and religious awareness.
Therefore there is no need at all for the Torah to detail how the world after the flood was rebuilt botanically and zoologically.

5. The truth is that even without discussing miracle and nature, we cannot learn from present reality about reality in the days of the Torah, because the laws of nature were different. It is explicit in the Talmud, Sanhedrin 69b, that “we do not derive from the earlier generations” regarding what age a person can father children. There are at least 3 cases in the Hebrew Bible in which children aged 5–7 fathered offspring (Judah, Er, Onan, Shelah, and afterward Perez, and after that Hezron—within 22 years / Bezalel son of Uri son of Hur son of Caleb—within 40 years). Bathsheba daughter of Eliam son of Ahitophel within thirty years. And regarding these the Sages said that this is not the reality today.
6. The question discussed was how we do not find remains of the flood. The midrash says that the waters descending from above the wind dried up (Seder Olam), meaning: they did not seep into the ground but evaporated, and therefore we do not find signs of flooding there.
There is a dispute in the Talmud in Zevachim 113 about whether we can find corpses from the flood period, with practical implications for the laws of corpse impurity under a tent. Some say all the bodies were completely dissolved in the flood and no trace of them remained, while others say they died and were buried. Consequently, it is not necessary at all that we should find signs of death of many bodies and flood traces. [I saw in the Bar-Ilan search engine a book called Responsa Ravaz, Orach Chaim 113, discussing the different midrashim on this and their meaning.]
7. Regarding the question of how there are remains from before the flood in archaeology: the Talmud in tractate Berakhot explains that in Babylonia there are trees from the days of Adam, and halakhically too the decisors wrote (see Avodah Zarah 47) that these trees have different laws from other trees with respect to the laws of an Asherah tree. It is clear that some remains from before the flood did remain, and therefore it is possible that trees and even whole systems survived the flood in ways that we cannot understand rationally.
8. In Maharal of Prague’s introduction to Gevurot Hashem, he writes that miracle and nature can both exist at one and the same time even when there is no logical explanation for it. Thus the sun at Gibeon stood still for Israel and continued to move for the nations of the world, and this was one sun that at the same time was in several places. Maharal explains that one who has difficulty understanding how this is possible simply does not understand what a miracle is. [It is similar to the concept that “the place of the Ark was not included in the measurement,” where in the Holy of Holies the laws of physics do not rule, and there are twenty cubits with cherubs measuring twenty cubits plus an ark of two and a half cubits. Also in the Third Temple, according to the dimensions in Ezekiel, there are things that are not physically possible, and therefore the editors of Daat Mikra on Ezekiel delayed publishing the book for years because they did not know how to draw the future Temple.]
Likewise, we cannot investigate in laboratory conditions the reality of nature before the flood, during the flood, and after it, because it belongs to a different system.
9. In general, one can go in two different directions regarding the whole matter of the flood. One direction [following Sforno in the Noah portion] is that all the laws of nature changed after the flood, and especially that the earth shifted from its place, so that everything we see today—the division of continents and races—is all a result of the flood. According to this, the polar regions are a result of the flood, and so on; and if that does not fit with radiation and carbon-14, that too is part of the changes of the flood. [This is like Abarbanel’s view that the rainbow was created only after the flood because of physical changes in the world.] Another direction, following Nachmanides on the rainbow, is that the physical reality already existed before and only its meaning changed. According to that, all the findings from before the flood must be understood similarly to what Maharal said: miraculous reality is not integrated into the laws of biology and physics.
In truth, from the time of the medieval authorities there has already been a dispute whether verses should be interpreted and discussed according to the scientific knowledge of the time, or whether we should follow only the plain sense of the verses and the Sages without checking biological reality. This dispute still exists today among leading decisors regarding halakhic rulings based on current scientific knowledge (for example: determining illegitimacy by DNA. Some claim that the Talmud states explicitly that blood comes from the mother and therefore tests identifying whose blood came from the father are meaningless; others say we must not understand the Sages literally and say that they contradict science. The same debate existed in previous generations regarding sunset according to Rabbenu Tam or according to the Vilna Gaon, and there are many more examples.)
All that regarding the discussion here. I will not refrain from saying that Rabbi Kook explains in Orot that there are four death penalties of the court in the light of the Messiah, and that this is the difference between all the different kinds of spiritual trials in the world. In our generation there are rational difficulties that earlier generations did not deal with, because this is the spiritual struggle that the light of the Messiah must pass through in order to defeat impurity in the world; in earlier times it was entirely different. Just as it was an enormous struggle to defeat the destroyers in those periods, so today there are different struggles.
In the period of the First Temple the trial was idolatry [the suffering corresponding to stoning]. It is hard to believe that it would have been easy for us to withstand a trial in which Jeroboam’s calf hovered in the air for a long time (as the Sages say, by sorcery), or where Nebuchadnezzar’s idol cried out “bow to me,” or as the evil inclination that Manasseh says to Rav Ashi: had you lived in our days, you would have run after idolatry.
In another period the trials were against Christian enthusiasm and philosophy that misled many according to its unique culture [the suffering corresponding to burning], or against the tremendous decrees and persecutions that Israel underwent [the suffering corresponding to execution]. There is a book called To Remain a Jew about Rabbi Yitzchak Zilber, where he describes that as a Jew he argued with the head of the Jewish atheists’ society at a university in Russia who told him [during the Holocaust] that Judaism contains nonsense, such as believing that a day will come when Jews return to the Land of Israel, because even Stalin cannot return the Jews to the land. Thousands of years of faith under terrible conditions, when the most rational argument was that Jews would remain forever suffering—that is another kind of trial. [Rabbi Kook also writes elsewhere that that man, may his name be blotted out, had tremendous psychic flow and all his listeners were enthused and swept after him, and explained in his letters that human powers are immense, and if drawn to holiness they go to holiness, and if to the profane then to the profane.]
In the final period before the coming of the Messiah, the trial will revolve around the claim that the whole world is natural, without miracle and without providence [the suffering corresponding to strangulation]. Just as in those days it was hard to maintain faith in the face of the prevailing suffering, so today there are difficulties too, but we believe and know that the end of the process is “to repair the world under the kingdom of the Almighty.”

Genesis 7:24: “And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days.”
“And now this story is complete, and it was expanded upon at length, because of the great benefit that comes from it. Therefore he was precise in the number of days that the rain fell upon the earth without interruption, and in the other details, in order to settle more firmly in our hearts the truth of this story. For we tend to believe stories more when many details are told about them.”
There is room to elaborate—and to disagree.

Could I get a source for this interpretation of Gersonides? A link to the source?