Earth from Erets translation
'erets
Definition
1. land, Earth
a.earth
1. whole Earth (as opposed to a part)
2. Earth (as opposed to heaven)
3. Earth (inhabitants)
b. land
1. country, territory
2. district, region
3. tribal territory
4. piece of ground
5. land of Canaan, Israel
6. inhabitants of land
7. Sheol, land without return, (under) world
8. city (-state)
c. ground, surface of the Earth
ground
soil
d. (in phrases)
people of the land
space or distance of country (in measurements of distance)
level or plain country
land of the living
end(s) of the Earth
(almost wholly late in usage)
e. lands, countries 1e
f. often in contrast to Canaan
Now, in Genesis we see
And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.
Ge 7:12 And the rain was upon the Earth forty days and forty nights.
Ge 7:14 They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the Earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort.
Ge 7:17 And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.
Ge 7:18 And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.
Ge 7:19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.
Ge 7:21 And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man:
Using the definitions above, Earth (in every case here can taken from erets) can mean just about anything. From the whol earth, to that which isn;t heaven, to the people inhabiting the earth, to a city, a state, or a piece of ground.
Lets face it: Even translating from the original text doesn't take ambiguity out of it. The best we can do with this, is take it in context. What is the context? Well: "
all the high hills, that were under the
whole heaven, were covered"
The WHOLE heaven part makes this appear to be the context of the whole earth. Another way to check this, would be to find out how high the mountains around this part of the Earth is (pretty high I think) and then compare that height to the rest of the world. Now if the water covers these mountains, and stays at that height for 40 days...then it is imposible that the water hadn't reached that general height world wide. Now that is a global flood.
Secondly. In the NIV Bible I have here, it says in GE 7:15 "Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to noah and entered the ark."
It says nothing of them being clean, but it says several times that it is every animal, all types etc.
) )
