Concerning the idea that a flood literally covered the entire earth, theologian, historian of science and physicist, Fr. Stanley L. Jaki says,
"For such a Flood should have left sediments all over the globe, geological evidence of which are, however, sorely missing. Should one then assume that God had obliterated the traces of a global Flood? Possibly, but what are the biblical proofs of this?
"One may be tempted to appeal to the fact that in some deeper layers of the Mesopotamian soil it is possible to find sediments characteristic of flooding. For such sediments to exist, vast amounts of water of floodwaters had to be on hand. Natural rainfall would have had to be enhanced enormously, and far beyond a mere forty days’ worth, if the sea level was to be raised by the three miles necessary to carry Noah’s Ark to the top slopes of Ararat. In that case, the Flood would have expanded far beyond the general region known as Ararat, or a part of the northwestern Mesopotamia. It would have been a global event that would have spared only the upper portions of the Himalayas.
"But if heights much lower than the three-mile high peaks of Ararat were meant by the phrase, “the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat,” the Flood would not have been so extensive as to destroy all mankind with the exception of a couple dozen men and women (Noah and “his sons, his wife and his sons’ wives”). Now would all animals on earth have been destroyed save those which Noah entered in the Ark. At any rate, an ark about 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet tall…,could not accommodate samples of the bestiary of the Middle East, nor even a significant portion of it. There was also the logistics of providing all those animals with food for at least forty days, assuming that this number was not a symbol of a very long period. The argument that those animals became comatose while in the Ark works only if one lets one’s intellect fall asleep. Reports about traces of Noah’s ark still lying on the highest slopes of Ararat are best ignored.
"One should therefore settle with a fairly localized flood, a flood limited to the Mesopotamian basin, the memory of which survived in Sumerian and Babylonian lore (the Gilgamesh and Athrasis Epics), as well as among Iranians and Hindus, a consensus that must not be taken lightly. (Yet, curiously missing is a clear tradition of a deluge in ancient Egyptian lore.) Physically, the biblical Flood implies the enhancement of natural forces for a purpose which puts Noah’s story in a class apart from other Flood legends. The narrator of Noah’s story stresses God’s mercy together with the assurance that God’s plan of salvation would prevail, physical and moral catastrophes notwithstanding. This spiritual side to the story is also subtly intimated by the symbolism of the dimensions of the ark given in close multiples (or fractions) of 60, the Babylonian base of counting. Such an ark successfully rides out the Flood, whose devastating power is symbolized by its duration of forty days. As to the rainbow, it is not stated that it had not been seen prior to the Flood. Rather, the rainbow, which in other cultures often was taken, because of its resemblance to a huge bow, for a sign of divine punishment, is now presented as a token of the permanence of God’s mercy.” "
(Bible and Science by Stanley L. Jaki; Christendom Press,155-7
