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Was ALL Humanity Destroyed?

When we read in I Peter 3:20 that "a few, that is, eight souls, were saved" in the ark, we
obviously assume that eight people were all that survived in the entire world! But, on the other
hand, if the Flood was indeed local or regional -- even though covering a vast area -- all this verse
would be saying is that there were eight survivors IN THE ARK. It may well be there were survi-
vors in other parts of the world -- people unrelated and separate from the main flow of thought in
Genesis.

Most Christians have not considered this point because they feel the Bible says ALL peo-
ple were drowned in the Flood. For example, in the book The Genesis Flood we find the follow-
ing statement in support of this argument: "The Lord Jesus Christ clearly stated that ALL men were
destroyed by the Flood (Luke 17:26-30)." Really? Does Luke actually say this? Let's turn to the
passage in question and see:

And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: They ate, they drank,
they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood
came and destroyed them all. Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought,
they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone
from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so it will be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.

In both examples -- the deluge in the days of Noah and the destruction by fire and brimstone
in the days of Lot -- "all" people were destroyed. Clearly, in the case of Lot "all" did not mean the
entire human race, for only those cities upon which the fire and brimstone fell were affected.
Genesis 19:24 and 25 says "the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and
fire...he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities." The town of
Zoar where Lot fled was excluded, and it certainly did not include Abraham who witnessed the
destruction from a distance. In the passage from Luke the return of Christ at the end of the age is
mentioned several times -- will Christ return to a world devoid of human beings or, at best, eight
survivors? That's not what the Bible says!

States Ralph Woodrow --

Since the statement of Jesus about "all" being destroyed in the days of Lot meant only those upon whom
the fire fell, it is most natural to believe that "all" destroyed in the days of Noah would mean only those
upon whom the flood came. The word "all" is often qualified by the way it is used. If a newspaper article
tells of an ocean liner that sinks and all are destroyed, it is understood that "all" means all that were on the
ship -- not people on other ships, not people not on ships, not people in other parts of the world!...we
should be careful not to read into a passage more than was intended (Noah's Flood, Joshua's Long Day,
and Lucifer's Fall, p. 51).

The statement about the Flood covering "all" the hills in Genesis 7:19 meant all the hills in
a certain area -- not all the mountains or hills in the entire world! It is not pushing the limits, then,
to state that the "all" destroyed by the Flood were all within certain regions. Quite often the Bible
uses a form of speech known as synecdoche where a whole is used for a part, and even words like
"all" can be used in a limited sense. Examples of this can be found in the New Testament: "And it
came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that ALL the world should
be registered" (Luke 2:1). Similarly, in Acts 2:5: "Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews,
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