Thanks Lynn for contributing to this exciting debate.
I mean “universal” in the sense that all humans bearing God’s image (i.e.: endowed with free will and therefore capability for moral agency and sinning) except Noah & co. were killed by the flood.
Accordingly the population of humans affected by the Flood consisted in:
- All Adam’s descendants.
- All descendants from the “Sons of God” (Genesis 6: 2-4).
According to my theory all these people (possibly hundreds of thousands) lived in the region of Sumer.
The rest of the “humans” (possibly several millions) living outside Sumer were not image bearers and had no capacity for moral agency and sin. In this sense they were “anatomically modern humans” but not yet persons belonging to Humanity understood as the community of image bearers called to live according to the “Golden rule” (as discussed in this other thread): Humanity as such a community becomes definitely and worldwide established only at the End of the Flood (according to Genesis 9:6).
The people living in Sumer with Noah & co. MIRACULOUSLY perceived the Flood according to the Genesis narrative, very much like the people in Fatima (tens of thousands) perceived the sun dancing in the sky on October 13th, 1917, at 2pm.
All other hominid and animal creatures were unaffected by this MIRACLE very much like the world outside Fatima was not affected by the “Miracle of the Sun”.
So in Genesis’ Flood like in Fatima there are two parallel worlds going on during the time the miracle lasts. At the end of the miracle the parallel worlds merge again to one single world and no sign of the miracle remains other than the reports of the people who witnessed it.