Thanks for this Jon.
I have more and more the impression that we agree to a large extent, and it may be worth trying to ascertain in which points we deviate from each other.
I think we both agree that the Flood has been an actual historical event around 3000 BC, and that on the basis of the available data this event must have happened along the following scenario:
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About 100,000 humans living around Noah in Sumer became destroyed by the Flood because of their sins,
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and about 7,000,000 humans living far away from Noah spread all over the world remained untouched.
In case you don’t agree to some of these tenets please let me know in order we can found common ground for arguing.
Now I further assume that:
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The 7,000,000 human living beings living far away were incapable of sinning and therefore were not in “need of Salvation”.
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After the Flood these living beings were transformed by God into human persons capable of sinning and in “need of Salvation”.
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The postdiluvian Nephilim were descendants of these humans capable of sinning created after the Flood.
From our debate in this Forum I am getting the feeling that the terms “global” and “local” are not appropriate to interpret 2 Peter 2:5. In fact the message this inspired writing conveys is twofold:
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“The ancient world” was the world where all humans capable to sin lived.
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All these people (except Noah and his family) were destroyed by the Flood.
In other words, the author of 2 Peter 2:5 is speaking from the “Salvation perspective” of the “Council of Jerusalem”. For him “people” was synonymous of “human beings capable of sinning”.
This “Salvation perspective” is clearly supported by 1 Peter 3:18-21, where it is stated that Jesus Christ after resurrecting went to deliver the imprisoned spirits who were “ungodly” in the days of Noah immediately after the Flood, but apparently repented from their sins before dying (as Peter did after his denial of Jesus!), and were awaiting Jesus’ Resurrection to go to heaven together with the Righteous of the Old Testament (Abel, Noah, Abraham etc.).
Theologically Thomas Aquinas S.Th. III, q.73, a.3 interprets 1 Peter 3:20-21 in the sense that “there is no entering into salvation outside the Church, just as in the time of the deluge there was none outside the Ark, which denotes the Church.”
In summary for the writer(s) of the Letters of Peter what matters is “people” who were in need of Salvation and capable of sinning. According to the parsimony principle one should then choose as explanation that the 7,000,000 living far away from Noah were not capable of sinning.
Regarding the Nephilim we seem to agree that with Genesis 6:4 the Yahwist is interested in stressing that after the Flood there were in earth people who were not descendants from the 8 in the Ark.
Nonetheless, in my opinion, the interpretation that the Nephilim “living on on earth afterward” were necessarily "people capable of sinning who survived the Flood” does not follow from Genesis 6:4. One can very well interpret, as I do, that such Nephilim were the descendants of “the sons of God” created after the Flood. I think to decide this question we should previously settle the interpretation of the term “sons of God” in Genesis 6: 2 and 4.
Thanks in advance for your response.