Thank you, Phinneous. It's good to know I'm not totally alone. When Orthodox Jews start mentioning the "sources" of the Torah and a "geographically limited flood," I sure do feel that way.
I'm not Jewish, but I was born on Shabbat Pinechas--if that means anything.
A class on holiness..... give a listen, the backdrop is an argument in the Talmud between a Samaritan (Kusi) and a rabbi...about the geography of the flood. Worth the 50 minutes:
http://theyeshiva.net/Video/View/98/Can-Holy-People-and-Places-Become-Corrupt
I don't know whether the flood was limited to one area or was world-wide.
However, the Bible is clear on how the world's cultures all came to have a story of the flood and that they spread out across the land only after God confounded their language at Babel.
Genesis 11:1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.
4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
6 And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.