[Ahban]

Your own text says everything that "was upon the face of the ground" was destroyed. Does that include mosquitoes that breed in water? Flies that breed in floating corpses? Beetles burrowed in the treetops?

Are you saying that the writer meant to imply that each and every living thing, even the dolpins, penguins, ducks, storks, turtles, crocodiles, and otters were either on the ark or wiped out? Would a flood, even a global flood that displaced the seas onto the land, wipe out those critters?

I don't mind defending what the text says, but that is not what it says. The destruction was limited to those things which dwelled "upon the face of the ground", including birds that were non-aquatic (fowl of the heaven verses those of the waters).

[TomB]

This is what you said:

We assumed bugs and the really little stuff could live on floating debris.

The vast majority of "bugs" were "upon the face of the ground".

The dimensions of the ark in Genesis 6:15 would add up to the space of 52 modern boxcars, enough space for every "kind" of animals on the planet.

How can you possibly get to the conclusion that "52 boxcars" are enough to hold every "kind" of animal? Even excluding acquatic animals.

Where did they put all the food? How did they manage to clean out the TONS of excrement those animals would produce every day?