The Flood did not Destroy The Earth, it Saved The Earth.

The Last verse of the First Chapter of Genesis.

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

The Hebrew word for "good" there also gets translated words like bountiful, prosperity and welfare.  I've seen one scholar say that the Hebrew of this verse can be translated as saying the Earth was Good for Man to live in, that it was habitable.

In the blog post where I explained why I now support a Sethite view of Genesis 6, the last part of it is me emphasizing how Genesis 6 interprets itself and explains the reason for the Flood was the Earth being filled with Violence.  Among other things I mentioned Tubal-Cain briefly which I want to elaborate on.

Genesis 4:22.

And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubalcain was Naamah.

The word translated "instructor" is no where else translated something implying a type of teacher, elsewhere the KJV translated the word sharp, sharpen, sharpeneth and whet in Psalm 7:12 "If he turn not, he will whet his sword; he hath bent his bow, and made it ready."  In this context it would be actuate to translate it sharpener.

The word for artificer here is very similar to the Hebrew word usually translated artificer but different, it appears only in this verse.  And it has me wondering if this word doesn't refer to persons but to objects and perhaps should be "artifice".

The word for Brass is again similar to other words for Brass but distinct mainly in that it ends with a t/th.  The word Iron is the standard Hebrew word for Iron (Daniel uses the Aramaic word in chapters 2 and 7 however).  But it's notable that in a few places it's clearly used directly of some type of weapon being translated in the KJV as "ax head".

Genesis 6 verses 11-12 use in the KJV "Corrupt" twice and "Corrupted" once, all three are the same Hebrew word.  A Hebrew word that is also translated waste/waster, spoiler, perish, spill and destroy/destroyer/destruction.   That means the text is arguably saying The Earth was already destroyed before God even sent The Flood.

Genesis 6:12 is a parallel to what's said at the end of Genesis 1.  Except now instead of being "very good" the earth is "Corrupt".  I used to read "corrupted his way upon the earth" as referring to God's way, including when I made that Sethite view post last December.  But I now realize it's man's way on the earth that has been spoiled or destroyed.  The Earth has become Uninhabitable.

Verse 13 uses "destroy" in the KJV but it's in the Hebrew the same word used for Corrupt/Corrupted in verses 11-12.  God is saying what Man has done to the Earth, He will do to Man using the Earth.

What God says to Noah is that the End of All flesh is already come, it's already inevitable, Man's Violence has rendered the Earth no longer habitable for organic life.  Mankind was already dying off.

The Flood didn't destroy The Earth, it was The Earth's Baptism, it cleansed and purified The Earth of it's corruption. Towards the end of 1st Peter 3 the Flood of Noah seems to be compared to Baptism.

This pretty plain reading of Genesis is not a common interpretation of Genesis.  Because in the ancient world men could use violence to destroy each other and other flesh, but not The Earth itself.  But we have no clue what the Antediluvian world was like.  And today it is possible, the potential to render the Earth uninhabitable totally exists, just watch the historical fiction animated movie Barefoot Gen.

Jesus said in Matthew 24, "as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be".  But before that He had said "except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.".