GEN 7:1 - Then the LORD said to Noah, "Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation.
2: Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate; and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate;
3: and seven pairs of the birds of the air also, male and female, to keep their kind alive upon the face of all the earth.
4: For in seven days I will send rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground."
5: And Noah did all that the LORD had commanded him.
That's from the Revised Standard Version, if you need a reference.
I do not see a conflict with my faith in believing that the flood story may have been based only on a local flood. All that the people of the time knew and understood was the small area of land which they inhabited.
But a flood of anything less than global would not have required an ark, or the collection of all the species... So I don't see the point of an ark unless it was global, and I don't see a global flood or the idea of an ark really all that doable as ~a task~. So there it is... Probably a legend. I'm not so arrogant as to say I know for sure... I just think the logistical issues involved are HUGE.
The idea of local flooding is indeed possible, as flooding of some magnitude or another has happened in most places. I think it might have inspired stories and legends of an ark...The kinds of stories invoking the wrath of God that help keep people in line.
A local flood wouldn't require the saving of any animals. Since they would migrate in from non-flooded areas. The story makes absolutely no sense if it's just a local flood. Given the many years it took to build the ark, Noal would have just moved to another area if it were just a local flood.
You ignore too many verses. Why, to be accepted by non-believers?
All the species in the world could not have come from those on the ark without invoking rapid, macroevolution. In fact, the only way young-earth creationists can account for all species being on the ark is by directly or implicitly requiring such a rapid evolution of animals that even naturalists do not subscribe to such a process.
The fact is that the Hebrew is particular in the limited types of animals that were brought on the ark. This avoids the need to fit all of the animals of the world onto the ark. Also consider that the precedent set in the Bible concerning punishment always limits it to the intended people and their immediate surroundings. Thus a local flood would only require the destruction of animals closely related to man, i.e. the ones in the area where mankind lived.