The global vs. humanity-wide flood debate is an active exegetical question, not just a science vs. Bible debate

Mike describes a shift in his own thinking: he used to treat a global (planet-covering) flood as obvious, but careful exegesis led him to see that the biblical term for "earth" does not inherently mean the globe. The debate between a geographically global flood and a flood covering all of humanity's known world is a legitimate exegetical question.