SUBJECT:  The Flood

QUESTIONS:  Was the flood worldwide or regional? In Genesis 6:17 it states flood of waters upon the earth, but in Genesis 8:11 the dove returned with an olive leaf. Please help me understand, if all life was destroyed how could the dove return with an olive leaf?

ANSWER:

Here are the verses you referred to:

Genesis 8:1-14
1 And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged;
2 The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained;
3 And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated.
4 And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.
5 And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.
6 And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made:
7 And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth.
8 Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground;
9 But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark.
10 And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark;
11 And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.
12 And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; which returned not again unto him any more.
13 And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry.
14 And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried.

 

The water covered the earth for 365 days, though not everything was covered for this many days.  Notice from the commentary:

Genesis 8:1-14
Verse 13,14. Noah delays apparently another month, and, on the first day of the new year, ventures to remove the covering of the ark and look around. The date of the complete drying of the land is then given. The interval from the entrance to the exit consists of the following periods:

Rain continued............................ 40 days
Waters prevailed.......................... 150 days
Waters subside............................ 99 days
Noah delays............................... 40 days
Sending of the raven and the dove......... 20 days
Another month............................. 29 days
Interval until the 27th of the 2nd month.. 57 days
Sum-total of days...................... 365 days  ~from Barnes' Notes

Note:  The waters began subsiding after 190 days.  The tops of mountains were the first to be uncovered and remember that they were in the mountains, or should I say over the mountains, as the Ark came to rest eventually in the mountains.  There are 99 days of the waters subsiding, 40 days of delay and the dove was out at the end of those 20 days. So we have over 150 days for things to come back to life.  In addition to natural re-growth, it would seem clear that God was directly involved in the re-growth of the plant kingdom.

  
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