The level of salt in the flood would have spread and destroyed everything.
Where did all the salt go?
For that matter, where did all the water go?
Can you possibly imagine that Flood covered Everest, if you are to believe that Bible covering even the highest mountain? It would have taken millennium or two before the water receded that life could be possible in Mesopotamia.
Gnostic,
I agree with much of what you say and would like to add a few comments.
Meeting the biblical claim of flooded to the tops of mountains would have required water surface to be 28,035 feet above present sea level. Any claim that flooding the world in biblical terms meant just a local area is illogical. Surely a god, the purported divine inspiration behind the bible and purported creator of the Earth, would have known about the Himalayas. Right?
To meet requirements set forth in biblical tales, it would take One Billion Cubic Miles of water in addition to all the Earths water. To have that amount of flooding in 960 hours requires a rainfall rate of Thirty Feet per Hour (nearly as much in one hour everywhere on the entire Earth surface simultaneously and continuously than any place on Earth receives in a year).
With that much additional (imaginary) water, it might be somewhat brackish, but not salty as in present oceans and inland seas. The real problem to be addressed is that flooding of all vegetation under thousands of feet of water (deeper even than sunlight can penetrate) for weeks or months in brackish water insures that most plant species will not survive.
Claiming that seeds were preserved somehow and then redistributed to their native habitat is about as logical as claiming that all animals from all over the globe could be collected by eight people in one week without efficient transportation then redistributed as needed. The whole thing is something that I would expect only children to accept as being a true story. In fact, I rejected the preposterous tales as a child even though pressured by adults to believe what you are told without asking questions.
Another issue becomes, where did One Billion Cubic Miles of water come from and where did it go after fulfilling biblical purposes? The old GCDA myth (god can do anything) that is hauled out to explain inconsistencies is the only recourse because the whole thing is so preposterous.
If we say biblical authors (whoever they might have been, and whenever they may have been writing) were limited to what people in their region knew at the time is an admission that the bible is of human origin and not the word of god as claimed by many. If god cant get it right about basic geography and biology, what of the bible can be trusted?
It might most rational to conclude that the bible consists of legends and fables. However, doing so is staunchly resisted by literalists who evidently find it impossible to let go of the ark even though it is sinking in a sea of knowledge that was not available to biblical authors.
In lieu of reason and logic, literalists come up with explanations for tales of giants, of a person living for three days in the belly of a fish (or whale), of virgin birth, resurrection, walking on water, the Earth stopping rotation, of people living hundreds of years, and of all sorts of impossible claims. But of course, GCDA is thrown over the scene to disguise the obviously false or exaggerated legends and fables to protect the supposed infallibility of the bible.
If (since) the bible is not infallible, one can simply choose which words to accept and which to reject. Any word or phrase can mean anything at all and everything is subject to interpretation (giving whatever meaning a person chooses). I have chosen a few items from the bible that seem like a realistic guide to living and have rejected the rest. My bible is very short and deals with ethics. It contains no fairytales.
What others do or do not believe or accept is not my concern provided that following of their belief does not cause them to attempt to infringe upon or limit my life.