When I took mythology in college, I learned there were like 7 different civilizations that had a story about a flood. Most or all were in the same timeframe. These came from Africa and the Middle East among other areas. Could it be there was a flood, as most scientist believe there was? The people who wrote the Bible could have seen it as the catastrophic end-all, according to their society... kind of a death and reborn scenario. Most mythos have stories like that, where the gods get angry, scrap everything, then start anew. God even does it to a lesser extent with Sodom and Gamorra, later in the Bible. As far as I'm concerned, the passages about Noah serve two purposes: they explain the flood, and they teach a moral story.
"If I claim to be a wise man, it surely means that I don't know." - Kansas