Other People Survived Noah's Flood - refuting a rebuttal

I don't normally get serious attempts at rebuttals when I share the Christ-centered model for Early Genesis. It doesn't matter the denomination or education status of whoever I am attempting to dialogue with, the pattern is consistent that they simply will not seriously engage. I finally got one, and I thought it deserved a thought-out answer, so I am making a post about it. This is best read with your bible open to Genesis chapter eleven. 

My claim that Genesis chapter eleven suggests that there were other people besides the clan of Noah after the flood- 
“Gen. 11 says that the whole earth shared one manner of speech yet the reason given for building a city was to 1) keep them from being scattered over the whole earth and 2) make a name for themselves. If Noah's clan were all the humans in the world, then who is doing the speaking "over the whole earth" since they were not at that time scattered over the whole earth. Also, re "making a name for themselves" who were they trying to impress?”

Here is the closest thing I have gotten as a serious answer in five years of doing this – They weren’t “speaking ‘over the whole earth.’" It was the “whole earth” which had one language.
1) “The whole earth” can mean a number of things: the whole planet, just a region (Gen. 2:11, 13), or as here, all of the human population.

Genesis 11:1-2 tells us that the “whole earth” had the same language, and that this “whole earth” moved from the east, or to the east (it can be translated either way). So, although a large group, it’s small enough to move as one. In Genesis 11:6, God indicates that this “whole earth” is a group of people. \

So KH is saying that "the land" was the people of the land. So it meant "the clans of Noah" were of one manner of speech as they travelled. While the phrase "the land" can refer to just the people of the land, I've never seen it used of people who did not yet have a land, a tribe on the move. When "the land" is used of people in scripture, it is quite sensibly using it as shorthand to describe the inhabitants of a particular region, not nomads on the move. 

Further, it is unlikely that the writer would use "the land" to mean the inhabitants only in verse one while using it to mean the literal territory in verse four, but this is what KH is suggesting. He seems to think that the "they" in verse two ("as they journeyed from the east") refers to "the whole earth" (or land). It doesn't. The chapter headings came along later. Just go up to the last verse of the previous chapter and it tells you who the "they" are. It is the families of the sons of Noah. The text isn't saying that they were the "whole earth" that was of one manner of speech, it is just saying that the whole earth was of one manner of speech when they, the clans of Noah, found Shinar. 

And to ice it, when he mentions verse six and it says "the people are one", the word for people there is "am", which means people in the sense of a nation, not the whole human race. So it isn't saying that "humanity is one", it is saying that particular nation, the clans of Noah that entered Shinar, are as one. Verse five doesn't help because when it says "the children of men" the Hebrew says "children of Adam". IOW this is also perfectly consistent with the Christ-centered model where there was Adam and Even inside the garden and other people outside it. 

KH even recognizes this in a way when he then says...

Based on Gen. 10:32, these are the descendants of all three sons of Noah.

Yes, that is who the "they" is in verse two, which means the "they" in verse two is not referring to "the whole earth:. When it says "by these were the nations divided" KH takes it to mean (like most people) that this is saying that the nations were exclusively composed of descendants of these individuals. That's not what that means when it says "divided". The early patriarchs normally attracted large groups of people to their households. Not all were their direct descendants, but they could easily form the core of a new nation. But I think if we just stick with what the text is saying there and not add meaning to "divided" that isn't there, then we can see that this verse isn't a statement that the descendants of Noah constituted the entire population of earth. 

As to my question of "who were they trying to impress" when they said they wanted to "make a name for themselves" KH wrote...

The name/reputation was for the current and future generations to remember. It need not have anything to do with there being contemporaneous populations around them.

I can't take this argument as seriously. "Making a name for yourself" is superfluous if your name is the only one on earth. No one is going to forget your name if it is also their name. I don't think he's answered the question "who were they trying to impress" at all by saying in effect "themselves". That's not "making a name". 

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