19- And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.
20- Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind; two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.
Genesis 7: 1-3
1-And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.
2-Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.
3 Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.
Not to be a stinker on this thread, but which one of these accounts is correct?
Wow, I’m impressed. Did you uncover that discrepency recently and by yourself? Or did somebody else point it out to you? The fact is that particular alleged historical discrepency of the Bible - in addition at a minimum 900 others - has been floating around the internet since at least 1874 (they already in extensive circulation at that time). If that’s the best that you can do, I suggest that you acquire a century old (or older) treatise on higher criticism. At least those arguments against the inspiration of Scripture had some depth.
First off, if seven of *some* are taken, than two of *each* kind ARE taken. There is no contradiction stated. A manifest contradiction would require a statement that two of some kind NOT be taken! Secondly, there is a gap of about 120 years between the two injunctions. The first injunction was for animals to be taken in pairs. The second being a stipulation for the number of pairs.
The New Oxford Annotated Bible (as well as other commentators) states that the priestly tradition of the Flood story mentions two animals of every sort whereas the early tradition differentiates between clean (7 pairs) and unclean animals (2 pairs), as well as birds (7 pairs). The priestly tradition is allegedly reflected in Gen 7:9 (where two by two is mentioned), whereas the verses from Gen 8 are otherwise a continuation of the early tradition.
Ancient historians study ancient texts and their transmission. Intellectually honest ancient historians know that there simply is no way for anyone to know that the “priestly tradition” did not mention the seven pairs, since we do not have the full priestly story (if such even existed), only the excerpts that were included in the transmitted text. It would not appear appropriate to claim that an absurdity that “may” be in a lost “priestly story” is the same thing as an actual absurdity in the Bible. This is all the more so when one considers the ambiguity of the language. 7:9 says simply that all the animals “were brought two and two” into the ark - which grammatically (in the Greek and Hebrew) can mean two each or two at a time. To assume that “two each” is meant requires making assumptions about the context of the priestly story that no longer exists, and that is never an accepted practice by ancient historians unless there are genuinely good reasons to do so.
Greek and Hebrew texts, in conjunction with the appropriate lexical aids, shows the wording of the verse, literally translated, is “take seven, seven, male, female” (it is literally that terse). There is no sound reason to suppose that the repetition of “seven” followed by a reference to a natural pairing means anything other than seven pairs (seven males, seven females), unless the seventh animal was a slug or something.
Wilson’s Old Testament Word Studies says that “seven” represents “either a definite number, or sometimes indefinite, to denote abundance or sufficiency” so that “’By sevens’ stands in the original ‘seven seven.’” Thus, “seven seven” can or does mean “by sevens.” Therefore, there is (or may be some) ambiguity, an ambiguity that would explain why it is that some commentators say that it was seven animals, not seven pairs, that was meant by “seven seven.”
On the other hand, verse 7:9 states “they went two, two, male, female” and that is ambiguous enough to allow three interpretations: the “two, two” may simply describe how they were loaded (two at a time), or that they went in male-female pairs (the second” two” merely being emphatic), or that there were four each, two males and two females. Verses 6:19-20 both repeat “bring pairs, male, female,” which can just as easily be a description of procedure (”two at a time”) as of number (”two and no more”). The Hebrew is as ambiguous as the English word “fly” (which can be a verb or a noun, and sometimes with no way to tell except through interpretive guessing, e.g. “fruit flies like a banana”). The point is that we are obligated to grant the author that he tried to establish extra clean animals when these same animals turn up again in the story, and we are left to wonder why these animals were loaded in excess, if not for the fact that they were for ritual use.
My point is that when I read a novel and find a similar confusion, I automatically look for what makes the most sense of what is written, not what creates the clearest contradiction. Why should we be less charitable with the Bible?