How many pairs of clean animals did God tell Noah to put in the ark?

Answer 1

A:There are two very different biblical accounts of how many clean animals went onto Noah's Ark. In Genesis 6:19-20, Noah is told to take two of every animal (not two pairs) onto the Ark, clean or unclean, but in Genesis 7:1 he is told to take two of every unclean animal and seven pairs (the male and his female) of every clean animal.

The reason for this surprising find is that there are actually two stories of Noah's Ark in The Bible, written by two different authors and cleverly interleaved so that the result appears to be just one, rather complicated story. In the same way as there are two answers to this question, we can also find that one story has the flood subsiding in just forty days, while the other says that it lasted one year.

We do not know the names of the two different authors of the biblical stories of Noah, and they are now called the Priestly Source and the Yahwist:

· The Flood verses attributed to the Priestly author are: Genesis 6:9-22, 7:6, 7:8-9, 7:11, 7:13-16a, 7:18-21, 7:24, 8:1-2a, 8:3b-5, 8:7, 8:13a, 8:14-19, 9:1-17.

· The verses attributed to the Yahwist are: Genesis 6:5-8, 7:1-5, 7:7, 7:10, 7:12, 7:16b-17, 7:22-23, 8:2b-3a, 8:6, 8:8-12, 8:13b, 8:20-22.

Answer 2

A:In Genesis 6:19-20, Noah is told to take two of every animal onto the Ark, clean or unclean, but in Genesis 7:1 he is told to take two of every unclean animal, but seven of every clean animal. The reason for this surprising find is that there are actually two stories of Noah's Ark in the Bible, written by two different authors and cleverly interleaved so that the result appears to be just one, rather complicated story. In the same way as there are two answers to this question, we can also find that one story has the flood subsiding in just forty days, while the other says that it lasted one year.

We do not know the names of the two different authors of the biblical stories of Noah, and they are now called the Priestly Source, whose version says that Noah took 2 of each clean animal, and the Yahwist, whose version says that Noah took 7 of each clean animal.

• The Flood verses attributed to the Priestly author are: Genesis 6:9-22, 7:6, 7:8-9, 7:11, 7:13-16a, 7:18-21, 7:24, 8:1-2a, 8:3b-5, 8:7, 8:13a, 8:14-19, 9:1-17.
• The verses attributed to the Yahwist are: Genesis 6:5-8, 7:1-5, 7:7, 7:10, 7:12, 7:16b-17, 7:22-23, 8:2b-3a, 8:6, 8:8-12, 8:13b, 8:20-22.

Answer 3

The story of Noah's Ark is actually composed of two separate version of the same story, interwoven so as to appear to be the same, rather complex account.

In one version, known as the Yahwist version, Noah took two of each unclean animal, but seven of each clean animal into the Ark. In the Priestly version, there was no distinction between clean and unclean animals, Noah simply took two of each kind, both clean and unclean.

Answer 4

According to Genesis, one pair (two, male and female) of each unclean animal and seven of every clean animal or bird.

Answer 5

Two of each kind.
See also:

Did the Flood actually happen?

Answer 6

8