Did the Lord drive Noah insane with contradictory commands?

Question

First, the Lord tells him:
“You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive.” (Gen 6:19-20)

Noah does this. But then, out of the blue, God hands down a different set of orders:
“Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female” (Gen 7:2-3)

Noah must have lifted his eyebrows. Again, he obeys – after all, the Lord is trying to save his life and that of his family. But then, probably to Noah’s confusion, the animals begin to show up in pairs only:
“Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah. (…) Pairs of all creatures that have

Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark. The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah.” (Gen 7:8-9, 15-16)

Of course it didn’t really happen that way. In fact, most bible researchers agree that Noah’s tale is written not by one, but by two authors, at different times.

Author #1 came up with the version where the animals came in pairs. But author #2 disagreed, and felt it was not right that author #1 treated the clean animals equally to the cockroaches, the snakes and the worms – the unclean animals. So he introduced God’s new command: “Bring in more clean animals than unclean animals!”

Unfortunately, the second author forgot to modify the older version of the story.

There's a curious mistake in Genesis. The first thing Noah does when he leaves the ark, is building an altar to sacrifice some animals on it (8:20). Let's hope that Noah did take seven animals aboard, and not two of each species. Otherwise he's responsible for the extinction of some species.

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The two authors disagree over more things. For example, we see Noah and his family entering the ark two times, in Genesis 7:7 and 7:13. Author #2 says the world flooded because it rained, while author #1 writes that the water came from below the earth too.

The two authors even disagree over how long the flooding took. Author #1 mentions that it rained for forty days and nights (Gen 7:4,17), author #2 says that it rained “for a hundred and fifty days” (Gen 7:24)

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Many critics have pointed out that the story with the animals doesn't make sense. Where did Noah stash the 2 million species of animals biologists know of? How did the animals cross the oceans to end up in places like Australia

and the Americas after the flood?

http://www.exitmundi.nl/bible/

Answer 1

Contrary to gibbonboy's assertions, let me present myself as someone who does not feel the need to believe in the literal and precise truth of the Noah story, and yet thinks that the contradictions CurseUs has found are pretty lame, and not really contradictions at all.


Hurricane Katrina spent a couple of hours in the New Orleans area. The flood lasted weeks. Did I just prove that Katrina never happened?

To speak generally of pairs, and sometimes specifically point out that some species get extra, is no contradiction. The forty days vs. 150 days is not even an apparent contradiction, if he had actually read the text.

Answer 2

The basics were two of each kind. The extra of the clean were for sacrifice. In Gen. 7:12 God says it will rain 40 days & nights. But read before it in 7:11 it says the fountains of the deep were broken & burst forth then the rain at the same time.
It did stop raining at 40 days. But it took the waters longer to recede than it actually rained, as with any flood. So what's confusing?
Ah, I see so much scepticism. But I bet those same people believe in sc-fi & it's possibilities. Since God shut the door why couldn't that ark be a portal into another dimension unaffected by time's & earthly space's boundaries? We still know so little about dark matter, black holes, etc. So why is it so hard to believe a Bible story yet believe in the wonders of space. Maybe our dating is wrong & the flood was before the continents divided. Just because we're ignorant of the how tos doesn't mean it never happened. In the 50s few believed man could land on the moon & aliens lived on Mars. Most of us hopefully know different now, though some don't still. But my point is the miraculous is just that. But often can be explained with more knowledge & understanding. You can't have it both ways. You either believe all possibilities are possible or you believe in nothing. The latter leaves you ignorant & unwilling to try & discover the possibilities. Thus little more than an educated fool.

Answer 3

these are non contradiciton

an eloboration is not a contradiction... take absolutely and only two and no more in any case... would be a contradiction.
Take 2 and in the case of animals that are kosher which you can eat and sacrifice take more so there will be 2 left when you are done is not a contradiction

the water raining and also from the ground breaking is no contradition. It rained from a human perspective but actually there was massive volcanic action and the contenents sank for a year... both are true.. the floodgates of the deep breaking up, the contenental plates quickly moving being a primary trigger and there would be rain galore throughout

Answer 4

WOW! I don't have an answer here and am not afraid to admit that, but HOW can you NOT see contradictions above? How can anyone write off this question with a simple your poor soul, there's no contradiction here...

I sure wish that logic worked with all the people I pay bills too....

There is CLEARLY a contradiction, and the only explaination I have is that the bible is NOT I repeat NOT written by God, is NOT the word of God... it is MAN's interpretation of what happened, formulated into allegorical tales that were passed down verbally from family to family.... SERIOUSLY, do you take Shell Silverstine literal too?

Answer 5

buy me 2 packs of ramen from the whole aisle.
for each kind of ramen take two packs.
for the brand Maurichan, i want you to bring 7 packs of chicken ramen and 7 packs of shrimp ramen.

is this a contradiction?


as for the species.
Noah didn't have to bring all the species.
for example, he didn't have to bring all the species of dogs.
he only had to bring the generic dog and they all speciated from there.

it only takes one generation of sheep to give birth to pure whites or those that have other shades.
so the same with dogs, height length.

brown cow, black cow, spotted cow. I MEAN!
do you need to bring all those kinds ? or just the generic one?

the same for every other animal.
In about 150 years after the flood, those animals could easily split up and adapted to their environment.

read the story of jacob, it only took him one generation to produce a different type of sheep.

anyway thats simple enough.

www.dinosaurs.info
username is creation
password is seminar

watch the free videos, not copyrighted, you can burn them.
anyway theres a section about the flood there that you can watch. theres also things about the dinosaurs etc there.
also exposed all the lies people tell you about all these other stuff.

Answer 6

I think Sri Vidya Rajgopalan has given the correct answer. But the Answer is very long. Let me explain you in short. Ram built a Bridge instead of ship because he thought, if in the war with Ravana more army of Varana is required then it will be easy to bring reinforcement through a Bridge Than to send ship.

Answer 7

Noah's delusions of grandeur cannot be blamed upon god, she is innocent.

Noah was schizophrenic:

he had delusions of building a large boat of material unavailable in his area, fastening this material with unavailable devices, collecting animals from areas of the globe unknown to anyone in Mesopotamia and forgetting to include 40% of the biomass on the planet...yet they are still with us.

It is not wise behavior to give credence and therefore, validation, to crazy people

Answer 8

Simple mathematics tells us that Noah and his family had to swim for it. Within a few days the ark was completely filled with animal feces and sank.

Answer 9

My friend I doubt you will get any logical answers as you are posing it to people that not only believe this story but the foundation of their beliefs are that god decided to make himself human and sacrifice himself to himself to appease himself.


Edit - check out whirling above as a prime example!!!- Both are true- LOL.

Answer 10

Well, the Bible doesn't say that Noah complained about any of this. If he was okay with God's commands, why shouldn't we be?

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