Re: Inhabitants of the Ark

George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Mon, 03 Nov 1997 18:34:27 -0500

gordon brown wrote:
>
> Jack,
>
> This doesn't really answer your question, but your question reminded me of
> the discrepancies between the Bible and many children's Bible story books.
> How many Christians think that the ark was shaped like a boat and that
> there were only two of each kind of animal on the ark? Actually the Bible
> says that there were seven of each clean animal. Illustrations in these
> Bible story books seem to be better remembered than the Biblical accounts
> themselves.

In Gen.6:19-20 there are to be 2 of each kind. In 7:2-3 there
are to be 7 pairs of clean animals (an anachronism before the Levitical
code). These accounts appear to come from different sources (note also,
e.g., the use of "God" in the 1st & "LORD" in the 2d.) There is no
justification for artificially "harmonizing" the numbers & no need to if
one recognizes that this isn't historical reporting. Respect for the
authority of Scripture means allowing accounts to speak for themselves
before we try to discern the underlying unity.
George Murphy