Craigart14

There may be no conflict between the verses you cite, but there is clearly a conflict between the following:

6:19 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.

I assume that "every sort" means EVERY species?

7:2 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.
7:3 Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.

"Two of every sort" and "Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens . . . and of beasts that are not clean by two" are contradictory. End of report.

Why skip 6:19? God gave (rather, Hebrew writers wrote that he gave) contradictory instructions. Do you mean that some of the animals needed baths? How could some members of a species be ritually clean and other members of the same species be unclean?

Huh? What do you mean by "group"? Again, how could some members of a species be clean and others unclean?

But Gen. 7:2-3 DO contain contradictory instructions from God. Noah could not possibly load the ark "as God had commanded."

I'm so glad you deleted it. But you had to mention it, didn't you? An implied insult is still an insult. The Latin term for this technique is "praeteritio." Would you like a lecture on comma splices, ellipses, and the proper use of the apostrophe?

Many people claim that the Bible is without error or contradiction. One contradiction disproves that claim. And if we pin the contradictions on scribal errors or poor translations, then we're admitting the presence of mistakes. If there are some mistakes, how do we know there aren't many more? How can we possible know what is correct and what is incorrect? Or do we simply call the parts we like "correct" and the parts we don't like "human error"? How, then, did Judas die--assuming he could only die once?

Craig

John A. Broussard

Thank you.

Now we can move on the next step.

A metaphorical interpretation of a bible passage may be acceptable to you providing it isn't "overly creative"

How do you determine whether or not a given metaphorical interpretation is overly creative?

I'm looking forward to your answer.

Sheshbazzar

There is no conflict or contradiction in the verses that ApostateAbe cited, and that I quoted from him.
As ApostateAbe in the OP did not make any reference Gen.6:19 his premise as clearly set forth above was that Gen. 7:2 and Gen. 7:8-9 were;
Thus other verses, drawn from other locations cannot be substituted for the premise that was being so exactly designated.
I stand by my statement that "There is no conflict between these two verses". (actually three verses, but I accepted and employed ApostateAbe's reference to the three verses as being "two", in as much as all verse divisions are latter impositions upon the text)
No insult implied, "....reading skills and comprehension, this threads premise and argumentation has thus far displayed an appalling lack of either."
The original premise of this thread was and still is incorrect, and adding on heaping piles of obsolete JEDP theory does nothing to correct the deficiency of this threads original premise.

Sheshbazzar

John A. Broussard Quote:
Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar
As to an insistence on these verses being "merely a metaphor for mankind overcoming adversity". you are welcome to explain in what way you find the actual words written down in these three verses to be a "metaphor" for anything. However if you are overly "creative" with your explanation, you will be in the same boat as the Fundies who also contrive fanciful and elaborate
"explanations" to defend their otherwise unsupportable positions.

And I am still waiting to hear your "metaphorical interpretation" of "these verses", specifically the three verses appearing in ApostateAbe's OP that are the subject of this thread;
You are still welcome to explain in what way you find the actual words written down in these three verses to be a "metaphor" for anything.
Then we can move on to the next step, sucessive steps come after the present one is completed.
In other words stop trying to derail the subject of the OP, buck up and try to answer like an honest man.

Orthodox_Freethinker

There is only enough water to flood 22% of the earth surface, therefore Noah's flood cannot be a literal history. Ho-hum. Now pass the butter.

Peace.

John Kesler

The question isn't if it's possible, from a naturalistic point of view, for there to have been a global flood. The question is if the Bible claims that there was a global flood. Expanding on your line of reasoning, we might as well say, "Dead people don't come back to life, therefore Jesus' resurrection cannot be literal history. Now pass the butter." If you allow that God effected a resurrection, then why would the lack of water be a barrier to a global flood?

Sheshbazzar

The observation is not germane to the premise of the OP, the reality of "Noah's flood" is not the premise of the OP being disputed, which is limited to whether or not Gen. 7:2 and Gen. 7:8-9 are in fact,
There has been an as yet unfulfilled and unsupported attempt to give "these verses" --(note; Not 'the whole story', and not 'other verses', but specifically
"these verses") a "metaphorical interpretation".
It would require little integrity to just make the honest admission that the premise of the OP was incorrect.

Sheshbazzar

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quote:
Originally Posted by taoist
Hmm, I'd hazard a guess that the first verse refers to the number of pairs, and the second to the pairs themselves.
To their credit, ApostateAbe and taoist appeared to have figured out the answer very early in this thread, and have not continued in this dispute.

yummyfur

I'm an Atheist and here is my possible solution. note that I only give it as a possible solution, as I think it would be hard to prove.

One of the original traditions that went into this story could have been referencing days, and not pairs. At the time of this command, Noah is told by god that the flood will start in 7 days(verse 7:4). I think that one original story; said get a male and female clean land animal by seven days, that is, use the full seven days left to collect a male and female of every clean land animal. Then it said; get a male and female of every unclean land animal in two days(or maybe it didn't mention two days at all, and the two was added in later because someone thought it was left out, because the others had a number related to them), that is, only spend two days collecting the unclean land animals, not the full seven you have. Seven days were also given to collect a male and female pair of birds, wether clean or unclean(verse 7:3).

At some point this version of the story got confused and corrupted and the wording made it seem like it was talking about seven pairs and two pairs, so it was transmitted this way.

Ubercat

Is god gonna whup your butt for saying "god"?

-Ubercat