The question often asked: Were there seven of each clean beast, or two?

The answer is, seven. The phrase "two by two" in 7:9 simply means the animals entered the ark in pairs. So the beasts with 7 representatives came in as 3 pairs and 1 oddball each, paired off male and female and one spare wheel. (Note the difference in phraseology: "by two" and "two and two".)

And now, for another round of Raiders of the First Ark. John Kesler, the wisest of his lot at knowing when to keep his mouth shut but not this time, had this to say:

Notice what [Holding] does in this article. He brings up a skeptical argument-that the Bible is contradictory about how many of each animal went on the ark-but then leaves out one of the main passages used by skeptics, instead setting up a straw man which [Holding] can more easily knock down.

I'm accused of leaving out Gen. 6:19-22, as it happens, and we'll see that in a moment, but -- leave it out, did I? Strawman, yes? Oh, my. Someone needs to report Jim Merritt, then, because he is obviously a closet Christian trying to make atheists look profoundly stupid by not using "one of the main passages used by skeptics" on this one. Funny, but my responding article to Merritt is one of the oldest on this site; this article was based on a response to Merritt, and Kesler is the first one to say something about this. It's been, what, seven years now? What? Am I expected to do Skeptics' homework and arguments for them? If Skeptics had higher quality control, we wouldn't have to shoot down so much dross (but then most Skeptical literature would disappear and there'd be hardly anything to shoot at!). Don't worry, Mr. Kesler, someone will loan you a foot to put in your mouth, I know it's only temporary, and you can apologize to Mr. Merritt later. But anyways, let's look at that passage I -- er, Merritt -- conspiratorially left out:

Genesis 6:19-22 And of every living thing, of all flesh, YOU SHALL BRING TWO OF EVERY KIND INTO THE ARK, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind, TWO OF EVERY KIND SHALL COME IN TO YOU, to keep them alive. Also take with you every kind of food that is eaten, and store it up; and it shall serve as food for you and for them." NOAH DID THIS; HE DID ALL THAT GOD {Elohim} COMMANDED HIM.

(Raising hand.) May I interject something? Thank you, Mr. Kesler, you are so kind. According to the KJV italics and an interlinear Bible, the word "kind" ("sort" in the KJV) is not found in the original Hebrew text. In other words, it actually says, "And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep alive with thee; they shall be male and female. Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every shall come unto thee, to keep them alive." Every? Every what? It's assumed to be "kind" but, um, it just isn't there. But you know what? Wenham's Genesis commentary reads it, "pairs of every", i.e., as a case of mode, not number, just like we do in 7:8-9. Nice try. Now who among the Hebrew experts on Kesler's list will take that on, hmm? In other words, my previous answer covers the same ground: the references to "twos" refer to mode by pair, not total number. Kesler also hoists this version of Gen. 7:1-5:

Genesis 7:1-5 Then Yahweh said to Noah, "Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you alone are righteous before me in this generation. TAKE WITH YOU SEVEN PAIRS OF ALL CLEAN ANIMALS, the male and its mate; AND A PAIR OF THE ANIMALS THAT ARE NOT CLEAN, the male and its mate; AND SEVEN PAIRS OF THE BIRDS of the air also, male and female, to keep their kind alive on the face of all the earth. For in seven days I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights; and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground." AND NOAH DID ALL THAT YAHWEH COMMANDED HIM.

Gosh, hate to interrupt again (raising hand, tossing salad tomato) but darn it -- "pairs" isn't in the original text, either. This version (the NRSV, according to someone) adds it for what they figured to be clarity. Another Skeptic also horned in and said:

I'm surprised that someone who sees himself as the end of all wisdom in biblical apologetics could come up with this "one oddball" theory. [Holding] disdains reliance on translations to determine the most likely meaning of texts, but if he had consulted some translations, he would have seen that the text in question was not saying that Noah took seven of each clean "kind" into the ark but seven PAIRS of each unclean "kind," THE MALE AND HIS FEMALE.

This fellow then quotes the ASV and a few others, claiming they "clarify the most likely meaning of the text." Yeah, yeah, the old trick of comparing English translations while ignoring the Hebrew, which actually says "seven sevens". Want to play that game? Okey dokey. According to H.C. Leupold, "The Hebrew expression 'take seven seven' means 'seven each'", and suggested that the extra one was for sacrifice. The 1599 Geneva Bible concurred: "Which might be offered in sacrifice, of which six were for breeding and the seventh for sacrifice." Jamieson, Fausset and Brown commented:

'This was the general rule of admission, only with regard to those animals which are styled "clean," three pairs were to be taken, whether of beasts or birds; and the reason was that their rapid multiplication was a matter of the highest importance, when the earth should be renovated, for their utility either as articles of food or as employed in the service of man. But what was the use of the seventh? It was manifestly reserved for sacrifice; and so that both during Noah's residence in the ark, and after his return to dry land, provision was made for celebrating the rites of worship according to the religion of fallen man. He did not, like many, leave religion behind. He provided for it during his protracted voyage.'

So much for that, if that's all there is to it. Interesting how this fellow slides a bit with that "likely meaning" gag without admitting that the word isn't actually there. Truthfully, though, even if it is "seven pairs" that doesn't change that the other two passages read as "mode" passages. I can have 7; I can have 14 here, and I still win. Anyways, Kesler wanders on:

The first command was given by Elohim, and verse 22 says that Noah "DID ALL THAT GOD COMMANDED HIM." If Noah did all that God commanded him, which was to bring two pairs of "all flesh" onto the ark, how could Yahweh (not Elohim) then command Noah to make a distinction between the number of clean and unclean animals taken aboard and to take aboard seven pairs of birds?

Oh, dear, that JEDP junk again? That's off to the side -- Mr. Kesler may entertain himself here if interested -- but our answer, rooted in the actual social context rather than literary fantasy, is that the latter command is an intentional repetition made to fit it all together into a chaistic pattern -- see the relevant portion of Miller's article here. Indeed, given the pattern of the chiasm, and what it says, verse 22 very much has the character of an editorial redaction that wasn't in the original text/story, but it need not have been. Really, it's not that hard, and so much more sophisticated than reading the text in English and announcing one's opinion after the manner of letting out gas in a crowded elevator. And the "ancient people were too stupid" to notice a supposedly obvious contradiction like this? Far less intellectually demanding explanation to the typical Skeptic, I suppose...

As a side note, a leading Skeptic himself came in with some comments about the scientific aspects of this. The matter is beyond our normal scope, but I did ask one of my contacts with expertise in this area (a scientist with a Ph. D.) to make some comments. The Skeptic started:

The whole idea of taking a male and its female shows that Yahweh wasn't too informed in animal husbandry, because no farmer or rancher would buy an even number of males and females to go into the business of raising cattle or sheep or horses or whatever. One bull and 13 cows or one ram and 13 ewes would be a far sounder initial investment than seven of each sex, since one male could easily "service" thirteen females. The way this story was written shows that the author had a poor conception of population growth.

My contact said:

Rubbish. Most animals produce multiple litters, it seems like the Bible writers understood exponential growth better than most Skeptics! To explain for the benefit of these untrained village atheists, consider even elephants. The African elephant reaches breeding age at about 14, and its gestation period averages 670 days, while the Indian elephant matures even earlier and has a shorter gestation time. Thus it would not be unrealistic to assume that a single elephant pair could have four offspring by the age of 25. So we could conservatively estimate that the population could double four times per century (even if the parents in each generation died soon after their offspring were weaned). It takes only 22 population doublings to exceed eight million, and this number could be reached in only 550 years. Note that after the Flood there were plenty of vacant ecological niches and few competitors.

So taking more females on the Ark would be a case of the law of diminishing returns, and neither is it necessary for genetic diversity.

Skeptic X goes on:

In the story of Pharaoh's plan to stop the population explosion of the Hebrews, Pharaoh ordered the midwives to kill every male child born to Hebrew women but to keep the females alive (Ex.1:22). It was no wonder that such a dumb plan as this didn't work, because population growth is dependent on the number of fertile females available, not the number of fertile males (assuming that there is at least one fertile male in the group). Pharaoh could have succeeded in killing every male child born at this time, and the population would still have grown, because as the females who were kept alive reached maturity, there would have been plenty of older males ready and willing to do their duty to ensure the growth of the nation. I assure you that the older males would not have walked about saying, "Isn't it a shame that these lovely ladies have no young mean available." If Pharaoh had had a lick of sense--or more probably if the one who wrote this little yarn had had a lick of sense--the story would have been written to have Pharaoh ordering the killing of all female babies born to the Hebrews.

My contact said:

How silly is that -- is it an essential doctrine of Christianity that the Pharaoh had any sense? Evidently not since he still went after the Hebrews after seeing God's might. In any case, males were the ones likely to take up arms, while females could still carry out many of the duties of slaves. Yet more of the "ancient people were stupid" chronological snobbery rife among skeptics. D'oh -- like they didn't realize that women were the ones who gave birth so would determine population growth rates.

I'll add to that, that of course the Egyptians could keep on killing babies for as long as they needed to. Tsk, tsk -- severe case of uni-dimensionalism.