Myth #38:

Noah saved only two of each species.

The Myth: 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. (Gen. 6:19)

The Reality: Genesis has contradictory claims about how many animals were brought aboard the ark.

Most of us have heard that Noah brought two of each species aboard the ark in order to repopulate the world after the flood. But Genesis preserves a contradictory claim about the number of animals brought aboard. Genesis 7:2–3 says:

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

This contradiction arises from religious conflicts over the issue of animal sacrifice. The authors of the J source believed in the practice of animal sacrifice. The authors of P did not.

After the flood, Noah sacrificed animals to God. If he only had two of each species, a male and a female, the animals sacrificed wouldn’t be able to breed and repopulate the species. So extra sacrificial animals had to be brought along. Since the authors of the P source didn’t believe in animal sacrifice, they only required the one basic male and female pair for breeding purposes.

Why, however, did any animals have to be saved? We know from Genesis 1 that God could create animals out of the water and from Genesis 2 that he could create animals out of the ground. After the flood, God could have created all the animals he wanted.