Seder 5: Gen 6-7---One Pair or Seven Pairs?

One frequently-asked question about Gen 6-7 is why God instructs Noah to include a pair of each type of animal on the ark in Gen 6:19-20, then has Noah include 7 pairs of each clean animal and one pair of each unclean one in Gen 7.

Critical scholars often charge that these accounts are contradictory and result from two different accounts of the Flood being poorly patched together to form these chapters of Genesis.

Conservative scholars, on the other hand, see no contradiction here.  In one literary pattern that sometimes appears in the Bible, an instruction is described first in general terms, then repeated in more detail.  Gen 6-7 is a good example.  (Num 14:20-35 is another.)  Noah's instructions are given in broad strokes in Gen 6, then laid out in more detail in Gen 7.

A good source here:  Walter Kaiser, Hard Sayings of the Bible, IVP, 1996.