"Genesis 7:17 is speaking of the 40 days that the flood was on the earth AND the waters increased."
My Reply :
It does not say that. You are adding that as to make it seem like one story. Gen 7:24 : "And the waters grew strong on the earth 150 days". More :
Gen 8:7 He sends out a Raven to find land, But Gen 8:8+10 he sends out a dove.
In J he brings a pair of each type of animals but in P he is concerned with clean and unclean animals because the writers of P were the priests ,gate keepers of sacrifice of animals at the temple. Check for yourself::
J:Gen 6:19 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
P: Gen 7:2 :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;
Gen7:3 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.
Lets see creation where in P man is created last, but in J he is created first.
P first: Gen 1:11 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,
Gen 1:24 And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind." And it was so.
Gen 1:25 God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."
Gen 1:27 So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
But in the J version the order is reversed. J: Gen 2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created. In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens,
Gen 2:5 when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground;
Gen 2:6 but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground—
7 then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.
8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 18 Then the Lord God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner."
19 So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.
20 The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner.
The later reference to seven clean beasts can be seen as merely as a further elaboration and addition to the basic instructions of one pair of every kind. This is the way it has always been understood and reconciled. I don't see why is it impossible to be reconciled now except it doesn't fit in with somebody's recent theory.
I think that the different numbers in the flood account are easily reconciled to be referring to different periods. 7:17 is the days of rain, the reference to 150 days is the increasing of the waters, the remainder of the time is the time it took for the waters to recede. That is the way it has been understood for thousands of years with no problem. But now we are to believe than mankind has suddenly increased in intelligence to see contradictions heretofore undetected. Again I say that the compilers of the E and J would be pretty dense not to smooth out such a clear contradiction as you allege. So do you think the reconciliation of these numbers that have been accepted as one story throughout history is impossible?
While I can see how someone whose heart is set on the documentary theory manufacturing a contradiction with the numbers, I don't see how anyone can have trouble with the section about the birds. Genesis 8:8 says that he ALSO sent forth a dove. There's nothing that says that if he sent forth a raven he couldn't send a dove later. Next time you look for contradictions, I wouldn't bother with that one. That bird won't fly.
As far Genesis 2:19 is concerned, I think you need to take note of a word missing in 2:19 that is present elsewhere. The word "THEN" is not in 2:19. If "then" was present we would have a contradiction, but the absence of this word eliminates the need to tie this verse to strict sequential order. We can now understand this to be referring to something that God had done previously and be in perfect harmony with Genesis 1.