What's Best Reconciliation of Gen 1 and 2 You've Heard?

I was asked the other day, "What do literalists do with Genesis One and Two? In Genesis 1, it's the animals, then man. In Genesis 2, it's man, then the animals. Doesn't that destroy literal interpretations?"I told him that what I said, when I was a YEC, was that Genesis 1 describes the creation of the universe, while Genesis 2 described the creation of the Garden of Eden. He said, "So, God made a whole new set of animals for the garden? That doesn't make much sense."Has anyone heard any better reconciliations of those two chapters? I didn't argue very hard for mine, because I don't believe it anymore. I think those are two unrelated creation stories, but there are a lot of people who don't. Do they have anything better than the universe/garden explanation?

Bump.Can we really not do better than this? Is there no literalist to provide a more reasonable explanation than us ex-YECer's have come up with?Listen, our whole church/village is having weekly meetings watching a series of evolution videos and discussing afterwards. There were several holdouts against evolution until just the last couple weeks. It was only last week that someone went into our leader's home and said, "But isn't it possible Genesis one is literal and means six 24-hour days." He was told, "So, you want to be a fundamentalist. That's okay with me. But tell me, which fundamentalist do you want to be? A Genesis one fundamentalist or a Genesis two fundamentalist." He then read Genesis one and two and said, "Wow, I see your point."So this is a real-life situation to save someone or several someone's from our insidious attack on the literacy of the Scriptures. Our leader insists that no one has a good reconciliation of Genesis one and two. How could they?You're making it look like he's right.Oh, by the way. You could maybe pop over to http://EvC Forum: Please explain this clear Bible error. -->EvC Forum: Please explain this clear Bible error. and provide a good answer for that apparent Bible contradiction, and if you can, then whenever I tell anyone in our village about that contradiction, I'll tell them about your answer, too!Anyone?

Yikes! I thought you were joking; just talking tongue-in-cheek. I looked up your other posts, though, and I guess you were serious. Well, no, but if I was at a meeting with Joe and Linda, and Joe and Linda said it was night when we had the meeting, and I say it was day, then there is a contradiction. You can't just dismiss any contradiction you want by appealing to the theory of relativity. If that were the case, we might as well close all our criminal courts, because any alibi would be possibly valid.Well, on the other hand, any alibi could be dismissed, because according to your interpretation of night and day on planet earth and Einstein's theory of relativity, the defendant could have been at school, in class, with his classmates, and out stealing a car--at the same time! There can be no contradiction, because clocks read different times as they travel at varying speeds.You have to give us some reason to accept your reasoning. What does "God has created the Universe in parallel" mean? It means he created man last and he created man first, and we're supposed to think that's not a contradiction?I think there's less problems with the world/Eden scenario. At least there God is creating the animals twice and two sets of animals exist, not creating the whole universe twice and only one universe existing.

A day may be a quantity of light, but it could be ten million years. That's fine, and it was suggested by kabbalists before science proved the world was old. However, it has nothing to do with what was talked about. One, I was referring to literalists, who object to ten million years, and two, no matter how long it took, Genesis One and Two have a different order, so that they can't be taken literally and not contradict. Nothing you've said refutes that. If you're going to insult scientists and science, then you should get your facts straight before you do so. It's amazing how people who know nothing about science (which this quote proves includes you) feel perfectly free to make grossly offensive statements about those who do.Maybe you could try that faith you talked about and believe that it's wrong to slander, especially when you have no reason to slander except for maybe some false information you heard third-hand somewhere.

No. Thanks for the apology. It is unfortunately common for Christians to say that scientists are "inventing" things or making things up to cover something embarrassing, when that's not true at all. Almost always, the Christians have no real information upon which to base those accusations, but they just say it anyway. Well, sort of, but this is hardly the way to phrase it. The universe is expanding, so that means a few minutes ago it was smaller. If you extrapolate that backwards, thinking it gets smaller than smaller, then it shrinks back to tiny or nothing. That gives you the idea for the big bang.That's not "inventing something." That's trying to figure out what's true. After you get the idea, you then test it. You offer predictions. "If the big bang were true, then what would we expect to see?" Then you check those predictions. If they aren't accurate, then you try a new hypothesis until you get one that explains what we see in every aspect. That's science, and it works so well that it can make pigs fly! (in an airplane)As for ending up thinking like us and saying things don't line up. I believe in God and in Jesus. I think the life I live, as part of a community of believers, is the most Scriptural thing going on in America. (Not everyone would agree, of course, but that's how I see it.) However, honesty requires me to admit that when 2 Kings 16 says Baasha died in the 26th year af King Asa and 2 Chr. 16 says he attacked Juda in the 36th year of King Asa, there's an impossible contradiction there.Who said faith requires that the Bible be inerrant and word for word inspired? Fundamentalists, that's who, and I don't see that they are producing the kind of fruit (to use Biblical terminology) that makes me want to regard them as the prophets/teachers I want to listen to. Where's the unity and love that Jesus spoke of as proof that he was God's Son (John 17:20-23)? They don't have it, and they never will as long as they are not honest and hide from truth, because Jesus is the Truth. He is on the side of the honest ones, not the dishonest ones.We have 200 people here in West Tennessee who would lay their lives down for the Gospel tomorrow, but not a one of them believes the Bible is inerrant or word for word inspired.Anyway, I don't think you lose anything by acknowledging what's true. I think God really honors those who love the truth.

We are talking about literalists here, not people who accept that it can be loose. While you don't say it's not literal, you definitely allow for that with, "On the other hand, Adam was told to name ALL of the animals and plants on "one" of those days and I am sure you can see how difficult that would be in the time allowed."On top of that, the contradiction remains. The order is different in the two stories, which is a contradiction for literalists. In the first story, man is created to have dominion over the animals, which were already created. In the second one, man is created first, and he's all alone, and the animals are created as possible companions for him, and then woman comes afterward. So not only is there a difference in order, but there's a difference in the purposes of their creation as well.That's not solved by one being an overview and the other detailed. The overview has details that are contradicted by the more detailed account.