Genesis 1 vs. Genesis 2

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Once again, the orders are as such: Genesis 1: Animals, Plants, Man & Woman. Genesis 2: Man, Plants, Animals, Woman.

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This contradiction seems to debunk the inerrancy of the bible. This thread is to provide a place for debate as to whether or not it actually does.

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Whether or not this is a real "contradiction" or whether it implies an "error" depends on one's interpretation of the text, and is not as straightforward as you seem to believe.If Gen 1 and 2 are interpreted as literally as possible, with the Hebrew waw-consecutive (preterite) forms taken as strictly consecutive, then there indeed seems to be a contradiction. But I see this as an argument that they should not be interpreted quite so literally.If one believes that Gen 1 and 2 are both divinely inspired, then one will look for ways to reconcile them. Or if one believes that the author (or redactor) understood what he was writing, one will likewise look for ways to reconcile them. Following this approach, one interprets the chapters not quite so literally, in light of one another.Or if one believes that they are stories from different traditions, one can accept that they are not strictly consistent with one another, but that they both reveal truth and that they represent no "error."So the first questions to be asked are: What the original author(s) was trying to communicate in chapters 1 and 2? How are they meant to be understood? Their different perspectives don't necessarily imply error.

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That doesn't work. If the passage brings up the order, even if the order is not its purpose, it must keep consistent. If the words used could be interpreted as not being a description of order, then your argument would be sound. However I fail to see how "before any plant of the field had yet sprung up" can be interpreted as not meaning man was created before plants.

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1) if the order is topical rather than chronological, it could be different in two different accounts which have different purposes. PD's Message 39 relates to this (maybe she accidently replied to me instead of to you?)
2) Gen 2:5-7 is probably not talking about all plant life, as others have said here. Note the parallel in the logic. Two things had not appeared, because two conditions had not been met. First, there was no wild desert vegetation, because there had been no rain. Second, there was no cultivated grain, because there was no man to cultivate it. (For a well-done, detailed exegesis of this passage, see "Because it had rained" by Mark Futato, Westminster Theological Journal 60:1-21 (1998), available on the internet.)

Chronology is implied by the Hebrew "waw-consecutive" or "preterite" construction, which runs through chapter 2 as well as chapter 1. This is the normal grammatical construction used for narrative. It implies a blow-by-blow chronological account. Thus it often is translated "and then" or "then" instead of "and." Check some other translations for chapters 1 and 2. Quite a few of them (NASB, NLT, NKJV, HCSB, New Century, God's Word) sometimes render the waw-consecutive as "then" in these chapters.But the waw-consecutive construction does not always show chronology. E.g. Gen 2:15 starts with a waw-consecutive, but it is actually a restatement of Gen 2:8b. It does not indicate that man was placed in the garden twice. (Gen 2:9-14 is a non-chronological side comment; the waw-consecutive at Gen 2:15 repeats the last chronological piece and serves to pull us back into the chronological account.)So the waw-consecutive construction in chapter 2 normally indicates chronology, but not always. These non-chronological exceptions should be determined from the literary context.One could argue that the chronology of chapter 2 should defer to that presented in chapter 1, since chapter 1 came first. On the other hand, chapter 2 reads more like a historical, chronological narrative, with a similar style to the following chapters. Chapter 1 is different; it is much more stylized and formulaic in its construction. So one could also argue that the chronology in chapter 2 should take precedence over chapter 1 on this basis.

You completely missed my point! If the Hebrew construction is a waw-consecutive (preterite), the "and" usually DOES mean "and then." This is the most literal translation and is how one is normally taught to translate the waw-consecutive in a biblical Hebrew class. So unless the context argues against it, the waw-consecutives in Gen 1 and Gen 2 (which are most of the "and's") should be translated "and then."