First, thank for the typographical correction.
You're welcome, but please believe me when I tell you that I've forgotten what it is I corrected, and that if I did so, it certainly wasn't done with the motive of making you appear ignorant or anything. Lord knows I make too many mistakes of my own to fault someone for some hasty typing.
Using your own logic, I could just as easily say that you assume there is a contradiction, therefore there must be one.
No, my argument is "if you assume the words in Genesis 1 and 2 mean what they say they do, then there is a contradiction."
Of course it's
possible to interpret G1 and G2 in such a way as to remove the appearance of contradiction; the question is, do the most reasonable ways to read G1 and G2
individually contradict? And of course, they do.
I am sorry there’s not a single verse in chapter two that says, Hay, people, this is in order of importance, not time.
Yes. And the most reasonable explanation for that is because G2, like G1, is in order of time, not importance.
Would you say that I am contradicting myself?
It would be better if you used language like that found in the passages in question. With that in mind, a better example would be:
Statement 1: I went to the doctor, then I went to the store.
Statement 2: I went to the store, then I went to the doctor.
Those statements
are indeed contradictory, because each one of them describes a sequence of events. They contradict - like G1 and G2 - because they're two different sequences.
What historical evidence do you have to support this supposition?
None, the evidence is textual. The two chapters are textually different - two different writing styles implies two different authors.
Ch2 starts off Thus the Heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. It sounds like all of creation has been finished, and the writer is starting on what came next.
Or, more likely,
that's the end of the first creation account. It sounds a lot like an ending, not a beginning, to me. Remember that the chapter and verse breaks in the Bible are not original, they were added later.
You’re making the assumption that because God is talking about His main subject {I.E. man} and thus mentions him first, that everything that follows must have happened in sequence that it was written.
That's not an assumption, that's a conclusion based on the language used. God says "Hrm, man is alone, I'd better do something about that."
Why would God conclude that he would need to make a helper for Man if
he'd already done so? Why would he say "it is not good for Man to be alone" if he
wasn't alone? Why would he say "I'd better do something" when he'd
already done it? Your interpretation simply doesn't make sense.
Read all of Ch1, and then ask yourself ’what was the main subject, what was the authors point in writing Geneses Chapter 1’. Then read all of Ch2, and again, ask yourself ‘what was the main subject’.
G1 is about God creating and evaluating his creation, including Man. G2 is about the relationship between Man, Woman, and animals.
But none of that matters. What matters is that they detail the exact same sequence
in a different order. As a literal history, they contradict.
But taken as spiritual mythology, they
compliment. It's only when you try to take them as literal truth do they trip you up. Taken as what they are - poems designed to place the nature of God and Man in the proper context - they're perfectly complimentary.
You couldn't ask for better evidence that you're not supposed to take them literally. When we do it your way, we get stuck. When we do it my way, we achieve enlightenment.
Clearly your interpretation is wrong.
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