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Earlier in Genesis god created male and female at the same time, later in that part of Genesis male was created first. One of the first biblical contradictions and it's found in Genesis, the same book.
From Genesis 1:
"Then the Elohim said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So Elohim created mankind in their own image, in the image of the Elohim they created them; male and female they created them.
Elohim blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
In Genesis 1: Mankind was created last. In Genesis 2: It wasn't finished yet because Elohim needed Mankind to work the soil. Yet another Genesis contradiction.
I know others have chimed in that it's not a contradiction (of course they will say this, for they feel that the inerrant "Word of God" can never contradict), and you are correct. It IS a contradiction.But there is a very good reason for this and it IS and ISN'T a contradiction ha ha. It is simply because the two narratives of Genesis 1:1-2:4a and 2:4b-3 were written by two separate authors, or sources, and edited together in the final form of the Book of Genesis. The Narrative of 2:4b-3 is the older one, from what is known as the Yahwist Source (or simply, J) and 1:1-2:4a is from what is called the Priestly Source (P). Notice that each source uses a different name for the Deity, with P using Elohim and J using Yahweh Elohim - composite name. This is just one of the many details that have led scholars to posit what is known as the Documentary Hypothesis - that the Pentateuch especially is made up of at least 4 different sources. This model has been worked on and expanded for the past couple hundred years and was made most famous by Julius Wellhausen in the late 1800s. For a very excellent, accessible and well-worth-reading account of it, check out Richard E. Friedman's Who Wrote the Bible? (Harper Collins, 1997). He also published a translation of the Pentateuch, or Torah, which has the different sources highlighted in different colors. It is a very useful book to have.
So is it a contradiction? Yes and no. Of course, it contradicts itself if one sees both accounts as telling a continuous story. But both accounts do not tell the same continuous story, despite the efforts of conservative apologists to try and mesh the two into some twisted amalgam of senselessness. These are two separate accounts, by two separate authors, with very different agendas and ways of looking at the world. Other details can easily be spotted when the two stories are compared.
The contradiction you pointed out also has the feature that in the P Account, mankind is created together at the same time. In the J Account, man is created first, animals are created second to be his helpers, and woman is created last to fulfill the role that the animals could not. The P Account is more equal in regards to the sexes, I suppose. In addition to that, the P Account is the one which states that humans are created in the image of God - which probably doesn't mean what we think it does, but is more along the lines of humans being divine representatives of God on earth.
By the way, the Documentary Hypothesis has been well-known and adopted for at least a hundred years in Biblical Scholarship. There are very few people who do not use this as a working model, and they tend to be the more entrenched and conservative "scholars" who generally reject scholarship as a whole and modernism in general. Their opinion only contributes to their own backwardness, as will probably be evident if any of them replies to my post.
We get the idea, based on the numerous hare-brained goofs found in the story of creation, that its writers weren't the brightest bulbs in the room. Is this yet another one? I've never heard it mentioned even though it stands out like a sore thumb.
Now how in creation did Adam know anything about fathers and mothers since he never had them?
And if he knew about sex, that's pretty obviously, then how come he and Eve never had any children while they were in the garden?
Adam isn't the one saying something about fathers and mothers, though. That's the narrator.
And, um, it's not meant to be a literal, factual story, dear.
I know others have chimed in that it's not a contradiction (of course they will say this, for they feel that the inerrant "Word of God" can never contradict), and you are correct. It IS a contradiction.But there is a very good reason for this and it IS and ISN'T a contradiction ha ha. It is simply because the two narratives of Genesis 1:1-2:4a and 2:4b-3 were written by two separate authors, or sources, and edited together in the final form of the Book of Genesis. The Narrative of 2:4b-3 is the older one, from what is known as the Yahwist Source (or simply, J) and 1:1-2:4a is from what is called the Priestly Source (P). Notice that each source uses a different name for the Deity, with P using Elohim and J using Yahweh Elohim - composite name. This is just one of the many details that have led scholars to posit what is known as the Documentary Hypothesis - that the Pentateuch especially is made up of at least 4 different sources. This model has been worked on and expanded for the past couple hundred years and was made most famous by Julius Wellhausen in the late 1800s. For a very excellent, accessible and well-worth-reading account of it, check out Richard E. Friedman's Who Wrote the Bible? (Harper Collins, 1997). He also published a translation of the Pentateuch, or Torah, which has the different sources highlighted in different colors. It is a very useful book to have.
So is it a contradiction? Yes and no. Of course, it contradicts itself if one sees both accounts as telling a continuous story. But both accounts do not tell the same continuous story, despite the efforts of conservative apologists to try and mesh the two into some twisted amalgam of senselessness. These are two separate accounts, by two separate authors, with very different agendas and ways of looking at the world. Other details can easily be spotted when the two stories are compared.
The contradiction you pointed out also has the feature that in the P Account, mankind is created together at the same time. In the J Account, man is created first, animals are created second to be his helpers, and woman is created last to fulfill the role that the animals could not. The P Account is more equal in regards to the sexes, I suppose. In addition to that, the P Account is the one which states that humans are created in the image of God - which probably doesn't mean what we think it does, but is more along the lines of humans being divine representatives of God on earth.
By the way, the Documentary Hypothesis has been well-known and adopted for at least a hundred years in Biblical Scholarship. There are very few people who do not use this as a working model, and they tend to be the more entrenched and conservative "scholars" who generally reject scholarship as a whole and modernism in general. Their opinion only contributes to their own backwardness, as will probably be evident if any of them replies to my post.
Thanks for the source information Who Wrote the Bible. I'm going to see if I can pick it up. You have, imo, correctly identified two authors with two different world viewpoints. What most of my fellow Christians fail to see is that attempts to conflate scripture, as obviously someone centuries ago did with Genesis, moves us further from finding God, not closer, and sometimes results in thoughts and actions that are far removed from the historical Jesus--if we can even find the historical Jesus in the Bible.
Each book or letter must be read separately, and with extremely critical thinking, if there is any hope reaching some idea about what the original author(s) were trying to report.
Bart Ehrman, in his work, Jesus, Interrupted, points out that two of the most conservative theological seminaries in the world, New Orleans Theological Seminary and Dallas Theological Seminary, perrenially raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to study the surviving early manuscripts of the Bible, all the while publicly proclaiming there is very little, even minute differences between them---and between the originals which no one possesses. He asks the question, "Do you think they go to investors and say, 'We would like you to give us a great sum of money to study manuscripts about which there are no discernible differences?'"
Christians too often desire certainty from their "book" in order to avoid the need of tremendous scholarly effort. Those seminaries simply cater to the masses who find it too difficult to "think" about the Scripture, and instead are willing to let someone else tell them what to believe. That is neither a scholarly or spiritual approach to the greatest selling book of all time. And because it is such a great seller and because it influences so much western culture, it is the very reason that even non-believers need to be familiar with it. The best of it needs to be extracted to be used by both believers and non-believers, and the rest needs to be understood as no more than attempts to spiritual clarify either the cultural within which it was written, or worse, an attempt to justify horrific actions.
One of my favorite historical references for how the Bible is misunderstood is the story of WWI soldiers for both Allies and Germans singing Christmas carols back and forth across the trenches---before resuming killing one another the following day. Praise God and pass the ammunition.
You still didn't address my main point that we know that the Sun was formed BEFORE the Earth, proving the Genesis Creation story is false, scientifically, as you requested.
Oh, like creation-dot-com fantasy land. You don't think the site might be a little bias toward the fantsy of "poof there's the universe, and all the people" abracadabra magic show, now do you.
That site is a far removed from reality and reason as your are.
Oh, like creation-dot-com fantasy land. You don't think the site might be a little bias toward the fantsy of "poof there's the universe, and all the people" abracadabra magic show, now do you.
That site is a far removed from reality and reason as your are.
Creationists believe that the universe had an intelligent creator. The atheists think "poof" there's the universe. You have it backwards.
Adam isn't the one saying something about fathers and mothers, though. That's the narrator.
And, um, it's not meant to be a literal, factual story, dear.
Yes, I admitted my goof way way back in post No. 20-something and apologized. I did not notice the lack of quotations around the mother/father. I apologize again.
Oh, like creation-dot-com fantasy land. You don't think the site might be a little bias toward the fantsy of "poof there's the universe, and all the people" abracadabra magic show, now do you.
That site is a far removed from reality and reason as your are.
I guess Eusebius decided to go find the cherubim and the flaming sword.
Once again you are wrong.
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