Differences in Genesis creation stories

Question

It is sometimes depicted that the basic argument to read "the creation story" (Genesis 1) as a non literal story are modern science and the evolution theory. But I believe that the biggest problem with a literal view is in the text itself. More specific in the differences between the "creation stories" in Genesis 1 and 2.

Order of Gen 1

Vegetation created:

God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: plants yielding seeds according to their kinds, and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.” It was so. The land produced vegetation – plants yielding seeds according to their kinds, and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. God saw that it was good. (1:11)

Human created:

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.” (1:26)

Order of Gen 2

No vegetation:

Now no shrub of the field had yet grown on the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground. (2:5)

Human created:

The Lord God formed the man from the soil of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. (2:7)

Vegetation created:

The Lord God planted an orchard in the east, in Eden; and there he placed the man he had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow from the soil, every tree that was pleasing to look at and good for food. (Now the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were in the middle of the orchard.) (2:8-9)

All quotes are from the NET Bible.

Question

Is there a way to make a strong argument that both those stories are to be read literally (as if it was written by a modern historian)? How could those different accounts be merged?

Answer 1

Complete order of events:

1. I built my house
2. I had a truck load of plants delivered
3. I built the driveway
4. I planted plants along the driveway and around the house

Account of contractor #1:

1. House was built
2. Plants were truckloaded in
3. Driveway was built

Account of contractor #2:

1. House was built
2. Driveway was built
3. Plants were planted around the house

Complaint by town inspection officer:

The stories of both contractors are not consistent. One says plants came first. The other says plants came after the driveway. Which is which?

My take:

I don't understand why people are making a big stink about the creation order just as the allegorical town inspector is making a big stink about the order of vegetation.

Does planting vegetation actually mean truckloading them in too?

People are concocting iotas where none should exist. I remember some religious scriptures warning against creating non-existing iotas.

Answer 2

Eretz in the first account means the entire earth (global sense). In the second account its meaning could be narrower (local sense) as in the term eretz jisrael. The second account would then be of human origin and perspective. Man made of the red soil of the ground, created naked in an empty land. the first living creature.

Answer 3

Genesis, like all of the Torah, (and I would argue, all of the Bible) is a "woven text." It has warp and weft. The pattern we see in the seven days is actually replicated in miniature in each of the days.

But then, that pattern is also replicated in Genesis 2 in numerous ways. The sevenfold pattern (Creation/Division/Ascension/Testing/Maturity/Conquest/Glorification) is absolutely everywhere. It shapes every single story, and is found within every part of each story.

So the order of events in Genesis 2 is liturgical. It is a recapitulation of the "physical" events in Genesis 1, but zooms in on the "social" events of Day 6. Just as the universe is a cosmic temple in chapter 1, so now Adam is a human temple in chapter 2. If you arrange these chapters in the traditional chiastic manner (like a "greater than" symbol: > ) you can correspond each event. You can even line up the ascension offering in Lev. 1 with the creation week, which means these passages are saying a great deal more about each than we realize, simply by their common structure.