For all those who believe in creation as described in The Bible: who was first, man or animal?

The bible is made up of Chinese whispers , does it really matter who came first . Just the fact we are here is great enough .
No i don’t believe in religion , never read the bible never will read it . Maybe if one day “God or Jesus ” come back to earth , you could ask them and then maybe more people will believe in them .That will never happen obviously

Doesn’t look reversed to me. The streams of water come (and presumably cause vegetation) then it mentions God making man from dust.

1. Water (and we assume plants with the water)
2. Man from some dust.

Also, the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil are in Gen 2:9

@tramnineteen

Well, I picked up my bible: the orders are truly reversed.

Genesis 1:
11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

As you can see, this chapter says that on the second day, for instance, God made plants that seeds and trees that bear fruit. The land produced vegetation! And He saw it was good.

In Genesis-chapter 2, He makes Man first. Just curiuos what is your interpreted order? That of chapter 1 or 2?

There are lots of parts of the Bible that were clearly written by different people with differing voices at different times. I know that goes contrary to belief, but it is normatively accepted as so by the academic community of Bible scholars.

Ok, I read past the part in Chapter 2 that you quoted and I see where your confusion comes from. My best guess is that it doesn’t directly reflect the order things were done in and is simply stated somewhat out of order.

Who knows, doesn’t seem critical to the religion.

Well, ive always thought of the Bible as something not to take so literally, so honestly, I dont think it truly matters which came first. But, since it mentions the animals first, I want to think they came first. Also, I think it would make more sense for them to come first, like to test the earth out before humans came on, right? haha, I dont know. Like I said, its mostly symbolic and not to be taken so literally, so yeah :P

The Bible, while an interesting read, is hardly accurate as it pertains to the creation of everything. I have read the Bible, and for the most part it is either 1). repetitious and boring, except for the Song of Solomon, which is pretty nice, and 2). so full of death and bigotry and murder and genocide and other such evil that I feel the need to wash my hands afterwards.

Manimal

I Think Man & Animal at the same time , if not Man , i believe , not clear though (:

We’re just tripping on needles here.

In most biblical studies, Genesis 1 & 2 are generally thought of as two separate creation accounts. They are not historical or scientific, although i probably fall outside of your target audience.

Thanks all of you for your input. To me, it was just a query into finding out how people deal with inconsistencies in a book that plays a key role in their life. I do not have a complete answer, yet. From what I read here, people just don’t seem to care.

That in itself puzzles me, since for me, if I were a believer, I would want to understand. But, I realize on more occasions that my understanding of religion as a non-religious person is limited. I am however very grateful for all your responses and will continue to be fascinated by this phenomenon.

For me, inconsistencies in a book that is thousands of years old, written over hundreds of years by multiple authors is not overly concerning most of the time. To complicate matters, the biblical authors were drawing on a number of other narratives to compile something that was meaningful to them. In Genesis, the author was probably familiar with several other near eastern creation stories like Gilgamesh, so different stories coming from other different stories does not seem that surprising.

All of that to say, what does it matter if humans, plants, or animals came first. Science seems pretty decided plants came, then animals, and then humans. The Bible is not science or history. It tries to communicate, i think, that the world was created from peace rather than violence; Creator and Creation were at harmony; Creator is not Creation, although the creator is deeply concerned and affected by the creation; there is interaction between the two, especially with humankind. It also shows (Gen 3) that the Creator is hesitant to destroy his creation, putting justice, God keeping God’s word, and mercy at play with one another.

The stories put ideas in tension with one another, and to deal with the inconsistencies, one is forced to wrestle with the ideas themselves. More concerning than the order of creation is the way to deal with violence. It seems that Jesus stands on the side of the weak, hurting, and oppressed. Jesus also said “do not resist evil, turn the other cheek.” It is difficult to determine whether one should be nonviolent or perhaps use violence to stand on the side of the hurting. I don’t think there is an easy or consistent answer, but happy hunting.

@evelyns_pet_zebra It’s only full of all that horrible stuff so that you know why God is so great.