Presently, we are involved in a study of Dan McClennan’s YouTube presentation The Bible’s First Contradiction,[1] but expressing my opinion of his thesis has taken too much space for a single study, so I divided it into two different studies, a contradiction dealing with Genesis 2:7 as applied to Genesis 1:27 and another concerning Genesis 2:19 and the order of creation on the 6th day. What I intend to address in this study is: Dan’s presumed contradiction of man being created before the animals, both of which were created on the 6th day, according to Genesis 1:24-31, but Dan perceives the order is reversed in Genesis 2:19. Is he correct? I don’t believe so and here’s why.
Dan suggests that not only was man created prior to the animals but he was created prior to the garden in which God placed the man (cp. Genesis 2:7-8). Dan seems to be saying that each verse is chronological, vis-à-vis the man is created in verse-7, therefore, God’s creation of the garden in verse-8 must occur after he created the man. However, this doesn’t work. Dan’s logic appears, at least to me, to be very contradictory. For example, if the man is created first (verse-7) and then the garden, in which man is immediately placed afterward (verse-8), what is God doing in verses-9 and 10, and why does God repeat the process in verse-15. There the Lord, once again, places the man into the garden, where he already placed him according to verse-8? The verses are either chronological or they’re not. If they are, the logic is nothing more than a senseless and inconsistent hodgepodge. If they aren’t chronological, there is no opposition between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, the only question is, therefore, does Dan get to define the operation of the text?
To be thorough, let’s consider Dan’s interpretation that God created the animals of the field and the birds of the air in a trial and error effort to find a proper mate for the man. Consider the fact that God was wise enough to create the Heavens and the Earth. However, if Dan’s analysis of Genesis 2 is correct, it took at least 17,401[2] different errors before God realized he should take something out of Adam to make a proper helper equal to himself. This proposition simply doesn’t seem likely. Rather, a better reason, at least in my mind, is that God’s work in bringing the animals to Adam was to show him that all the animals had mates, but Adam did not. Once the man realized this, he was ready to welcome another person, not as a competitor, but as a helper, which was actually God’s intention, according to Genesis 2:18.
Dan doesn’t say, but his mention of two contradictory creation stories, with the first actually coming second in chronology, which is also a priestly version of creation, is deduced from the Documentary Hypothesis, as a means of interpreting the Bible. Not only has this hypothesis met with objection in modern scholarship, but it doesn’t seem to fit the way literary works were put together in ancient times, when chronology wasn’t as important as a smooth flow, if one was to combine two or more texts.[3] Moreover, the writer of Genesis seems to be utilizing the method Lucian describes in the footnote (4) below. For example, Joseph was sold into slavery in Genesis 37. In the same chapter Jacob sends his beloved son on a journey to his brethren in Shechem that would take several days. Yet, two chapters earlier in Genesis 35, Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi slew all the males in Shechem, a deed that caused Jacob to flee the area for safer ground. Why would Jacob send his son into an area so dangerous that he might be slain? The fact is the record of Jacob’s descendants (Genesis 37:2) is being combined with the record of Isaac’s descendants (Genesis 25:19), so a blending of the two works is done for the sake of a smooth flow in the text, wherein exact chronology is sacrificed.
Nevertheless, according to Dan, the creation account in chapter one is placed together with the creation account of chapter two, without any effort to show chronology. What I believe is, the two accounts were meant to be taken together, just as we find them today, and we need to analyze them and draw a conclusion that would unify the whole text. This can’t be done through the Documentary Hypothesis, which imposes a preconceived interpretation onto the text, similar to preconceived interpretations by apologists, which Dan is opposed to. Why would Dan accept one and reject the other?
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[1] I intend this study to be a reply to Dan McClellan’s YouTube video: The Bible’s First Contradiction. Dan is a scholar of the Bible, and he is becoming one of my favorite critical scholars. I appreciate his work very much, but appreciating doesn’t mean I believe everything he says. I agree with lots of his stuff, but not all, and this study is an example of that
[2] This is the current number of distinct species of birds (10,906) and mammals (6,495) in the world today, according to Birdfact and AZ Animals This number would increase if we take into account the great many species that are now extinct.
[3] “For, though all parts must be independently perfected, when the first is complete the second will be brought into essential connection with it, and attached like one link of a chain to another; there must be no possibility of separating them; no mere bundle of parallel threads; the first is not simply to be next to the second, but part of it, their extremities intermingling.” [The Way to Write History 55; Lucian of Samosata; cir. 120 CE to 180 CE (emphasis mine)]. The complete work can be found HERE.
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