What about those creation stories?

While a junior at the Christian liberal arts university I attended in the late 80's, a guest speaker came to campus for a series of meetings.  He was a well-known pastor from a large church in the area.  Among other things he came to argue for the inerrancy of the Bible, meaning it is wholly reliable in everything it speaks of, including (and especially) it's creation account.

I listened to his presentations with dissatisfaction, but decided not to ask a question of him publicly.  Instead, I waited until after his presentation for a chance to talk with him.  I asked him, "What do you do with the two different creation stories in Genesis?"

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Well, there are two different stories about the Creation.  One in Genesis 1, and a different account in Genesis 2-3.  And unfortunately, the order of things created doesn't match up in both of these stories."

The guest pastor seemed surprised to hear this, and asked me to show him what I was referring to.

"Look here in the first chapter, starting at verse 20 it describes how on the 5th day God created all the birds of the air, then on the 6th day he creates all the land animals, and THEN he creates humankind (both male and female) as the final pinnacle of his creation.

"In the separate account in Genesis 2-3, God creates Adam, then creates all the animals to try to find a companion for him, then creates Eve."

I looked at him with a questioning look and asked him simply, "So when was Adam created?  Was it before all the animals or after all the animals?"  

I don't remember exactly how the guest pastor responded, but I remember the basic sense of his answer was that I was misunderstanding the text and I didn't have enough faith.  Misunderstanding the text?  I don't think so.  It is really quite plain in older translations (I noticed that the new NIV has created a fix by saying in Genesis 2 "now the Lord HAD created the animals" - a tense of the verb that is missing in older translations and appears to be a way to massage away this discrepancy.)

If indeed the entire Christian faith is based upon the absolute, perfect inerrancy of the scriptures, meaning there is absolutely no contradictions or discrepancies or things that are not literally true - then it appears that one needs to read no further than the 2nd chapter of the Bible.  If such a foundation is indeed the basic building block of the Christian faith, then Christianity should be rejected on the first day of a yearly Bible reading plan.

I've had multiple conversations with Christians about this over the years since then, and have heard all sorts of convoluted explanations why the clear discrepancy of the order of creation events is not really a discrepancy.  It is really painful to listen to.  Just read the text and chart out the events in order.

I try to tell people that it is not a "higher" view of scripture to call it inerrant, because it requires a person to judge the contents of the scriptures before actually reading them.  I encourage them that it is actually much more honoring to God and to the human authors of scripture to actually read the words that are there and form our beliefs about those words based upon what we read.  Let us create our statements about what the Bible is and how it works in the life of the Christian AFTER (not before) we actually read it through.

The good news is the inerrancy of the scriptures is NOT the foundation of the Christian faith.  The work, example, death, resurrection, and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth is the only proper foundation for the Christian faith.  "On Christ, the Solid Rock, I stand. All other ground is sinking sand."