Don

bgk,
The Bible cannot contradict itself, but our (mis)understanding of what it says can.

If you take the verses of Matthew on divorce out of context (pericope and cultural) Jesus says divorce for only adultery.  Some teachers teach this is the only Biblical reason.  If you take the verses of Mark and Luke out of context, there is no exception given.  Some teachers teach there is NO Biblical reason for divorce.  If you take the verses of Paul in 1 Cor out of context, then he does not mention any exception for adultery but gives abandonment by an unbeliever as a reason.  I have not see any teachers teach only this, but they say it does not apply to believers.

But there was a cultural matrix that these teaching were made in, and if you do not know what Jews and Greeks thought in the 1st century, it is easy to make a hash of these verses.  And I have read many teachers who do just that.  And condemnation in the body of Christ and legalism is the result and I do not like that.

If you do not want to put Gen 1 with Gen 2 in terms of what was allowed to eat and what was not, then how can you put ANY verses from any books of the Bible together?  Your atomistic interpretation strategy in the limit means very few conclusions can be made about anything.  But very few people read any books that way.

I agree it is a challenge to integrate the 3 origins stories in Gen and that faithful people can arrive at some different answers.  But that is different than saying the 3 stories are just separate.