Cheryl Schatz

Don,
You said:

The essential reason I read them thus is because I (and many others) cannot in good conscience join them into one account based on the information given in the text of each account. To be specific, if the days in Gen 1 are held to be literal and sequential and the order of events in Gen 2 is also held to be literal and sequential, I do not see how to harmonize the accounts; so this is a big clue for me (and many previous interpreters, I am far from alone on this) that one is to read these accounts in a non-literal (i.e., poetic) way.

I have already shown you how to harmonize the accounts so you have indeed seen how one in good conscience can join the accounts and see a literal view. What you have to do is show how my harmonization is impossible. I have already shown that the specific language is sequential and to take specific words with specific meanings and make them mean the exact opposite is subjecting the Word of God to man’s wims. I cannot in all good conscience see the accounts as non-literal – as non sequential events. I will one day stand before God and give an account of my belief and my teaching and I fear God enough to take Him at His word rather than subject his Word to my own interpretation that has no basis at all in the text or any other literature in the Bible that would give the meaning of the “poetry”.

My point on saying side and not rib is that MORE is involved

The best ribs have lots of flesh attached. I have no doubt that God took out the rib with flesh attached and I prefer not to add to or take away from the inspired words. It was flesh AND bone so a side bone (rib) and flesh is completely logical and adequate that one doesn’t need to seek a more complicated meaning.

Back to the issue of animals created AFTER Adam in sequential fashion. This is the topic. Sequential is the key. Unless one can deal with the inspired grammar, the subjective meanings are really just meaningless as everyone can add to the text whatever they “feel”.