and one other thought. if you know how logical systems work (cause and effect back to first causes and propositions linked formally with logic) and are falsified, you realize that a true contradiction that falsifies one proposition in the system, falsifies the whole system. thus an *apparent* contradiction that doesn’t invalidate the whole system, is a clue to you that it is not really a contradiction. so a single real falsification would introduce chaos and confusion in the whole. and that confusion would be readily apparent. not something you’d have to split hairs over parsing out.
thus an *apparent* contradiction that doesn’t invalidate the whole system, is a clue to you that it is not really a contradiction. so a single real falsification would introduce chaos and confusion in the whole.
Well, sadly, I am not very up on logical systems. Just ask my wife. ;-) However, you may think I am really saying more than I mean to imply. When I speak of "apparent contradictions" the issue that I am thinking about is the nature of revelation and inerrancy. As I see it inerrancy does not require that every record of every event necessarily agree in all the details. Such consistency is only necessary if it deals directly with the subject of revelation. Therefore, these contradictions can only really be called that if the reader insists that the Spirit is actively seeking to reveal the order of the creation events. However, I don't think we can say this is necessarily so. It may be, I won't deny that, but it may not be. If not, then the contradiction is not a contradiction at all because the information is ancillary to revelation and is not revelation itself. The order may convey something in one telling, and something else in another and therefore can be fitted to the narrative in order to make the revelation itself more meaningful and clear.
That is why these "apparent" contradictions don't affect the scripture in any negative way to my mind. The contradiction is only about things which were not really being revealed by God as such, but rather were being used by the authors as a means to help elucidate the reader in some way regarding what was really being revealed. I don't know what was actually created first, as far as the scriptures are concerned, birds or man, and I honestly don't believe that God is concerned with which we favour. Rather, the creation narrative was intended to reveal something much more profound and important to us. It hardly matters to our salvation whether we are older or younger than birds, but it does matter that we are children of God with a purpose within creation. This, I believe, is what this narrative is about. Though I won't pretend my opinion in this has any more weight than that of anybody else. It just happens to be the one I have found most reasonable.