Should Genesis 1-2 be taken literally?

Should Genesis 1-2 be taken literally?

First question: what is literally? In this case, let's say that "literally" means that the days of Genesis 1 were consecutive 24-hour days, and that the events described as having taken place during these days took place as Genesis 1 indicates that they did, in the order given. I also stipulate that "literally" means that the events in Genesis 2 took place as described, in order as given.

The creative events in Genesis 1 (See here for link to that chapter. I have linked to the public domain World English Bible, but all commonly used English translations may be accessed easily from that page.) may be listed as follows:
Day 1: light (verses 3-5)
Day 2: sky (?) separating clouds from surface water (The King James says "firmament.")

Note added June 17, 2022: there is no firmament. Answers in Genesis, the most important young-earth creationist organization, does not believe that there was one. See here. That means that taking Genesis 1:6-7 literally does not make sense.

 
Day 3: dry land, land plants
Day 4: sun, moon, stars
Day 5: moving water creatures, birds
Day 6: land animals, humans

The events in Genesis 2 are as follows:
1: Adam (verse 7)
2. A garden (verse 8)
3. Animals created (verses 19-20)
4. Eve created (verses 21-22)

Genesis 2 is often taken to be a re-telling of the events in Genesis 1, or as a passage putting Genesis 1 in context. But, whatever Genesis 2 was meant to do, the sequence of events is not the same as those in Genesis 1. In Genesis 2, Adam comes before the garden, and before the animals. Thus, Genesis 1 and 2 cannot both be taken literally, if literally means what was specified in the beginning of this post.

There are other problems with taking Genesis 1 and 2 literally:

* The various days, as described, begin with the word "let," for example "let there be," in verse 14. But Genesis 1:2, which indicates that there was a formless creation, probably covered with water, comes before "let there be light," in verse 3. Was there, then, creation before day 1?
* What was the source of light in day 1? (The sun was mentioned first in day 4.)
* "Day" is used in Genesis 1, with the apparent (but perhaps not literal) meaning of 24-hour day. However, in Genesis 2:4, which summarizes the creation, it can't mean 24-hour day. Also, the Blueletter Bible gives several different meanings for yowm, the Hebrew word translated as "day," in Genesis 1, and also in Genesis 2:4.
* (added April 7, 2020) Here's a post on how Young-Earth Creationists haven't fully explored the use of yowm in the Bible.

For more on this topic, see J. Richard Middleton, "What is the Relationship Between the Creation Accounts in Genesis 1 and 2?" 

Thanks for reading. 

Added March 4, 2020:
I have come across two posts from Answers in Genesis. They suggest that some Bible translations do not translate a Hebrew word correctly, and that where Genesis 2 is translated as "19 Out of the ground Yahweh God formed every animal of the field ..." in the World English Bible, and other versions, it should have been translated as "Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals ..." [emphasis added] as in the New International Version, and two other translations. (The rest of the 14 translations given in the Blueletter Bible use "formed.") The translation that they prefer could resolve the seeming discrepancy between Genesis 1 and 2, as to the timing of the creating of the land animals vs. the creation of Adam, but the translation is not preferred in most versions.

But there is still a difficulty with the comparison of Genesis 1 and 2, for those who hold that both should be taken literally.  In verse 9 of Genesis 2, it says "Out of the ground Yahweh God made every tree to grow ...". If that should have been "Out of the ground Yahweh God had made every tree to grow ...", none of the 14 English translations in the Blue Letter Bible do so. Thus, there seems to be a contradiction between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, as to the sequence of land plants and humans. (Adam is mentioned in Genesis 2:7, before the mention of land plants.)

This is one post on Genesis 1 vs. Genesis 2 by Answers in Genesis. This is the other. The first one does not mention Genesis 2:9.

Differences in the order of created things, between Genesis 1 and 2

This post was influenced by a previous post by J. Richard Middleton.

Here's part of the creation account from Genesis 1:
³ God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. ⁴ God saw the light, and saw that it was good. God divided the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light “day”, and the darkness he called “night”. There was evening and there was morning, the first day.
⁶ God said, “Let there be an expanse in the middle of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” ⁷ God made the expanse, and divided the waters which were under the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so. ⁸ God called the expanse “sky”. There was evening and there was morning, a second day.
⁹ God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. ¹⁰ God called the dry land “earth”, and the gathering together of the waters he called “seas”. God saw that it was good. ¹¹ God said, “Let the earth yield grass, herbs yielding seeds, and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind, with their seeds in it, on the earth”; and it was so. ¹² The earth yielded grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, with their seeds in it, after their kind; and God saw that it was good. ¹³ There was evening and there was morning, a third day.
¹⁴ God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of sky to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs to mark seasons, days, and years; ¹⁵ and let them be for lights in the expanse of sky to give light on the earth”; and it was so. ¹⁶ God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He also made the stars. ¹⁷ God set them in the expanse of sky to give light to the earth, ¹⁸ and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good. ¹⁹ There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.
²⁰ God said, “Let the waters abound with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of sky.” ²¹ God created the large sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind. God saw that it was good. ²² God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” ²³ There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.
²⁴ God said, “Let the earth produce living creatures after their kind, livestock, creeping things, and animals of the earth after their kind”; and it was so. ²⁵ God made the animals of the earth after their kind, and the livestock after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind. God saw that it was good.
²⁶ God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” ²⁷ God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them. ²⁸ God blessed them. God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” ²⁹ God said, “Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree, which bears fruit yielding seed. It will be your food. ³⁰ To every animal of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food;” and it was so. (World English Bible, public domain. Source is here.)

The order of creation, or of created things being mentioned, is as follows: light, water, land, plants, heavenly bodies, animals, humans (both sexes), with animals before humans.

Here's part of Genesis 2:

⁴ This is the history of the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that Yahweh God made the earth and the heavens. ⁵ No plant of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up; for Yahweh God had not caused it to rain on the earth. There was not a man to till the ground, ⁶ but a mist went up from the earth, and watered the whole surface of the ground. ⁷ Yahweh God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. ⁸ Yahweh God planted a garden eastward, in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed. ⁹ Out of the ground Yahweh God made every tree to grow that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. ¹⁰ A river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it was parted, and became the source of four rivers. ¹¹ The name of the first is Pishon: it flows through the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; ¹² and the gold of that land is good. Bdellium^[b] and onyx stone are also there. ¹³ The name of the second river is Gihon. It is the same river that flows through the whole land of Cush. ¹⁴ The name of the third river is Hiddekel. This is the one which flows in front of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates. ¹⁵ Yahweh God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate and keep it. ¹⁶ Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; ¹⁷ but you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.”
¹⁸ Yahweh God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to him.” ¹⁹ Out of the ground Yahweh God formed every animal of the field, and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. Whatever the man called every living creature became its name. ²⁰ The man gave names to all livestock, and to the birds of the sky, and to every animal of the field; but for man there was not found a helper comparable to him. ²¹ Yahweh God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. As the man slept, he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. ²² Yahweh God made a woman from the rib which had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. ²³ The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She will be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken out of Man.” ²⁴ Therefore a man will leave his father and his mother, and will join with his wife, and they will be one flesh. ²⁵ The man and his wife were both naked, and they were not ashamed.

Here's the sequence in Genesis 2: land, a man, plants, animals, a woman.

Genesis 2 does not mention light, water in general (although a mist, and rivers, are mentioned), or the heavenly bodies. But the most glaring difference is that humans came before animals in Genesis 1, and animals came after the man, in Genesis 2.

Middleton suggests some reasons for these differences.

This post suggests that it is impossible to comprehend Genesis 1 and 2 (and a lot of other writing, in the Bible and elsewhere) without interpreting it. You can't just take these passages word for word literally, and have them make sense. The above comparison of sequences in Genesis 1 and 2 is one example of this. Some parts of these narratives can't be taken literally as the inerrant word of God, because they do not agree fully. Some interpretations, such as Middleton mentions, do preserve these texts as the inerrant word of God, and explain the differences.

Thanks for reading!