Contradictory Creation account? (Gen. 2:8-14)

Gen. 2:8-9, "The LORD God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed. Out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."

• "Eden": Hebrew bə·‘ê·ḏen (Strong's 5731) - First of 2 occurrences of the exact word in Scripture. The word appears again in Ezekiel 28:12-13, "'Son of man, take up a lamentation over the king of Tyre and say to him, "Thus says the Lord GOD, 'You had the seal of perfection, Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; Every precious stone was your covering . . .'"'"

• "ground": Hebrew hā-’ă-ḏā-māh (Strong's 127) - Exact word first occurs in Gen. 1:25. This word is used to name: the same ground of "everything that creeps on the ground" (Gen. 1:25); the ground man cultivates (Gen. 2:5); the ground watered by the pre-rain mist (Gen. 2:6); the ground from which man was formed (Gen. 2:7); the ground cursed with toil, thorns, and thistles (Gen. 3:17-18)--whenever the word is associated with plants, it refers to the agriculturally tilled or cultivated ground surface.

Gen. 2:10-14, "Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. The gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon; it flows around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Tigris; it flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates."

• "Eden": Hebrew mê-‘ê-ḏen (Strong's 5731) - Only occurrence of exact word in Scripture.

• "Pishon": Hebrew pî-šō-wn (Strong's 6376) - Only occurrence of exact word in Scripture.

• "Havilah": Hebrew ha-ḥă-wî-lāh (Strong's 2341) - Only occurrence of exact word in Scripture. Variations on the root word reappear as the name of a son of Cush (Gen. 10:7 & I Chron. 1:9), a son of Joktan (Gen. 10:29 & I Chron. 1:23), and a boundary of the territory occupied by Ishmael's sons east of Egypt ("from Havilah to Shur"--Gen. 25:18) and the later territory of the Amalekites ("from Havilah as you go to Shur"--I Samuel 15:7).

• "Gihon": Hebrew gî-ḥō-wn (Strong's 1521) - Root word means, "a bursting forth". First occurrence of exact word in Genesis. The word later appears to name a spring near Jerusalem at the annointing of Solomon (I Kings 1:33), and during the reign of King Hezekiah (II Chron. 32:30)

• "Cush": Hebrew kūš (Strong's 3568) - First occurrence of this exact word. The word reappears as the name of the son of Ham (Noah's grandson), the king of Cush, and predominently as the land of Cush or Ethiopia (a real land in Esther 1:1 and 8:9).

• "Tigris": Hebrew ḥid-de-qel (Strong's 2313) - Only occurrence of exact word in Scripture. A variation on the root word reappears in Daniel 10:4 to name a large river in Persia.

• "Assyria": Hebrew ’aš-šūr (Strong's 804) - First occurrence of exact word. The word reappears to name the land of the city of Ninevah (Gen. 10:11), and later the country of Assyria which carried Northern Israel away into captivity and afflicted Judah.

•  "Euphrates": Hebrew p̄ə-rāṯ (Strong's 6578) - Only occurrence of exact word in Scripture. Variations on the root word later refer to: the river lying along the promised Eastern boundary of Israel (Joshua 1:4); and the river running by Carchemish, where King Josiah was wounded to death as he went out to engage Pharaoh Neco of Egypt who was coming up against the king of Assyria (II Kings 23:29 & II Chron. 35:20-23).

Contradictory Creation account? (Gen. 2:5-7)

Gen. 2:5-6, "Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the LORD God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground. But a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground."

• "Now . . . yet": Hebrew ṭe-rem (Strong's 2962) - exact word is translated as "before", "now before", or "that before" 9 out of 14 times in the NASB; can also mean "ere" or "not yet"; the word comes from a root word meaning to interrupt or suspend; the word is first used in Gen. 2:5--all remaining NAS translations in Genesis (Gen. 19:4, 24:15, and 24:45) read as "Before . . .", with the word placed at the beginning of the sentence.

• "of the field": Hebrew haś-śā-ḏeh (Strong's 7704) - when associated with plant(s) refers to agricultural field (25 times out of 131 total instances of the word); this excludes instances of association with plants in II Kings 4:39, Psalm 103:15, Isaiah 40:6 (which appears to quote Psalm 103:15), Isaiah 55:12 (prophecy), Ezekiel 17:24 (prophecy), and Ezekiel 31:4 (prophecy).

• "to cultivate": Hebrew la-‘ă-ḇōḏ (Strong's 5647) - means to work or serve; the only other translation as to "cultivate" or "till" in the NAS, KJV, and INT is in Gen. 3:23, "therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken."

Gen. 2:7, "Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being."

• "Then . . . formed": Hebrew way-yî-ṣer (Strong's 3335) - formed/fashioned by human hands (i.e. by a potter or wood-carver), or formed/fashioned by God; the exact word is used only twice, here in Gen. 2:7 and in Gen. 2:19.

• "and breathed": Hebrew way-yip-paḥ (Strong's 5301) - means to breathe or blow; the exact word only occurs in this verse, Gen. 2:7.

• "the breath": Hebrew niš-maṯ (Strong's 5397) - only three other instances of exact word: Gen. 7:22, "breath of the spirit of life" (Noah's flood); Prov. 20:27, "The spirit of man is the lamp of the LORD"; Isaiah 30:33, " . . . The breath of the LORD, like a torrent of brimstone, sets it afire."

• "of life": Hebrew ḥay-yîm (Strong's 2416) - exact word first occurs in Gen. 2:7; the word's following occurrences in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, I Samuel, I Kings, II Kings, and II Chronicles all refer to either physical aliveness, physically dwelling in a land, flowing water, or the living God. 

Set off by the transitional word ṭe-rem, these verses appear to jump back to the sixth day, similar to a literary flashback. The chronologizing of passing days with morning and evening is no longer seen in the text. Instead, one sees a much more detailed picture of God at work.