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ANNVER - Why in Moses 3:7 says Adam was the first flesh upon the earth but in 1st Chapter Genesis,
it gives the order of things created like creatures in the air, sea and land(animals) were all created before Adam...
is this a contradiction or is the term "flesh" in Moses only referring to humans?
JOEL -
There also appears to be a conflict between the creation accounts between the book of Moses and the Book of Abraham.
In Abraham 4, before talking about the creation of man, we read:
24 And the Gods prepared the earth to bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping things, and beasts
of the earth after their kind; and it was so, as they had said.
25 And the Gods organized the earth to bring forth the beasts after their kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing
that creepeth upon the earth after its kind; and the Gods saw they would obey.
26 And the Gods took counsel among themselves and said: Let us go down and form man in our image, after our likeness; and we
will give them dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth,
and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.(Abr 4: 24-26)
This appears to agree with the Genesis account(Gen 1: 25-26). Compare this to what Moses 3 says:
5. ...and there was not yet flesh upon the earth, neither in the water, neither in the air;
7 And I, the Lord God, formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man
became a living soul, the first flesh upon the earth, the first man also; nevertheless, all things were before created; but
spiritually were they created and made according to my word. (Moses 3: 7)
Later in the chapter, after creating man, it says:
19. And out of the ground I, the Lord God, formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and commanded that they
should come unto Adam, to see what he would call them; and they were also living souls; for I, God, breathed into them the
breath of life, and commanded that whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that should be the name thereof. (Moses 3: 19)
This conflict can be resolved by the fact that in the Abraham account the words "prepared" and "organized" are used.
"Gods prepared the earth to bring forth the living creature"
"organized the earth to bring forth the beasts"
The Abraham account never directly states that the animals were created before man; only that the world was "prepared" for their
creation. So the Moses account could be true when it says that Adam was the first flesh upon the earth, even before the
animals.
The two accounts could also be harmonized if the description of the creation of plants and animals in the Abraham account is
refering to their spiritual creation, rather than physical.
Some do not agree with the above explanation because the Moses account still seems to conflict with the Genesis account which seems to
clearly have the animals being created before man. (Gen 1: 25-26)
The Genesis version could simply be wrong or I think we probably need to consider the possibility that the order in which things are presented in the scriptures is not necessarily the order in which they were actually created.
It's a good thing that understanding exactly what happend in the ancient past is not a requirement for exaltation.
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