What is most perplexing about the Bible narrative of this work of creation is that two accounts are given of it; and apparently there is an irreconcilable difference between them. In the first chapter of Genesis is a statement of the creation in respect to this earth and the heavens connected with it, from the time it was without form and void until it was a fit dwelling place for man: or, to put it in other words, the account seems to reach from highly attenuated nebulae to the solid earth clothed with its wealth of vegetable and animal life, with man placed upon it as the crowning excellence of the Creator's work. But after this elaborate account of the creation contained in the first chapter of Genesis, we are startled to read in the second chapter—
"These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, _and there was not a man to till the ground_."
One naturally pauses here to ask, what had become of the grasses, herbs, and trees spoken of in the first chapter of Genesis? what of the fishes of the sea, the fowls of the air, the beasts of the field? what of man, male and female, of whose creation we have just read? and of the commandment to multiply and replenish the earth? Is it not strange that after reading of the creation of man in the first chapter that we should be told in the second that there was not a man to till the ground? Proceeding with this second account of creation the Bible says:
"But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food. * * * And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living thing that was the name thereof."
What is especially difficult in this second account of creation is that it reverses the order of that work as given in the first. The first account commences with the formation of the earth from chaotic matter and then records the various steps of progress in succinct and natural order—the same order, too, that science insists upon—up to perfection: the second begins with an account of the creation of man, the planting of a garden as the beginning of vegetable existence, and then the creation of the fowls of the air and the beasts of the fields.
The writings of Moses as revealed to Joseph Smith, in December, 1830, and now contained in the Pearl of Great Price, make this matter of the creation of man still more emphatic by saying:
"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."
But if these writings of Moses make emphatic the apparent contradiction in these two accounts of creation, they also furnish the key by which the whole matter may be understood, and, as I think, explained. After giving an account of the creation, much as it is contained in the first chapter of Genesis, it is then stated—
"And behold I say unto you, these are the generations of the heaven and of the earth, when they were created, in the day that I, the Lord God, made the heaven and the earth, and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew. For I, the Lord God, created all things, of which I have spoken, spiritually, before they were naturally upon the face of the earth. For I, the Lord God, had not caused it to rain upon the face of the earth. And I, the Lord God, had created all the children of men; and not yet a man to till the ground; for in heaven created I them; and there was not yet flesh upon the earth; neither in the water, neither in the air; but I, the Lord God, spake, and there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. 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."[A]
[Footnote A: Pearl of Great Price, p. 6.]