bsequent birth (so to speak) of life-forms.

How the _order_ in which the events are recorded stands in relation to
the subsequent history of life-development on earth, and what its
significance may be, I will consider later on. First I will conclude the
argument for the general interpretation of the narrative.

2. _The Second Genesis Narrative._

I have only one more direct argument to offer; but I think it is a very
important one. The first division of Genesis ends with the Divine
commands creating man and the day of rest which followed. The narrative
ending at chapter ii. verse 3 (the division of chapters here, as
elsewhere, is purely arbitrary), we have at verse 4 of chapter ii, what
has been loudly proclaimed as _another_ account of _the same_ Creation,
which, it is added (arbitrarily enough--but _any_ argument will do if
only it is against religion!) is contrary to the first.[1]

[Footnote 1: The contradiction is supposed to be in verse 19, as if then
the creation of animals was for the first time effected--after the man
and his helpmate. But it is quite clear that the text refers to the fact
that God had created animals; the command was, "Let the earth bring
forth," and the immediate act spoken of was not the formation of
animals, but the bringing of them to Adam to see what he would call
them.]

Now, even if there is a _second_ account of Creation, it would surely be
a circumstance somewhat difficult to explain. _Contrary_ in any possible
sense, the narrative (from chapter ii. 4, onward) certainly is not. But
why should there be a second narrative at all? On the hitherto received
supposition that chapter i. intends to tells us the _process_ of
creation--what God caused to be done on earth, not merely what He did in
heaven--there is apparently no room for a second narrative. Nor have I
seen any completely satisfactory explanation. But if we accept the view
that the first chapter explains the Divine Design, and its being
published (so to speak) and commanded in heaven, then it would be very
natural that that narrative should be followed by a second, which should
detail not the _whole_ process of all life existence on earth, but (as
the Bible is to be henceforth concerned with Man, his fall and his
redemption) with an account of _just so much of the_ process as relates
to the actual birth on the earth's surface of the particular man Adam,
the most important (and possibly not the only) outcome of the _fiat_