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In my reading today of Henri Blocher’s In the Beginning, Blocher argues that Genesis 1 is literary (and not literal) because Genesis 1 and 2 cannot be harmonized. He states on page 56:
If the dry land did not emerge until Tuesday and if vegetation has existed only from that day, an explanation is not going to be given the following Friday that there is no vegetation because there is no rain! Such reasoning would be against reason.
Genesis 1:11-12 says that God caused grass to spring from the earth on the third day. Genesis 2:5-7, however, states that, prior to God’s creation of man, there was no vegetation because God hadn’t yet caused rain on the earth, plus there was no man to till the ground. So did the vegetation created on the third day dry up before God created man on the sixth day? Blocher says that would be absurd!
Blocher’s not open to the idea that Genesis 1 and 2 contain two different creation accounts, for he sees them as the product of a single author, or compiler. Because he thinks that Moses wouldn’t contradict himself without reason, he concludes that Genesis 1 is literary, not a literal account of the creation of the heavens and earth.
