The Bible Presents Contradictory Creation Accounts

I would like to start by apologizing to my opponent. Where I said Talmud, I meant Targum. My original provision was for other ancient translations of the Bible, not for ancient commentary on the Bible. What people thought the Bible taught bears little actual impact on what the Bible teaches, as we must decide for ourselves in the context of this debate what it teaches. I ask the readers not to penalize my opponent for appealing to sources outside the Bible, but would ask him not to utilize them in further rounds. My opponent's use of the Rashi actually supports my argument, so I will address it. However, any further appeals outside of the Bible should be considered invalid.My opponent argues two basic premises.1) The order of the creation of man is contradictory between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.2) The broader order of creation is contradictory between Genisis 1 and Genesis 2.I shall demonstrate presently how these two contentions fail. I shall do so by presenting a harmonious account of how the two accounts cohere to paint a fuller picture of the creation narrative.The Big PictureGenesis 1 is a grand cosmological poem about the creation of all things, with humanity as the pinacle of creation. We see in broad sweeping brush strokes that systematically creates all things in an ordered fashion. Primarily we see God create a location (Space, Sea, Land) and then fill that location with appropriate inhabitants (Celestial Bodies, Sea Creatures, Land Creatures). This account focuses on the overall process, not the details. We are not told what process is used to cause vegitation to spring forth from the land. We are not told what process is used to create each animal. We are not given any sort of sequence within individual acts of creation to demonstrate the order in which things happened. We therefore do not know if all the animals sprung to life simultaneously, if all the water gathered simultaneously, or if there was a process. The text simply does not tell us. That is because this text is focusing on the finished product. We see that when God has completed a given work, it is declared good. The only exception to this is when God completes mankind, it is declared very good. However, the phrase "good/very good" denotes the completion of a given act of creation. This is crucial to understanding the text.I shall give a "day-by-day" account of the creation narrative, for reference.In the beginning - God creates the heavens and the earth. These locations are void and empty. (Genesis 1:1-2Day 1 - God creates light, separates this light from darkness. This is commonly seen as God creating space and ordering it. (Genesis 1:3-5)Day 2 - God creates a firmament to separate the waters above and below. This is seen as a further ordering act of the cosmos, and it creates the sea on the surface of th earth. (Genesis 1:6-8)Day 3 - God causes the water on earth to gather together, and causes dry land to appear. He also causes the land to produce vegitation. (Genesis 1:9-13)Day 4 - God causes the stars and other celestial bodies to appear. (Genesis 1:14-18)Day 5 - God causes animals to appear in both the sea and on the land. (Genesis 1:20-23)Day 6 - God creates a gender differentiated humanity. (Genesis 1:26-31)The DetailsThe second account, in contrast to the first account, is the details account of the process of God's unique creation of humanity. In this we narrow in on one particular aspect of God's creation, namely the creation of humanity. This account, although told in a different way, is completely harmonious with the first account. The key to understanding this is in the usage of the phrase "good/very good" to denote a completed act of creation.The account does not talk about anything prior to day 3. We can assume that there is no significant distinction between the accounts and that the author wished to give us no specific details about hte creation of space or the separation of the upper and lower waters. However, we see that in the details of this account, that the single gendered humanity was created on day 3, after the land had appeared and before vegitation began to sprout. After creating this man the vegitation appeared and he was placed in the garden. We know that this act of creation is not finished however, because it is not declared "good" when the man was created. In fact, it is declared "not good that the man should be alone" (Genesis 2:18). The text is silent about day 4, but we then see God create all the land animals (Day 5). We see that Adam seeks a companion amongs the animals, but does not find one (I disagree with Rashi that he mated with them, but that fact does not have impact on the debate). After naming all the animals, God puts the man into a deep sleep and creates the woman. This deep sleep occured on day 6, and after he created them "male and female" by creating a gender differentiated humanity, he declared it good.Wrapping It All UpMy opponent asks two questions.Was man created before the woman, or was he created simultaneously?Was man created before the animals?There is a fundamental issue with these questions. The word "adam" which is translated as man in many cases, is more accurately translated as "mankind" or "humanity" and is refering to the overall human race, not simply a male instance of the human race. The key to this is that humanity was not complete until it was differentiated into male and female. We see this clearly by the fact that Genesis 1 calls the differentiated humanity "very good" but Genesis 2 calls the non-differentiated humanity "not good." The appropriate questions therefore would be the following.Was the male created before the woman, or was he created simultaneously?Was the male created before the animals?Genesis 1 is silent on the specifics of the non-differentiated male. All we know is that humanity was not complete (declared good/very good) until after the genders were differentiated. Genesis 2 however is specific in the details that male was created before both the animals and the woman.As anyone can clearly see, the accounts are simply two views on the same perspective. One provides information about the timing of the completed creation, one provides details surrounding the process of creating human beings.Thank you.