I read the Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 accounts and they seem contradictory. I
began the Adam and Eve at Genesis 2:7 and was not able to completely
eliminate discrepincies. My major confusion is that in Genesis 2 it seems
that the order of the creation of man and the creation of animals is
reversed.

Genesis 1 is the story of the creation of the world, while Genesis
(actually starting in about verse 7) is the story of the creation and fall
of man. So Genesis 2, beginning in verse 7 is the story of a small part of
what happened on the sixth “day” in Genesis 1. By the time we get to
Genesis 2, the animals, plants and so forth are already created. If you
read Genesis 2 after verse seven it never says that the shrubs, plants,
animals etc were created after Adam and Eve. Read it for yourself
carefully. One problem people have is that in the NIV Genesis 2:7 is in
the middle of a paragraph. If you think of Gen 2:7 as the beginning of the
account of the creation of the first people, it all makes sense.

John Oakes, Ph.D.