And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Genesis 1:25-27
Then the Lord God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.
Genesis 2:18-19
The Claim: Genesis 1 says that God created the animals before creating man. Genesis 2 says God created man before creating animals. Therefore, there's a contradiction in the order of which animals and man were created.
The Explanation: In Genesis 1, God did create the animals and then created man, this part is true. However, Genesis 2:18-19 does NOT say that man was created before the animals. This is just a simple misunderstanding of what is actually being said in Genesis 2:18-19. Verse 19 starts off by saying "Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed..." Formed is past tense, meaning it's something God had already done. Verse 19 states God HAD FORMED, which is just referring to the event in the past when God did form the animals. Just for clarification purposes, here's the order of events that are taking place with these Bible passages.
1. God created the animals.
2. God created man.
3. God presented man with the animals for the man to give names to the animals.
This is not a contradiction.