Discussion of the Bible is one of the few my great pleasures.  I am not a theologian by any sense of the word, but I do read and try to understand the Bible. 

Because of our discussion a few nights ago I had occasion to dig into the Hebrew language to better understand an assertion of two complete and separate creations found in Genesis

Yes, the Genesis opens with two different creation stories.  Both describe the creation of animals, plants, and humans.  Never-the-less they are also a number distinct differences and may well even contradict each other.

For example, though these stories describe some of the same events, they order them differently:

• Genesis 1: the creator makes plants then animals and then simultaneously creates man and woman.  In Genesis 2: God creates a humans, plants then animals, and later he divides the human into female and male.
• Additionally, the two stories employ different names for the deity.  The first account uses the Hebrew word ELOHIM, meaning God and the second instance uses YHWH which is a tetragrammaton for “LORD”.
• The two accounts are also very different in literary style. 
  • Genesis 1 is well organized into three days of preparation and three days of formation with “and it was so” KJV.  By the seventh day, the creation existed in proper and good order and God rests.  It is a very orderly and well packaged event sequence.  It suggests a very orderly and well packaged universe created by a God that is also very orderly and well packaged.
  •  The second story, starting in Genesis 2:4, through to the end of chapter 3, lacks the structure and orderly structure of the first account in the original language.  It is much less structured and with much less formula.  It is written in very dramatic and painted with melodramatic strokes. It is portrayed as a series of seven scenes with much more detail.

My belief about these differences and similarities derived from my personal studies have been compared to the conclusions to published authors are summarized here:

1. The differences in accounts reflect two separate sources of oral transmission.  That there was a great span of time from the event and the writing down of these accounts.  The Hebrew Bible from which we as Christians take as God’s communication to the People of God under the leadership of Moses is made up of two viewpoints of the same event.
2. The account of creation in Genesis was the effort to relate to both oral traditions.  He included both to provide a better understanding of two different viewpoints.
3. Genesis wasn’t written by a scientist or a modern historian.  Chapter one is pure poetry.  Genesis 1-11, “pre-history,” is couched in figurative language. We read news differently from editorials and poems; we must do the same when we read the Bible and adjust our expectations and reading “lens” to the literary form.
4. The author’s intent matters.  We must take into account the author and his design to portray ideas and thoughts and instruction. The questions of our time are quite different from the type of questions asked in the times of Moses. 
   • We would ask how the world began.  We would ask WHEN it came into being.  We would ask WHAT was the process and make it specific and exact?  We would ask WHICH came first and how did the next being become what he was?
   • The questions of the ancient world were different: WHO created? WHO’s in charge? WHY am I here, and HOW do I relate to other beings? WHY is there evil and can anything be done about it?
5. These two viewpoints have a very distinctive predisposition to explain the creation.
   • The first creation is seen through the eyes of someone with a concept of God as being distant.  He would see the creation story as an event having a master plan.  God was a God that dictated the creation and it was done.  Please note this view is also exampled in John’s Gospel as the Father as the Power of creation and Jesus the creator.
   • The second depicts God as a human-like figure who walks in the garden with His creation.  It is a view, God has a hands-on God creation; hence the use of LORD,  God is seen as accessible, touchable, caring.
6. These two accounts, seen and understood from two quite different experiences, have been combined in Genesis to read as a single literary unit. 
   • The first account starts with a title introducing as the time (YOM) “when God began to create heaven and earth.”  It concludes with an additional summary statement that puts a reasonable border of the account: “this is the story of heaven and earth when they were created” as found in Genesis 2:4.
   • There is a break in our Christian Bible between Genesis 1:31 and Genesis 1:2 which was added by Robert Estienne 1551 and really didn’t consider the narrative style change. And further there should well be a break in the middle of verse 2:4.
   • The second story begins mid verse in Genesis 2:4 with a parallel statement and word pair, “In the day the Lord God made earth and heaven.”
7. Both narratives start with the same word pair, they place the terms in opposite order.
   • The narrative of the first picture or viewpoint of creation wanted to depict a heavenly creation.  The first account starts with “ELOHIM (GOD) created heaven and earth.”  The first story is very cosmic and seen from the ethereal dwelling place of God.  It is God standing aloof and distant.  The first story pictures the creation of an expanse to be separated between the heavenly and earthly waters along with the sun, moon, and stars.
   • The narrative of the second picture or viewpoint of creation wanted to depict an earthly creation.  The second picture characterized a view point that saw “YHWH (LORD) made earth and heaven.  The LORD was seen as an active participant set HIS priority as the story of earth.  In the second narrative shows not the creation of the sky or heavenly sphere but the formation of shrubs, fields, earth, and a garden.
8. These two views have been melded and reconciled as a single literary unit.
   • The first text from the heavenly viewpoint ends with a pointer to the earth.
   • The second begins in Genesis 2:4 directing our attention again to the accounts of the earth.
9. In its present form, as was finalized as a combined in the TANAKH (Jewish Bible) in the major first section of that Bible as the TORAH (Jewish section called the teaching) in the late or early second century BC, the Hebrew sees the creation account providing a prologue to the subsequent stories of Genesis.  These stories are primarily about the promises and accounts of the promised people.  Most of these stories were handed down from father to son for thousands of years.
10. Context matters when trying to understand the revealed will of God.  Both Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are together parts to a larger story. 
    • Genesis 1 is about God’s action and purpose.  God is found 32 times and every time He is the subject of the sentence. Every time it is God acting.  Every time it is God intentionally building something characterized as “Good”
    • The “days” of creation are symbolic. Genesis 1 is poetic, and poetic structure has meaning. Sequential days are not there for themselves as perfect 24-hour blocks of time, they are there to show sequence, to show order and hierarchy.
    • Notice that account one begins in darkness, formlessness, and emptiness. On “days” one through three God banishes the darkness and brings order to the chaos: heaven and sky, earth and land. On “days” four through six God fills the void, populating each realm in the same order. God makes people only after everything is ready for them to live in and rule. They are the “end” as in purpose, not sequence, of the created universe.
    • The first sequence is a poetic and literary “arrow” pointing to chapter two and the seventh day. It reveals the grand purpose of creation: that everything is ordered to the Sabbath and worship of God.  Genesis 1 is a prologue to the rest.
    • One Hebrew scholar notes that the first account of Genesis 1 was written much later than chapter 2.   It functions as an “entrance Hymn” to the great drama of salvation.
      1. While it is sung God fills the stage All the other players enter in sequence filling the stage each with their own dramatic entrance.  An all is “Good”.
    • There’s a perspective shift between chapters. In Genesis 1, the reader’s a distant observer of the creation of the universe.  Genesis 2 zooms in for a close-up on the “man” God created everything for.
    • Sequence shows relationship in chapter two.  The events are arranged to show truth about humanity in relationship to God, the animals, and the world. Chapter 1 told us man was created in God’s image, given dominion over the earth, and told to be fruitful and multiply. It is not over.  Creation is still ongoing.  Man, made in God’s image, can create.
    • The creation story from the ethereal God of Genesis 1 points to the hands-on God of Genesis 2.  The second account is an expansion of the first.  It is very human oriented.
      1. Man is made from dust. He does not evolve from something else and no other being is used to create him.
      2. Vegetation is for man’s food and pleasure and to teach obedience—he is creature, not creator of the world, and must learn to relate to God.
      3. The animals are created so man will know his special status—that he’s made for more. He doesn’t come from them, they are brought to him and he names and rules them.
      4. Man is only complete when God brings from his body another, the woman. Side by side, they will not only rule, but fill the earth. Together they are in God’s image: male and female; ruling the earth; fruitful. They live in harmony with creation, with each other, and with God.
11. The first creation makes sense only considering the new creation in Christ.
    • Genesis 1 and 2 give us two complementary accounts of a single creation that together help us begin to understand the “whos” and “whys” of our existence.  But they are part of a larger story and we can’t fully understand them without knowing the end and purpose of the whole.
    • Perhaps that’s why John started his Gospel with another creation account. “In the beginning was the Word,” he wrote.  “All things were made through him […] The light shines in the darkness […] And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”
    • John’s deliberate use of language from Genesis helps us see the coming of Christ as a new creation.  It also helps us understand God’s purpose in Creation from the start.

I fully respect my brother’s view of two creations.  I don’t think it will make a difference to his salvation. But as a teacher once said to me, “it is a tertiary discussion that needs noting but not to a point of discord.”  For me, it is enough to say, “God made it, God made me, God Loves me, I love God.”  Anyway according to Revelation 21 it is all going away and will be replaced by a new heaven and a new earth. 

Enough said.  I welcome our continued discussions.

Just Larry.