Israel’s Two Creation Stories

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kudzu

Verified User
The book of Genesis includes two very different creation stories. The first, “Genesis 1” runs from verse 1:1 to the middle of 2:4 (2:4a). The second, “Genesis 2,” runs from verse 2:4b to 2:25.

Beginning in the 18th century, European Old Testament scholars discussed this point in earnest. The next two centuries brought the discovery of numerous creation stories from ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Canaan. With the discovery of these creation stories, scholars could now see clear evidence to support a nonliteral reading of the Genesis texts, since each biblical story shares characteristics of different Near Eastern stories. (We will look at this issue in future posts.)

Some modern scholars have relished in simply “dividing” the two stories as a way of undermining the Bible. That attitude has turned some people off to exploring the dual nature of the creation stories. But seeing two creation stories in Genesis is not the invention of modern biblical scholars.

For example, the ancient Jewish interpreter Philo of Alexandria (20 BC to AD 50) understood Genesis 1 and 2 to be contradictory. This was not a problem for Philo, however. Rather, it signaled to him that the two stories were not meant to be understood historically. God meant them to be understood as pointing to realities deeper than the merely historical.

For readers today, there are four very good reasons to focus on the differences between the creation stories in Genesis.

First, if this is what Scripture presents, as many alert readers have indicated, it is reason enough for us to look at it carefully.

Second, two different perspectives on creation in Genesis suggest (as it did to Philo) that “recording history” is not the point. That is clearly a very important point to ponder in the discussion between Christianity and evolution.

Third, outlining the distinctives of the two creation stories encourages respect for what is actually written, rather than obscuring those elements in order to achieve some artificial unity. Genesis 1 and 2 is not the only place in the Bible where two different versions of the same story are placed side-by-side. (For example, there are two genealogies in Genesis 4 and 5 and two accounts of the spread of humanity in Genesis 10 and 11. There are also two distinct histories of Israel, one in Samuel/Kings and the other Chronicles, and four distinct tellings of the story of Jesus.) So, when we see the “two-ness” of the creation story, we should pay close attention to what we can learn from this.

Fourth, perhaps ironically, seeing how Genesis 1 and 2 differ will help us appreciate what role they play together at the beginning of the Bible.

With that in mind, here are some of the differences between the two creation stories.

How Long Did It Take God?
Genesis 1 describes creation as a six-day event followed by rest. Some readers take these days literally, and others figuratively. Whichever way we take it, the story is told as a sequence of six acts of creation each occurring on separate days.

Genesis 2, however, does not have a multi-day sequence. Genesis 2:4b begins with the Hebrew phrase be-yom. This signals that the second creation account happened either in one day or a continuous series of events not marked by the passing of days. (Lay the two translations side-by-side to see the difference this makes.)

The NIV translates this Hebrew phrase “when.” This is possible in principle, but it obscures the distinctiveness of Genesis 2. The NRSV preserves the better translation “in the day.”

Different Depictions of the Beginning
The two stories depict two different primordial scenes.

Genesis 1 begins with pre-existent chaotic matter—darkness and a watery deep—that is about to be “tamed” by God during the six-day sequence. The spirit of God hovers over the deep, and begins the creation sequence by first making light (1:3-5) and then dividing the waters (1:6-10). Genesis 1 shows how God makes habitable what is uninhabitable.

Genesis 2 depicts a similar transition from inhabitable to habitable, but it does not describe the primordial state in the same way. Instead, we find ourselves in a land that is not yet fully habitable. There are streams watering the earth. The presenting problem is not chaos but absence of plant life because there was neither rain nor anyone to work the land.

The setting of the scene for creation is different in these two accounts.

Different Order of Events
Genesis 1 and 2 not only begin with a different primordial scene. They also have distinct descriptions of what happens next, both in order and content.

Genesis 1 describes the ordering of primordial chaos in the following sequence:

First, God creates the habitable space: light, separation of waters, dry land (days 1-3).

Second, he fills the space: plants, heavenly lights, sea and sky creatures, land animals, and humans (male and female) together at the end (days 4-6).

Genesis 2 follows a different order.

God creates ha-`adam (the man, or Adam) out of dust and before there is any plant life (Genesis 1 says plant life preceded humanity).

Next1 he creates a garden and puts the man there to work it.

After placing the man in the garden, God creates animals for him as helpers.

Then, finding no suitable helper for man among the animals, God forms the woman out of the man’s side (rather than forming humans together on the sixth day as in Genesis 1).

The two creation stories are not saying the “same thing,” nor does Genesis 2 follow chronologically from Genesis 1. They are two distinct stories of creation, both in terms of content and order. They cannot be harmonized—they were never intended to be.

Enns' series continues here.

1. At this point (v. 8), the NIV translates the simple Hebrew past “The Lord God planted a garden” as an English pluperfect “The Lord God had planted a garden.” Throughout this story the NIV handles the simple past as a simple past, but not here. Why? The NIV opts for the pluperfect in order to push the creation of the garden backbefore the creation of the manto preserve the sequence of Genesis 1. The NRSV is better here by preserving the simple past, therefore reading Genesis 2 sequentially. The same point holds for v. 19 and the creation of the animals. Genesis 2 has them created after the man, but the NIV again uses the pluperfect to push the creation of animals back before humanity to harmonize the sequences of the two creation stories. Here too the NRSV preserves the simple past.

https://biologos.org/blogs/archive/israels-two-creation-stories-part-1
 
actually there are four......

Genesis 1:1 stands alone and is written in the Hebrew imperative. It is actually a command. "IN THE BEGINNING GOD CREATED THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH!!!!".....:
Genesis 1:2 begins with a Hebrew word which precedes Hebrew poetry, historically delivered orally around the campfires of the nomadic tribes. Just as we have a genre of lore that is announced by "once upon a time", the Hebrews also signaled the beginning of their lore with a word translated into English as "Now....."

You will also find it at Genesis 2:5, 2:8, 2:19......

Genesis 2:5 marks the beginning of the third account of creation.....

the fourth is found in the book of Job......starting at Chapter 38......it is my favorite.....
 
First, God creates the habitable space: light, separation of waters, dry land (days 1-3).
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I have to disagree.......God did not create "light" on the first day......he created "the separation of day and night"

5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.”
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.......there is something else which separates day and night, and that is "time".......early people told time by observable changes.......three days travel from one oasis to another, etc......three transitions from day to night and back to day......

the second day, the "separation" of the elements.....accomplished by the establishment of the physical laws.......

“Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.”
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water from water, not sky and land......its still all "sky" at this point.......

the third day he created matter.......matter called seas and matter called land.......

then he proceeded to create life, in succession from its simplest forms to its most complex, man.....
 
kudzu said:
The Hebrews borrowed from the cultures around them.. Egypt, Babylon and the Canaanites.
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no......modern day atheists have borrowed.......in reality there are very few correlations between Judaism and the pagan religions.....atheists just lie about it........most of you are as ignorant of the pagan religions as you are of Christianity and Judaism........I've proved you wrong in every attempt you've made here so far......
 
Different Literary Styles
Genesis 1 and 2 are not written in the same literary style.

Some label Genesis 1 as “poetry” and Genesis 2 as “narrative.” These labels are fine as a starting point of discussion, although most scholars feel that they need to be fine-tuned a bit, especially with regard to Genesis 1.

Genesis 1 is certainly more like poetry than Genesis 2. For example, the rhythmic repetition found in this passage is more poetic-like: God sees, speaks, declares as good, and blesses the day. The same holds for the parallel structure of the six days: the cosmos is “formless and void” in 1:2, and so days 1-3 yield the form and days 4-6 fill it, with day 1 corresponding to day 4, 2 to 5,and 3 to 6. Genesis 1 emphasizes patterns rather than plot.

In contrast, most readers understand Genesis 2 as a different kind of text. It begins to tell a story that will later include dialogue, conflict, and a plot. In fact, it reads more like the narratives that will occupy the rest of Genesis.

Still, the “poetry or narrative” distinction is not an absolute. First, the Hebrew Bible exhibits not just two literary styles, but a spectrum of styles. Some texts are more clearly one or the other, but many others blur generic distinctions (a “rhetorical no-man’s land” as James Kugel puts it in his classic book The Idea of Biblical Poetry)
 
PostmodernProphet said:
no......modern day atheists have borrowed.......in reality there are very few correlations between Judaism and the pagan religions.....atheists just lie about it........most of you are as ignorant of the pagan religions as you are of Christianity and Judaism........
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Actually, the Hebrews borrowed directly from the Canaanite pantheon.. and much of Psalms is borrowed from the north coast Canaanites.. from the Ugarit poetry which predates Genesis by a thousand years.
 
kudzu said:
Actually, the Hebrews borrowed directly from the Canaanite pantheon.. and much of Psalms is borrowed from the north coast Canaanites.. from the Ugarit poetry which predates Genesis by a thousand years.
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actually you were stupid enough to believe the postings on some Atheists-R-Us website without bothering to engage in any critical analysis........show us an Ugarit poem that is reproduced in Psalms.......
 
PostmodernProphet said:
actually you were stupid enough to believe the postings on some Atheists-R-Us website without bothering to engage in any critical analysis........show us an Ugarit poem that is reproduced in Psalms.......
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Psalm 65 - "Without me you can do nothing" (Jn 15:5).

Ugarit was an ancient port city at the Ras Shamra headland in northern Syria. Ugarit had close connections to the Hittite Empire, sent tribute to Egypt at times, and maintained trade and diplomatic connections with Cyprus (then called Alashiya), documented in the archives recovered from the site and corroborated by Mycenaean and Cypriot pottery found there.

https://jerryandgod.com/psalm-65/
 
In 1928 French Archeologists discovered a large collection of cuneiform tablets with a script unlike the previously discovered cuneiform writing. This discovery was made at a site known as "Ras Shamra" near the Mediterranean coast in modern day Syria. The site was later discovered to be the ancient Canaanite city of Ugarit. It was later discovered that the Ugarit cuneiform was a phonogram, or alphabetic, where each cuneiform sign represented one letter of an alphabet. The Ugarit Alphabet was Semitic, the same as Hebrew. Some have even called the writing system of Ugarit "Hebrew cuneiform". Not only is the Ugarit alphabet Semitic, the Ugarit language was also Semitic and almost identical to Hebrew. This was a great discovery for Biblical Hebrew scholars as the Ugarit language was able to shed some light on some Hebrew words of uncertain meaning.

The city of Ugarit was occupied from pre-historic times to about 1200 BCE when it was mysteriously deserted. The tablets with the Ugarit cuneiform were written in its later life (about 1300 to 1200 BCE). It was discovered through the writings of the tablets that the people of the city were worshipers of the same Canaanite gods as their surrounding neighbors including deities as El, Baal, Asherah and even Yahweh. The culture, lifestyles and literary writings were found to be very similar to the Israelites and can also shed much light on the Biblical text.

The origins of the Ugarit cuneiform script is not known but can be assumed that it was derived out of the same Pictographic script used to write Hebrew, just as the Sumerian cuneiform evolved out of a pictographic script. This theory adds to the evidence that the Semitic/Hebrew script is older than previously thought.

The passage above is Psalm 89:20 (19 in English Bibles) in Hebrew. This verse is literally translated as: "I placed help over the mighty, I lifted up the chosen one from the people". This verse is classic Hebrew poetry. This form of poetry is parellelism where one idea is expressed in two different ways. This style of poetry is found throughout the book of Psalms and Proverbs. In this verse the first half is paralleled with the second half as demonstrated below;

continued

http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/bible_ugarit.html
 
B425 Ugarit and the Bible - Quartz Hill School of Theology

Biblical poetry follows Ugaritc poetry in form and function. There is parallelism, qinah metre, bi and tri colas, and all of the poetic tools found in the Bible are found at Ugarit. In short the Ugaritic materials have a great deal to contribute to our understanding of the Biblical materials; especially since they predate any of the Biblical texts.

http://www.theology.edu/ugarbib.htm
 
kudzu said:
Psalm 65 - "Without me you can do nothing" (Jn 15:5).

Ugarit was an ancient port city at the Ras Shamra headland in northern Syria. Ugarit had close connections to the Hittite Empire, sent tribute to Egypt at times, and maintained trade and diplomatic connections with Cyprus (then called Alashiya), documented in the archives recovered from the site and corroborated by Mycenaean and Cypriot pottery found there.

https://jerryandgod.com/psalm-65/
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you're half way there.......can you link me the Ugarit psalm you say it is a copy of?........the only parallel that your link mentions is that the Ugarite's asked Baal to protect them from their enemies........I wonder if that means there's a parallel between the Ugarites and Christians in Oklahoma in the 30s, because they both once asked for rain?.......
 
kudzu said:
In 1928 French Archeologists discovered a large collection of cuneiform tablets with a script unlike the previously discovered cuneiform writing. This discovery was made at a site known as "Ras Shamra" near the Mediterranean coast in modern day Syria. The site was later discovered to be the ancient Canaanite city of Ugarit. It was later discovered that the Ugarit cuneiform was a phonogram, or alphabetic, where each cuneiform sign represented one letter of an alphabet. The Ugarit Alphabet was Semitic, the same as Hebrew. Some have even called the writing system of Ugarit "Hebrew cuneiform". Not only is the Ugarit alphabet Semitic, the Ugarit language was also Semitic and almost identical to Hebrew. This was a great discovery for Biblical Hebrew scholars as the Ugarit language was able to shed some light on some Hebrew words of uncertain meaning.

The city of Ugarit was occupied from pre-historic times to about 1200 BCE when it was mysteriously deserted. The tablets with the Ugarit cuneiform were written in its later life (about 1300 to 1200 BCE). It was discovered through the writings of the tablets that the people of the city were worshipers of the same Canaanite gods as their surrounding neighbors including deities as El, Baal, Asherah and even Yahweh. The culture, lifestyles and literary writings were found to be very similar to the Israelites and can also shed much light on the Biblical text.

The origins of the Ugarit cuneiform script is not known but can be assumed that it was derived out of the same Pictographic script used to write Hebrew, just as the Sumerian cuneiform evolved out of a pictographic script. This theory adds to the evidence that the Semitic/Hebrew script is older than previously thought.

The passage above is Psalm 89:20 (19 in English Bibles) in Hebrew. This verse is literally translated as: "I placed help over the mighty, I lifted up the chosen one from the people". This verse is classic Hebrew poetry. This form of poetry is parellelism where one idea is expressed in two different ways. This style of poetry is found throughout the book of Psalms and Proverbs. In this verse the first half is paralleled with the second half as demonstrated below;

continued

http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/bible_ugarit.html
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again, no translation of an Ugarit psalm, only a comparison of the two forms of written alphabet......
 
kudzu said:
B425 Ugarit and the Bible - Quartz Hill School of Theology

Biblical poetry follows Ugaritc poetry in form and function. There is parallelism, qinah metre, bi and tri colas, and all of the poetic tools found in the Bible are found at Ugarit. In short the Ugaritic materials have a great deal to contribute to our understanding of the Biblical materials; especially since they predate any of the Biblical texts.

http://www.theology.edu/ugarbib.htm
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seriously?....
KTU 1.114:2-4 says:

Eat, o Gods, and drink, drink wine till you are sated,

Which is very similar to Proverbs 9:5;
Come, eat of my food and drink wine that I have mixed .
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that's your copying?......
 
kudzu said:
Were you thinking the Hebrews popped out of a vacuum?
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no......I'm thinking all your ideas popped out of a vacuum, though.......did you really think that's a parallel?....they aren't even addressed to the same audience....

Proverbs 9
To those who have no sense she says,
5 “Come, eat my food
and drink the wine I have mixed.
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while the Ugarit poem is addressed to the gods they worship.....
 
PostmodernProphet said:
no......I'm thinking all your ideas popped out of a vacuum, though.......did you really think that's a parallel?....they aren't even addressed to the same audience....

Proverbs 9


while the Ugarit poem is addressed to the gods they worship.....
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Nope.. They found a lot of clay tablets at Ras Shamra .. The Ugarit date back to 6,000 BC.


The "Associates for Biblical Research" website states the following;

The value of the Ugarit texts for Biblical studies lies in the fact that Mari is located in the vicinity of the homeland of the Patriarchs, being about 200 mi (320 km) southeast of Haran. It thus shares a common culture with the area where the Patriarchs originated.

Some documents detail practices such as adoption and inheritance similar to those found in the Genesis accounts. The tablets speak of the slaughtering of animals when covenants were made, judges similar to the judges of the Old Testament, gods that are also named in the Hebrew Bible, and personal names such as Noah, Abram, Laban and Jacob.

A city named Nahur is mentioned, possibly named after Abraham's grandfather Nahor (Gn 11:22-25), as well as the city of Haran where Abraham lived for a time (Gn 11:31-12:4). Hazor is spoken of often in the Mari texts and there is a reference to Laish (Dan) as well. A unique collection of 30 texts deals with prophetic messages that were delivered to local rulers who relayed them to the king. The findings at Mari show that the Patriarchal narratives accurately reflect the socioeconomic conditions of that time and place.


http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/bible_ugarit.html
 
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