TWO SEPARATE AND CONTRADICTORY CREATION STORIES IN GENESIS

WHY DOES IT SEEM LIKE THERE ARE TWO SEPARATE AND CONTRADICTORY CREATION STORIES IN GENESIS?

There is probably no part of the Bible that receives more criticism than the Genesis creation story. The major critique comes from the theory of evolution which challenges God as the Creator of the world. However, a literary attack alleges that the Genesis narrative contains two separate and contradictory creation stories. This critique asserts that the first creation story (Gen. 1:1-2:3) describes God’s creation of the world in six days and His resting on the seventh. It also alleges that a second story occurs in Genesis 2:4-25, depicting God’s creation of humanity and the animals.

UNDERSTANDING THE LITERARY STRUCTURE

This allegation misunderstands the literary structure of the creation story in Genesis. The author laid out the narrative in a progressively more detailed way. The narrative begins in Genesis 1:1 with a summary statement: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” This synopsis declares that God is the Creator of everything. The phrase, “the heavens and the earth” is called a merism, a figure of speech that uses two contrasting or opposite parts to describe the whole. So, if you say that you’ve searched your house from “top to bottom,’ you are using a merism, meaning you searched your entire house. In the same way, God's creation of “the heavens and the earth” means that God made everything, the whole world.

In Genesis 1:2—2:3, the author provides a more detailed description of how God made the world in six days, and then how He ceased His creative activity on the seventh day.

God begins His creative work by identifying what He made initially—a world described as “a wilderness and a wasteland” (a more descriptive translation than the more common “formless and void”). God made the world and set the raw materials of creation entirely under water. Then “the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters” as the agent who would carry out the formation of the world into a habitable place for humanity (Gen. 1:2). The rest of the chapter describes God’s creative work over the six days of creation: Day One—Light (1:3-5); Day Two—Separation of Sky and Water (1:6-8); Day Three—Land/Vegetation (1:9-13); Day Four—Luminaries (1:14-19); Day Five—Birds/Sea Creatures (1:20-23); Day Six—Animals and Humanity (1:24-31). Then, on the seventh day, God rested or ceased from His creative activity (2:1-3).

After detailing the events of the six days of creation, the narrative continues with even greater specificity in Genesis 2:4-25. This section focuses entirely on the sixth day of creation and provides the particulars of the forming of the first man and first woman, concluding with the establishment of marriage. It is helpful to look at the creation story as happening in three movements. The first movement begins with a sum-mary statement, declaring that during “the beginning” God made everything (Gen. 1:1).

The second movement gives the details of creation by showing how God formed everything in six days and ceased His creative activity on the seventh (Gen. 1:2-2:3). The third movement focuses on the events of the sixth day, particularly how God made the first man and first woman and established marriage. The creation narrative is one story, explained with more and more specificity, not two separate and competing creation accounts.

THE ANSWER TO THE TWO-CREATION ALLEGATION

So what prompted the idea of two competing stories? Three pieces of evidence are cited to maintain that 1:1-2:3 is separate and distinct from 2:4-25. First, the alleged use of two different names for God. Second, the allegation of conflicting times for the creation of vegetation. And third, the contention that the two stories invert the sequence of the creation of animals and humanity. There are some simple answers to these arguments, and you will see that we don't need to abandon the unity of the creation story in the face of these “problems.” Let’s consider each of these in turn.

Two Differing Names for God

First, there is the alleged use of two differing names for God. Critics maintain that in version one, the author uses Elohim (Gen. 1) but in version two God is called Yahweh Elohim or Lord God (Gen. 2). Although two different names for God are used in the creation account, this does not indicate two different stories.

It’s not uncommon for the Scriptures to use different names and/or titles for God within the same book or passage (see Ex. 3:4, 4:5; Lev. 21:6; Deut. 6:4; Ps. 14:5-6). It is also common for Ancient Near Eastern literature to use different names and/or titles for their deities without critics contending that these non-biblical stories have differ-ent sources and authors.

In the Bible, different names for God are used for different purposes. Elohim (God) refers to God’s power. Therefore, it’s used in Genesis 1 when describing God’s power to create the world in six days. Alternatively, Yahweh Elohim (Lord God) is God’s relational name. That’s the reason it’s used in the story about creating humanity. Yahweh is the preferred name when describing God’s covenantal relation-ship with people (Gen. 12:1-9; 15:1-21). An illustration of these two uses of God’s names is in Psalm 19. In the first six verses, the psalmist uses the name Elohim (God) because it describes God’s powerful creation as a way He disclosed Himself to the world. In verses 7-14, the psalmist repeatedly uses Yahweh (the Lord), God’s relational name, because it describes the Lord’s relationship with those who know Him as their Rock and Redeemer (v. 14). Clearly, Psalm 19 is a unified poem about God, but it uses two different names of God to reveal Him.

Differing Order of Creating Vegetation

The second supposed proof of competing stories has to do with the creation of vegetation. It is argued that in version one, God makes vegetation on the third day (Gen. 1:11-12) but in version two, there is no vegetation yet, even on the day God made humanity, what would be the sixth day (2:5). It is true that Genesis 1:11-12 says that on the third day God brought forth “vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit... with seed in them.”

Yet, in the next chapter, describing the sixth day, it states that “no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted” (2:5). On the surface, this appears to be a contradiction, but a closer look will reveal that they harmonize easily if the words are understood correctly.

Describing the sixth day, in Genesis 2:5, the word “shrub” is a general Hebrew term for thorns and thistles and the words “plant of the field” speak of cultivated grains. Only after Adam sinned would God tell him that, as part of the consequences for sinning, he would now have to work the fields, eating the plants he cultivated by battling thorns and thistles (3:18). Therefore, in Genesis 2:5, the lack of thorns and thistles (weeds) and cultivated grain was merely because no rain had yet fallen. By the sixth day, humanity had not yet been created to work the fields, and most importantly, there had not yet been any sin, so there were no thorns or thistles. On the third day, God had indeed made wild seed-bearing vegetation and fruit trees (1:11-12) but as of yet, on the sixth there were no weeds or cultivated grains (2:5).

Differing Order of Creating Animals and Humans

The third allegation of two separate stories has to do with the order of the creation of animals and humans. It is claimed that in version one God made the animals first and then humans (Gen. 1:20—26) but in version two, God made Adam first (2:18-20) and then the animals.

This alleged contradiction about the chronological order of creation can again be harmonized with a simple understanding of the Hebrew language. According to Genesis 1:24—31, on the sixth day God made the animals first (vv. 24-25) and then He made humans (vv. 26-27). In the more detailed description of the creation of humanity (Gen. 2:4—25), there was no mention of the animals initially, but God formed man out of the dust of the earth (2:7).

Then, to demonstrate that the man needed a female partner, the Lord brought a parade of animals to him and Adam gave them names (not Blacky, Rover, Nino or Fido, but species names). Since this chapter had not yet mentioned the creation of animals, the verb in Genesis 2:19 should be translated as a pluperfect: “Out of the ground the Lord God had (previously) formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and (now) brought them to the man...” The second chapter of Genesis details God's creation of humanity as male and female. The animals were only mentioned here to demonstrate that it was not good for the man to be alone and the previously created animals (Gen. 1:24-31) were not sufficient to fill the need for human partnership.

ONE UNIFIED CREATION STORY

By better understanding the literary context and Hebrew language, it is clear that there is one harmonious and consistent creation story in Genesis told in three movements, with each movement giving a more detailed look at God’s creative activity. It’s not two separate stories put together in a contradictory patchwork but a unified and consistent whole.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Most importantly, this unified creation story reveals that the Creator of the universe is the very same God who chose Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, delivered the twelve tribes of Israel from Egypt, gave them the Sinai Covenant, and guided them through the wilderness to the Promised Land. Ultimately, the Creator, the God of Israel, became a man, Jesus of Nazareth, who died as a sacrifice to pay for sin and was raised from the dead, granting forgiveness and an eternal relationship to any person who trusts in Him.