Monkey's Uncle
Fun With Genesis Issue, Summer 1985
Editor: E.T. Babinski
IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES?
Genesis contains, not one, but two creation accounts. The first runs from Gen 1.1 to Gen 2.3. While the second runs from Gen 2.4 to Gen 2.25. Noticeable differences exist between the two accounts:
1. In the first, creation is completed in six days (1.31). In the second, only one day is mentioned (2.4).
2. In the first, the earth emerges from water, whereupon plants appear the next day (1.9,10). In the second. the 'whole face of the ground or earth' requires moisture before plants may grow (2.6).
3. In the first, the trees are created before man (1.12,27). In the second, man is created before the trees (2.5-9).
4. In the first, beasts are created before man (1.21,24,27). In the second, man is created before the birds and beasts (2.18-19 'It is not good for man to be alone; I will make him a helper...and God formed every beast').
5. In the first, man is created in the image of God (1.27). In the second, man is made of the dust of the earth, and merely animated with the breath of life (shared by all living things, cf., Gen 2.7,19; 6.17; 7.15,21,22 & Eccles 3.19,20); and it is only after eating the forbidden fruit that 'the Lord God said, Behold. the man has become as one of us, to know good and evil' (2.7; 3.22).
6. In the first, man is made lord of the whole earth (1.28). In the second, he is merely placed in the garden of Eden, 'to dress it and to keep it' (2.8,15).
7. In the first, God enjoins the primal pair to 'be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth' (1.28). In the second, the pain of childbirth is imposed upon the woman as a curse (3.16), and she has no offspring until after the expulsion from the garden of Eden (4.1).
8. In the first, man and woman are created together, as the closing and completing work of the whole creation, created also, as is evidently implied, in the same fashion, to be the complement of one another, and, thus created, are blessed together (1.28). In the second, the beasts and birds are created between the man and the woman. First, Adam is placed by himself in the garden, charged with a solemn command, and threatened with a curse if he breaks it; then the beasts and birds are made, and man gives names to them 'but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him' so God makes a woman from Adam's side, but merely as a helpmate for man (2.7,8,15,22).
The fact is, that the second account of creation, together with the story of the Fall (Gen 3), is manifestly composed by a different writer. This is suggested at once by the circumstance that, throughout the first narrative, the Creator is always spoken of by the name Elohim (God), whereas, throughout the second account, as well as the story of the Fall, he is always called Jehovah Elohim (Lord God), except when the writer seems to abstain, for some reason, from placing the name of Jehovah in the mouth of the serpent (3.1,3,5). This accounts naturally for the above contradictions. It would appear that, for some reason, the productions of two pens have been here united, without any reference to their inconsistencies. (The above is from Bishop Colenso's work on the Pentateuch)
