The Two Genesis Creation Stories

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lpetrich
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The Two Genesis Creation Stories

Post by lpetrich »

The Book of Genesis has two creation stories, Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 - 3. I'll summarize them and show the patterns that they have.

The first one is the six-day one:
  • [*}Day 1: God creates celestial environments: day and night
  • Day 2: God creates far-terrestrial environments: sky and oceans
  • Day 3: God creates near-terrestrial environments: land and plants
  • Day 4: God creates celestial inhabitants: the Sun, the Moon, and the stars
  • Day 5: God creates far-terrestrial inhabitants: aquatic animals and flying animals
  • Day 6: God creates near-terrestrial inhabitants: land animals and humanity
  • Day 7: God is finished creating, and he takes the first day off in the history of the Universe
God is "elohim", and he creates by commanding and separating. He is very orderly in his creating, using a 2*3 schema. He creates both sexes of humanity together, after the animals, and he is very happy about what he had done.

The second one is the Adam-and-Eve one:
  • God creates land and plants
  • God creates the first man, Adam, from the soil
  • Adam is lonely
  • God creates animals for him
  • Adam is still lonely
  • God creates the first woman, Eve, from Adam's rib or side
  • Adam is less lonely
  • A certain mischievous snake convinces Adam and Eve to eat a certain no-no-fruit, and God kicks all three out of the garden that they were in
God is "YHWH elohim", and he creates by physically forming pre-existing material and breathing into it. He creates the first man, then the animals, then the first woman, and it is hard to imagine him being very satisfied with his creations.

In the Documentary Hypothesis or JEDP Hypothesis, the first story comes from the P or priestly source and the second from the J or Yahwistic source (the J is a German spelling). The others are E or Elohistic and D or Deuteronomistic.


These two very different stories are often retconned together by supposing the second one to be what happened when God created humanity in the first one.

The first one is a rather obvious charter myth for the Sabbath, since it presents God as observing a Sabbath after six days of work.

The second one has an origin myth or "Just So Story" for why snakes crawl on their bellies -- it is because some ancestral snake was being punished for its misbehavior.
byblos
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Re: The Two Genesis Creation Stories

Post by byblos »

Hello.

Personally, I see 1 writer for Genesis 1-11 and another writer for Genesis 12-50. I don't see an JEPD Hypothesis applicable to Genesis at all. But I do see it from Exodus-Deuteronomy. The Genesis 1-11 writer is post-exilic from the 6th century BC. He is a contemporary of Ezekiel (we see many Genesis 10 names matching Ezekiel 26 names). Genesis 1-11 is made up of both eastern and western elements. There is both an African and Mesopotamian influence on the texts. The differences you point out between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2-3 can be explained by the modeling of the Egyptian Amenta myths. The Hebrew words in Genesis 1 are closely related to Egyptian words. Gardiner and Budge have shown over 500 Egyptian words related to Hebrew and some of those are found in Genesis 1. The myth of Ptah and his craftsmen is identical to Genesis 1. They go on to create the Garden of Amenta. In Genesis 3, the crushing of the serpent's head is similar to Ra's crushing of Apep's head. The bruising of the heel is Horus bruised by Set. The purpose of this was to demonstrate astronomical calculations. The Set cycle replaced the Horus cycle. By the 6th century BC, Jews left Israel to go to Babylon, Armenia and Egypt. By this time, the Yahweh temple was created and the placing of this temple was compatible with the calculations of the Atum priests. The Garden of Eden narrative is compatible with the calculations of the Followers of Horus. Notice that Yahweh is NOT in Genesis 1, but appears AFTER the 6 days of creation. This is the traditional time period for temple creation in ancient Egypt. This is about the Temple of Yahweh. Jewish scholars John Walton and Richard Elliot Friedman both point out that the Hebrew implies tools to design a temple in Genesis 1.

As for the Sabbath, the Jews of Elephantine DID keep the Sabbath by this time.

I see 1 writer of Genesis 1-11 who had access to both eastern and western texts. A contemporary of Ezekiel. The Egyptian Amenta myth has 2 creation stories (within 1 narrative) so the 2 creation stories in Genesis doesn't mean multiple writers.

Regards.
Ethan
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Re: The Two Genesis Creation Stories

Post by Ethan »

The authors of Genesis were Phoenicians, they didn't need to borrow ideas from an alien culture, it was already part of mainland Phoenician culture and the story in Gen 1-2 is very specific too Lebanon.
https://vivliothikiagiasmatos.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/joseph-yahuda-hebrew-is-greek.pdf
semiopen
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Re: The Two Genesis Creation Stories

Post by semiopen »

I never met a Phoenician I didn't like but it's preposterous claiming they (2 guys?) wrote Genesis.

Noticed this when idly searching to see if any other humanoids thought Phoenicians wrote Genesis -

Josephine Quinn: The Phoenicians never existed http://blog.press.princeton.edu/2017/12 ... oenicians/
makes the startling claim that the “Phoenicians” never actually existed. Taking readers from the ancient world to today, this monumental book argues that the notion of these sailors as a coherent people with a shared identity, history, and culture is a product of modern nationalist ideologies
Some reviewers on Amazon criticized Dr. Quinn's work but not for any Genesis related issues.
Ethan
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Re: The Two Genesis Creation Stories

Post by Ethan »

The two parts of Genesis were written by the same person and the language of Gen 1-2 is very similar to one other books in the Hebrew Bible, Ezekiel. Also known as Hezekiah ( suffixes interchanges) or without, חזק מלך , Greeks read this as one name, Ἀσζέμιλκος 'Azemilcus ' .

'Book of Generations' ( 1 Chronicles) is interwoven in the Book of Genesis which creates the allusion of a Linear-Chronology, this is why it seems they are multiple authors, this was done by late editors not by the original authors, you know which parts of Genesis are a different book, it tells you.

(The Book of Generations)
Gen 5:1 - This is the book of the generations of Adam
Gen 6:9 - These are the generations of Noah
Gen 11:10 - These are the generations of Shem
Gen 25:19 - And these are the generations of Isaac
Gen 36:1 - Now these are the generations of Esau, who is ' Adam II '
https://vivliothikiagiasmatos.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/joseph-yahuda-hebrew-is-greek.pdf
Ethan
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Re: The Two Genesis Creation Stories

Post by Ethan »

Ezekiel 1:23 - Under the firmament
Ezekiel 1:26 - Above the firmament

Genesis 1:17 - Under the Firmament & Above the Firmament.

Ezekiel talks about wheels and the Greek word is Trochos (τροχός) 'wheel/tripping/running' and this relates too the
word translated as Firmament, which is Rakia (רָקִיעַ), the Hebrew word for a Chariot is Rekab (רֶכֶב ) and are referring too
peddle-driven water wheels, the Sanskrit word for a water-wheel is Araghatta

The wheel performs the function of moving water from a lower elevation to a higher elevation, this is what it means
by separating water from the water. The water was fed into conduits that irrigated the temples and gardens.

Image
https://vivliothikiagiasmatos.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/joseph-yahuda-hebrew-is-greek.pdf
byblos
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Re: The Two Genesis Creation Stories

Post by byblos »

Ethan wrote: Wed Apr 25, 2018 2:57 pm The authors of Genesis were Phoenicians, they didn't need to borrow ideas from an alien culture, it was already part of mainland Phoenician culture and the story in Gen 1-2 is very specific too Lebanon.
But we cannot ignore the similarities between Jeremiah 4 and the creation story. The author of Genesis is linked to Jeremiah. Jeremiah and his contemporaries went to Egypt. He then sent a messenger to Babylon. Jeremiah 44 speaks out against the Queen of Heaven. The Queen of Heaven can be seen in ALL stories from Genesis 1-11.

Also, the numbers in Genesis 5 and 11 match perfectly with significant Egyptian events. The dimensions of Noah's ark also matches Egyptian astronomy.
Ethan
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Re: The Two Genesis Creation Stories

Post by Ethan »

The Queen of Heaven is most likely the effeminate form of Jehovah, note the that name יהוה is feminine by default, this is why Lexicons won't disclose the gender, but it matches with ἰοῦν ( IO ) and Daphne . In Fact the histories of Herodotus begins with the Phoenicians entering Egypt with IO.

Here is something interesting about Jeremiah 44 , it mentions 'Tahpanhes which derives from the Greek , 'Daphne' , this was a Greek colony
in Egypt that was established during the reign of Psamtik I, alongside Elephantine. (664–610 BCE ).

Thus why do we see 'Queen Daphne (Tahpenes) in 1 Kings 11:19-20 alongside Solomon & Rehoboam?
https://vivliothikiagiasmatos.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/joseph-yahuda-hebrew-is-greek.pdf
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lpetrich
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Re: The Two Genesis Creation Stories

Post by lpetrich »

Ethan wrote: Wed Apr 25, 2018 2:57 pm The authors of Genesis were Phoenicians, ...
Nonsense. The Phoenicians practiced old-time Semitic religion instead of YHWH-only worship. Like most other old-time religions, it was polytheistic, featuring several deities. BTW, the Bible is very unhistorical about that, portraying worship of YHWH only as the Israelites' ancestral religion. That was a rewrite of history invented by the YHWH-only sect to discourage worship of rival deities. Archeological evidence shows that they originally worshipped several deities and not just YHWH.
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lpetrich
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Re: The Two Genesis Creation Stories

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Ethan wrote: Thu Apr 26, 2018 8:51 pm The two parts of Genesis were written by the same person ...
The two Genesis stories are stylistically very different. They also have different subject matter, different ways of creating, differemt amounts of orderliness, etc. Even God's level of happiness differs.

In the first one, God creates not only by commanding, but also by separating. This may be a relic of some story like the Enuma Elish one, where a god creates the familiar Universe by cutting up a primordial monster.
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