One creation story- Genesis 1 and 2

[kennethgreifer]

I think Genesis 1 and 2 can be understood as one creation story and not two, if you consider certain possibilities.

Genesis 1:11-12 says G-d created the plants, but Genesis 2:5 says the plants were not in the earth yet because it did not rain. Maybe there were plants and trees that lived in bodies of water or along the edges of bodies of water since the seas already existed in Genesis 1:9-10. This is just one possible explanation.

I think the second creation of the animals in Genesis 2 took place after the first creation of the animals. The animals were created a second time to find a mate for Adam, but he did not want any of them, so G-d made a woman from the man's body. It sounds like animals were created after the man, so this creation story is different, but actually it could be a second creation of only the animals for a different purpose.

Kenneth Greifer

[semiopen]

I'm not sure about one story, but the author of the second part was probably close to contemporaneous with the first part guy.

Standard thinking used to be that the second part was created first but that is hard to defend today.

The second part uses יְהוָ֤ה אֱלֹהִים֙ (Gen 2:5 WTT) exclusively as an epithet which is not found in the bible that much except in post exilic works.

Blenkinsopp - Creation, Un-creation, Re-creation: A discursive commentary on Genesis 1-11 http://www.amazon.com/Creation-Un-creat ... p+creation

Notes that the two accounts are related where the second

...offsetting the optimism and undisturbed serenity of the first by introducing an element of ambiguity and psychological realism...

It's too bad that the Documentary Hypothesis should have such an embarrassing breakdown in the one part of the bible that everyone is familiar with.

[kennethgreifer]

I didn't know that some people think that Genesis 2 says that the plants and trees were created after the man was. Genesis 2:5-6 says that there were no plants because it didn't rain on the earth yet, then it says a mist went up and watered the earth. This takes place before the man was created in Genesis 2. After the man was created the garden of Eden was planted, but that does not mean the earth did not have plants already from the mist that went up before he was created. It doesn't say which day the mist went up, so it could be the third day like in Genesis 1 or the sixth day when the man was created. Maybe the mist went up right before or after God created the plants on the third day in Genesis 1, so that they would grow like it says they did in Genesis 1.

Kenneth Greifer

[kennethgreifer]

I was just thinking more about the idea of the plants being made after the man in Genesis 2. Why would God water the ground first and then create the plants after the man? Wouldn't you make the plants and seeds first and then water the ground? I guess you could make the ground wet first, and then make plants and seeds, but it seems unusual.

Kenneth Greifer