How Many Creation Stories are There, and So What?

Time for a pop quiz: How many creation stories are there in the Bible?

1. 1

2. More than 1

Recently, I’ve been discussing on social media the differences between Genesis 1:1-2:4a (the six days of creation) and Genesis 2:4b-25 (Adam and Eve, leaving off the fall narrative in ch. 3 because that is not parallel to Genesis 1). 

(Side note: Why “2:4a?” Ancient scribes inserted the chapter division at Day 7 of creation. Things would have been much neater had they simply waited until that story was actually done and the next one began. But they didn’t, so the first story ends at 2:4a. I am going to keep it simple, though, and refer to these stories as Gen 1 and Gen 2.)

The key differences that have lead me and others to read these stories as different creation traditions rather than as the same story told from two different angles are the following (in no particular order):

1.The portrayal of God. In Gen 1, God is distant and transcendent, whereas God is immanent and more anthropomorphic in Gen 2. God speaks things into existence (more or less) in Gen1, but in Gen 2, God plants a garden and forms Adam out of dirt (like a potter), and then breathes life into him. God also walks in his garden in the cool of the day in Gen 2. 

God is also working things out re: creation itself. After creating the man (“Adam”) he sees that there is no suitable partner for him, so he creates animals. When that doesn’t work out, God makes a woman from Adam’s side, leading the man to declare “This at last is bone of bones and flesh of my flesh.” Like, “finally!!”

2. How many humans? God creates humanity en masse in Genesis 1, but makes individual humans in Gen 2.

3. The order of creation differs. In Gen 1, humans are created after all other creatures are made. In Gen 2 (as we saw above under #1), God creates the one man, then the animals, and only then one woman. Also, according to Gen 2:5-7, there was no vegetation when God made the first human. In Gen 1, vegetation was made on Day 3 and humans on Day 6.

4. God is referred to differently in the two stories. In Gen 1, God is referred to by the generic title elohim, which is the most common word for “God” in the Hebrew Bible. In Gen, God is referred to as LORD God. That word “LORD” (note the small caps) is not a title but the divine name Yahweh, and it appears in all English Bible. 

Why? Long story short, Jewish tradition, out of respect for the divine name (see the 3rd Commandment), has made certain notations in the Hebrew text to alert readers to say “adonai” (Hebrew for “lord”) whenever encountering the divine name itself. This has carried over to English transitions I (and others). 

This one factoid might not seem terribly convincing to all, but it is a key factor in modern biblical scholarship for recognizing the various traditions that make up the Torah (aka, Source Criticism).

5. The length of time it takes to create. In Gen 1 the creation act takes 6 days. In Genesis 2, the time is undetermined. The opening line of 2:4b is “on the day that the LORD God made . . . .“ This likely does not imply that everything happens on one day. It is more likely simply an idiom meaning “When.”

6. The problem at the beginning. The problem encountered in Gen 1 is a chaotic cosmic ocean (the Deep) that is keeping the earth “formless and void.” That threat has to be addressed in order for the earth to be inhabited. In Gen 2, the state of the things is lack of water. 

I hope that wasn’t too tedious.

But, there is more.

There are other texts in the Bible that comment on creation and that add their distinctive flavors to the mix. To avoid making this a long winded newsletter, let me simply mention them with some very brief comments at the end:

Job 38-41 

Psalm 104 (which owes a debt to the Egyptian “Hymn to the Aten”)

Proverbs 8:22-31

I am not suggesting that these three examples (there are more that could be mentioned) are necessarily in tension with Gen 1 or Gen 2, but they certainly go about describing it differently. If you're up for it, I would read each of these and then go back and read Gen 1-2. It is hard to unsee the differences in style and content.

A quick word about creation in the New Testament. To begin, Christ is said to be the one through whom all things were created (John 1 and Hebrews 1:2). That notion is similar to the role wisdom plays in creation in Proverbs 8. 

Elsewhere, the notion of “creation out of nothing” (ex nihilo) is suggested in Hebrews 11:3 (and perhaps a few other passages). This notion is foreign to the Hebrew Bible, where creation is not out of nothing, a point made especially clear in Gen 1:1, where the earth was in existence but formless and void due to the presence of the darkness and the Deep.

It’s worth mentioning what we see in 2 Peter 3:5: “by the word of God heavens existed long ago and an earth was formed out of water and by means of water . . . . ” Forming the earth “out of water” seems to be a nod to the creation story in Gen 1.

I remember a professor of mine in graduate school telling us that a “biblical” view of creation is about much more than reading the beginning of Genesis.  There are other texts that would need to be addressed. The end result will be not one grand story but a lesson in the multivocality of the Bible.