Question: “Are the creation accounts in Genesis 1 and 2 really that different?” was a question asked of me last week – not by a theology student but by a high school teacher working through a textbook for her class.
Question: “Are the creation accounts in Genesis 1 and 2 really that different?” was a question asked of me last week – not by a theology student but by a high school teacher working through a textbook for her class.
For years I’ve started lectures on the Book of Genesis, both at the undergraduate and the graduate level, with this simple question. Every semester I am appalled by the overwhelming super-majority of my students (add church members, too) who aren’t even aware that Genesis 2 presents a different order of creation than Genesis 1.
Those who are aware of this have typically studied under professors who used such differences to question the truthfulness, accuracy, authorship, or inspiration of the Word of God. (Would it surprise you, further, to learn that one-fifth or less of university/seminary teachers of the Bible belong to a conservative society, which requires affirmation of the Bible as the inspired Word of God?)
Archie England answers: Now, to answer the question.
Yes, there are real differences in the order of creation in the two accounts (Genesis 1;2). First, ordinals (numbers that order) are used to show a logical, thoughtful progression of the evening/morning episodes of the creative acts of God in Genesis 1.
The order of the creative days escalate the importance of the final three creative acts (days). Light, created the first day, is further specified – as the sun, moon, and stars – on the fourth day. Firmaments, regions, of inhabitable air, waters, and ground, formed the second day; become the domain of fowl and aquatic life on the fifth day. The sixth day unveils the grand finale introduced by the shaping of inhabitable dry ground (continent) surrounded by waters: God placed animal life, along with insects, and the zenith of His creation – Mankind – upon the earth. Finished, God rested the seventh day.
Genesis 2 presents creation differently. Genesis 2:4-6 presumes the existence of dry ground first. Mankind, but only the male, God created second (2:7). Vegetation, God created third (2:9-14), along with multiple water sources, minerals, metals, etc. (evidently, there was a lot of vegetation).
Animal life came fourth: God, having placed the man in the Garden, provided him with food, instruction, and companionship (2:15-20).
Adam, however, recognized that no female of his own species existed. So, the crowning event of creation became God’s forming of Eve. Now, male and female of the human species could, too, become one flesh.
Do the differences between Genesis 1-2 mean that the Bible is not trustworthy? No – may it never be! Genesis 1 presents God as the Agent of everything that came into being. His power brought the animate, as well as inanimate, into existence.
Life began because God chose life for His creation. The seventh day (2:1-3) focuses only upon God. No other shares this moment! It is God alone who emerges as the hero of the seven days of creation. Genesis 2, on the other hand, shows us the purpose of God’s creation (not His power): it’s humankind!
God created all things into existence so that He might create a race of beings with a free will; sentient beings with the capacity –not mere instinct– to love God and enjoy Him forever! Mankind, the biblical writer recorded, was indeed the focus of Genesis 2.