How many stories of creation are there in Genesis?

Answer 1

There are two creation stories in Genesis, plus fragments of a third in Job and the Book of Psalms. The original creation story of Genesis is now the second one, starting at verse 2:4b (the second sentence of verse 2:4). The early Jews are believed to have encountered an early version of what is now the first creation story, in Genesis 1:1-2:4a, during the Babylonian Exile. It was assimilated and added to Genesis, without removing the second creation story, probably because the older story was popular and it would have caused dissent to have removed it.

Leon R. Kass (The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis) says that pious readers, believing that the text cannot contain contradictions, ignore the major disjunctions between the two creation stories and tend to treat the second story as the fuller, more detailed account of the creation of man (and woman), but he says we must scrupulously avoid reading into the second story any facts or notions taken from the first (and vice versa) if we mean to understand each story on its own terms.

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Answer 2

For many in Judeo-Christian belief systems, there is only one Creation account given in Genesis 1 in outline fashion, in a 7 (24 hour) day specific sequence. The split for some comes in the Genesis 2 account as some read this as a separate accounting of creation while others simply do not read it as such. For those who do not see 2 separate accounts but only one Creation telling, the accounts in Genesis 2 are intended to be complementary/supplementary for the reader. Genesis 2 concentrates upon the 6th day only of Creation week - the making of man called Adam - and the subsequent making of his 'help meet or meet help or fit helper,' Eve while in the Garden.