What are two different stories about how the world was created?

Answer 1

We need go no further than The Bible to find two stories about how the world was created. One creation story begins with a pre-existing earth and the ocean already present and a wind moving across the surface. The seas rested on the dry land, which appeared later, when God gathered the waters together. The first thing that God created was light, even though there was not yet a source for that light. God proceeded to create everything in the universe, although not necessarily in the same order that science tells us. The very last creations were man, both male and female, telling them to procreate and subdue the earth, with dominion over every living thing. As God proceeded, he saw that everything was good. This creation story is to be found in Genesis 1:1-2:4a.

A second creation story also begins with a pre-existing earth, but no plants grew because God had not yet made it rain. In this story, a man called Adam was the first creation, but a woman was not created until all the other living creatures had been created and each one named by Adam. This creation story is to be found in Genesis 2:4b-20.

The two stories are quite different and even contradictory. Leon R. Kass (The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis) says that when we recognise the independence of the two creation stories we must scrupulously avoid reading into the second story any facts or notions taken from the first, and vice versa.

For more information, please visit: http://christianity.answers.com/theology/the-story-of-creation

Answer 2

1) The Biblical narrative in Genesis 2) A different narrative, such as that of the Native Americans.

Note:

Rashi commentary (2:8) explains that Genesis ch.1 and 2 form a single set of events, as chapter 2 expands the brief verses of ch.1 with further detail.

An attempt to split the text artificially has been perpetrated by people such as Wellhausen (the father of modern Biblical-criticism, 1844-1918) who suggested attributing the narrative to various authors, despite the Torah's explicit statement as to its provenance (Exodus 24:12, Deuteronomy 31:24). Wellhausen's claims have been debunked one by one, as Archaeology and other disciplines have demonstrated the integrity of the Torah. No fragments have ever been found that would support his Documentary Hypothesis, which remains nothing more than an arbitrary claim, whose falsehood has been pointed out:

http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=6&article=1131(a Christian author)

http://www.whoreallywrotethebible.com/excerpts/chapter4-1.php

http://www.pearlmancta.com/BiblicalcriticswrongRShlomoCohen.htm