What is the difference between the two creation stories in the Bible?

Answer 1

The two stories are quite different and even contradictory. Scholars attribute the first to the Priestly source, based on earlier creation stories he met during the Babylonian Exile. This story is seen as originating in a culture accustomed to oceans and rivers. The second story is attributed to the Yahwist source and is typical of an inland culture for which rain is an important creation.

The first creation story (Genesis 1:1-2:4a - the first sentence in verse 2:4) 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 necesarity 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. In this story, God is all-powerful, simply speaking things into existence.

The second creation story (Genesis 2:4b-20) 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. Unlike the first creation story which has the animals created so that man can have dominion over them, this story has the animals created as possible companions for Adam, who will be a servant of the earth. There are limits to God's powers: he needs dirt in order to create Adam and a rib to create Eve. This more limited power continues through subsequent narratives of the Yahwist until God sends a Flood because he can not destroy mankind without natural assistance.

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.

Answer 2

The two stories are quite different and even contradictory. Scholars attribute the first to the Priestly source, based on earlier creation stories he met during the Babylonian Exile. This story is seen as originating in a culture accustomed to oceans and rivers. The second story is attributed to the Yahwist source and is typical of an inland culture for which rain is an important creation.

The first creation story (Genesis 1:1-2:4a - the first sentence in verse 2:4) 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 necesarity 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. In this story, God is all-powerful, simply speaking things into existence.

The second creation story (Genesis 2:4b-20) 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. Unlike the first creation story which has the animals created so that man can have dominion over them, this story has the animals created as possible companions for Adam, who will be a servant of the earth. There are limits to God's powers: he needs dirt in order to create Adam and a rib to create Eve. This more limited power continues through subsequent narratives of the Yahwist until God sends a Flood because he can not destroy mankind without natural assistance.

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.

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