What is the real meaning of the second account of creation?

Answer 1

Leon R. Kass (The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis) says that the second account of creation in Genesis is independent of the first, differing not only in content but also in tone, mood and orientation. As the story opens, the earth is hard, dry and lacking in vegetation, yet every shrub and every herb are latently present, awaiting the right conditions to spring forth. This is very different from the first account, in which God says on the third day, "Let the earth bring forth grass ..."

The independence of the two creation stories means we must scrupulously avoid reading into the second story any facts or notions taken from the first. Thus, in reading about the origin of man in the story of the Garden of Eden, we must not think that man was created in God's image or that man is to be the ruler over the animals.

Like all creation stories, it tells us how we came to be and why we are here, but it is a far more sophisticxated story than this. Kass says we can learn most from the story by regarding it as a mythical yet realistic portrait of permanent truths about our humanity, rather than as a historical yet idealised portrait of a blissful existence we once enjoyed but lost. More than anything, it is about man's longing for immortality.

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

Answer 2

According to tradition, there is only one Genesis creation-narrative, with ch.2 serving as an expansion of the brevity of ch.1, not a separate set of events (Rashi commentary, Gen.2:8). In ch.1, God created the universe from nothing (Exodus 20:11, Isaiah 40:28; Maimonides' "Guide," 2:30; Targum and Nachmanides on Gen. 1:1; Rashi commentary, Gen.1:14), and in ch.2, God performed specific acts within the broader picture.
The same literary devices which the Torah employs to enrich its text, have been used by Bible-critics in an attempt to reassign its authorship.

The Jewish sages, based on ancient tradition, identified many of these devices, which include:

recapping earlier brief passages to elucidate,

employing different names of God to signify His various attributes,

using apparent changes or redundancies to allude to additional unstated details,

speaking in the vernacular that was current during each era,

and many more. While Judaism has always seen the Torah as an intricate tapestry that nonetheless had one Divine source, some modern authors such as Wellhausen (the father of modern Biblical-criticism, 1844-1918) have suggested artificially chopping up the narrative and attributing it to various authors, despite the Torah's explicit statement as to its provenance (Exodus 24:12, Deuteronomy 31:24). This need not concern believers, since his 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:

http://religion.answers.com/theory/debunking-the-jepd-documentary-hypothesis

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

And see also the wider picture:

http://judaism.answers.com/hebrew/does-archaeology-support-the-hebrew-bible