What is the seven day creation story?

Answer 1

The seven day creation story is the first biblical creation story, in Genesis 1:1-2:4a. It differs significantly from the second creation story, Genesis 2:4b-20, because each had a different author, with the source of the seven day creation story now known as the Priestly Source.

In the seven day creation story, God creates something on each of the first six days, then rests on the seventh:

1. On day 1, God created daylight and saw that it was good
2. A firmament to separate the waters above from the waters below. In the original Hebrew, the waters appear to be pre-existing.
3. On the third day, God gathered the waters together to allow the land to appear. He also created plants.
4. On the fourth day, God placed lights in the firmament.
5. On the fifth day, he created fish and birds.
6. On the sixth day, he created every creature on the land, with man, both male and female, last of all.
7. On the seventh day, God rested.

Some, believing that The Bible cannot contain contradictions, see the seven day creation story as the fuller version of the creation story that follows, beginning in the second sentence of Genesis 2:4b. However Leon R. Kass (The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis) says that each story should be understood on its own terms.

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

Answer 2

The seven-day Creation narrative is the first chapter of Genesis.

Note:

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).The same literary devices which the Torah employs to enrich its text, have been seized upon by "Bible-critics" in their ongoing attempts to undermine it. 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, 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

And see also the wider picture:

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