Which biblical creation account is older?

Answer 1

They are one and the same. Many modern scholars are coming to the conclusion that there is only ONE Creation account in The Bible. They note several terms and other Book verses to support their reasoning. They also realize now that the 'point-of-view' changes as Genesis is a book of genealogies. Please note two here in the footnotes:

Genesis 1:1-2 New King James Version (NKJV) The History of Creation 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was[a]on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

Footnotes:

1. Genesis 1:2 Words in italic type have been added for clarity. They are not found in the original Hebrew or Aramaic.

Genesis 2:4New King James Version (NKJV)

4 This is the history[a] of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens,Footnotes:

1. Genesis 2:4 Hebrew toledoth, literally generations

Answer 2

The second creation account in Genesis (from Genesis 2:4b) is much older in Judaism, and more primitive than the first (Genesis 1:1-2:4a). It dates from early in the first millennium BCE, whereas the first creation account only dates from the Babylonian Exile, around 500 years later.

The fragments of a creation story that appear in the psalms and the Book of Job are probably even older than either account in Genesis, and were passed down orally to the Persian period.

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

Answer 3

Neither. 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