sdelsolray

The title of the subforum is "Evolution/Creation".

Discussion of the Genesis creation stories (note the plural) fits here, as well as some other subforums.

Smullyan-esque

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Minimalist

He seems to have lost interest anyway.

sweetpea7

Another great example of how people who claim to live by and love their Bible really do not seem interested in learning about it. They just want their preacher or denomination to tell them stories. The Documentary Hypothesis is fascinating and explains perfectly well why Genesis 1 and 2 are so different, but I guess the dedicated believer in the Bible has better things to do than to learn about it. I'm not surprised, but it says a lot about a person's faith or lack thereof.

manwithdream

I'd like to give my own alternative explanation that you probably won't find in any Bible commentaries. I think Gen 1 tells the whole creation and Gen 2 just mentions details of what happened after man was created. I think the animals were created before mankind in Gen 1, and then in Gen 2 on the same day, G-d decided man needed a helper, so He created the animals again for Adam to choose a helper or mate? from them. I think he didn't pick one, so G-d made a mate or helper from his rib, the woman.

Gen 1 says G-d created plants, but Gen 2 says there were no plants in the field because it did not rain yet. I think there were some plants before it rained, but maybe they were in the water or by the edge of the sea. The plants of the field could only have grown after it rained or there was a mist of water or whatever it says. (I am writing from memory.)

Do these arguments make sense to you?

Kenneth Greifer

Saramago

Genesis 1 says God made EVERY living thing in the sea and air, and ALL creatures that move on land ("according to their kind") before any humans were made. No animals left to make, after that.

And, if you want to go the route you've gone, note that Genesis 1 also says God created "mankind", "male and female", before creating Adam in Genesis 2. So Adam wasn't the first man, and Eve wasn't the first woman.Just think what a different...and shorter...story the Bible would have been if Adam had picked out a nice ewe. (Which he could have done with God's blessing, apparently.) In Genesis 1 God made the dry land out of the wetness, so the land was on the wet side, not the dry side, to start. Then he made vegetation including "plants with seeds". Which implies plants of the field, unless you're only including vegetables (botanical vegetables meaning plant parts without seeds - none of this botanical fruit masquerading as vegetables, like tomatoes, avocados, cucumbers, and squash) as the plants in the field which couldn't grow because of the sudden drought you're proposing.

Yeah, as the machinations of someone who feels compelled to make up some explanation that isn't what the text says, in a desperate attempt to make the 2 accounts match. :huh:

GakuseiDon

It does to me. If you read it as a story, rather than try to look at it through the lens of orthodox Christianity (many atheists seem to have a harder time avoiding that than theists do, I suspect), it makes perfect sense. There are even a few different options.

Gen 1: God creates everything, including creatures and men.
Gen 2: God creates a garden, then creates a man, Adam, to tend it. God creates creatures to help him out.

The transition point is here:

Gen2:4 This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,
5 before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground;
6 but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.
7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
8 The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.

Gen 1 is the creation of wild things, including men. They were told to multiply everywhere.

Gen 2 is the creation of domesticated things: (1) plants of the field; (2) the first Hebrew (effectively, for those who were reading the story) as represented by Adam, the first son of God; and (3) creatures to help him work the garden.

Later the sons of God saw the daughters of men, and we know what happened then.

Saramago

That's how I read it when I picked up a Bible at age 8 and started reading it from page 1. That was the simplest way to make Genesis 1 & 2 make sense.

But it's too simplistic. We're not in elementary school any more. Reading it this way ignores the language & origin of the 2 stories, for yes there are TWO stories. They use different words for God. They date to different times in history (Genesis 2 older than Genesis 1). They reflect different cultural influences (Genesis 1 having similarities to Babylonian creation myth and possibly written specifically to cast Elohim as greater than the Babylonian god Marduk).

So, yes. You can scrunch up your eyes and make it look like it's one simple story, but the adult interpretation is that's simply not the case.

Edited to add: And Genesis 2:4 is the bridge, added by a later editor who was presumably trying to come up with as seamless a transition as he could.

GakuseiDon

I agree that they are probably two separate origin stories that have been stitched together. But that's the thing: they HAVE been stitched together. There isn't necessarily a contradiction.

jgoodguy

They are contradictory when the Bible is taken literally and inerrant.