Which story of creation in the Bible do you believe?

Question

There are two, one right after the other, and they contradict. The first one is the "let the be light" story, where God creates everything and then creates man - saying "be fertile and multiply" with no specifics on how many there are and nothing stating that they are in paradise, just that they exsist. The second is the Adam & Eve story about Eden and forbidden fruit, everything else is created after them to name.

TO DON: This question was asked to me by my my great uncle who is a respected, and long serving, priest. Please do not yell at me to "study more" I have plenty of teaching.

Answer 1

::runs to shelf and grabs bible::

Your right! I always thought that it was the whole-one-story. In the first one it goes light, plants, animals, man. and in the second man comes BEFORE the animals and has fun naming them. they can't be the same story!

I guess if I had to pick one it would be the first, the whole Adam and Eve thing never made sense to me. If it was true than we would all be cousins! But the first doesn't mention how many there were - or some fancy mistical garden. I wonder if that changes the whole "origional sin" thing....

Answer 2

There are not two different stories of creation. There is the story of the seven days of creation, and there is the story of the creation of man, and no, they do not contradict. While people have been reading Genesis for 4,000 years, this idea of "two creations" has only come about very recently, and only by those who do not know Hebrew.

Genesis 1:1-2:4a is, as Genesis 2:4a states, the account of the heavens and the earth and when they were created. Genesis 2:4a is a summary statement. Unfortunately, when chapters and verses were added many years later (the Bible did not use to contain either, and all such divisions were added over 3,000 years later), Genesis 2:4a and 24:b became one verse, and therefore 2:4a got put with the section that follows, making the appearance of a second creation account. However, read the supposed "second creation account..." there is NO mention, of the creation of the heavens. Therefore this statement can not go with the verses that follow, but must be put with the verses that preceed it.

Begining with Genesis 2:4b we have the story of man given to us. Considering that's us, it only makes sense that this account is given more detail.

Now, if you don't know Hebrew, there could be one apparant contradiction here...
It says that man was created when "no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up." But plants were created long before man, so there is a contradiction, right? Wrong. The term "of the field" referred to farming. Basically this is saying "before man farmed the land, God created man in a garden He had planted." That is essentially all 2:4b-9 is saying.

Answer 3

The first story appears to be a general overview.

The second is more specific and how man relates to the creation. Even the second one says that God brought the animals to man to name (not created them after man)

On the whole, there were no written records at the time. The whole creation story only takes up a couple of chapters. Don't expect too much detail.

Many people assume that the Bible is just a bunch of stories and that there are many contradictions.

There are a bunch of stories in the Bible and in each of them the nature of man is well described. There is no cover up for the bad behaviour.

When you read about the specific contractions claimed, there are very few, and they don't mean much. One difficulty is that Hebrew had now vowels and also even in English one word can mean more than one thing.

The idea is not to look just at the words but at how they apply to our lives.

Basically, in the Old Testament, man did everything wrong that he could do wrong.

Answer 4

Those who know Hebrew well say there are two stories...one the creation, second the recreation. The english translations, according to those scholars, do not capture the whole sense of the Hebrew, and miss part of the detail. Check out the works of R.B. Thieme, he explains it very well.

Secondly, the story rendered isn't chronological, nor complete, because it was written for a purpose, and that purpose was not to explain the creation, but just to give a general overview of it.

Keep in mind that from beginning to end the subject of the Bible is Jesus, from the root of the need to the cause and effect to the foreshadowing, to the relationship between God and the Jews to the salvation, it's all about Jesus.

David

Answer 5

Actually the stories are one in the same.

One, the second one that you mention goes into more detail about the first.

The first that you mention just gives specifics on what was created on each day, then the next story that you mention gives additional details.

I know that you have had much "training", just go back and compare them again, they compliment each other, they do not contradict.

Much like certain languages read left to right, and others right to left, the book of Genesis, goes backwards and forwards, it does not read like a journal of events in specific order unless specified as in the exact days of what was created when.

Answer 6

The second story is far older and come from Sumerian tradition. The first comes from Persian Zoroastrian tradition and is copied almost exactly from their creation story.

As to which to believe--I don't know, there are thousands of creation myths by virtually every culture and ethnicity. The two stories that you make reference to were not even original but rather borrowed from other sources.

I think I prefer the creation myths of either the Bantu or the Lakota Indians, although the Jewish creation myths do make it to my top 15.

Answer 7

The Bible is a book with stories, inspired by God to many writers, the creation story or narative was written by two different groups of people, one group saw God all powerful, which He is, and one saw the humanity in God, which He is. So to get both stories, "stories", in the Bible, when it was translated to the Greek they were left as is today. Both naratives, one God creator all powerful, one God human and in relation directly with us.
So both can be believed in and one does not contradict the other.
May God keep you searching for answers always.

Answer 8

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Answer 9

You might want to read the whole thing straight through, you might get the story right.. Creation was creation, Adam and Eve were created, but their story isn't the story of creation, it just happened right AFTER creation.

Answer 10

Maybe we will get an apologist saying they are from two different witnesses giving slightly different accounts. I always love that answer. Hard to fit it in here, but let's hope.

Oh, the good old read the bible answer. I don't think there would be a question if she had not read the bible, Don. That's why we don't ask you.