wavy said:
The discrepancies exist because there are two creation accounts in Genesis falling within two literary strata: the Priestly literary stratum (Gen i.1-ii.3) and the Jahwist literary stratum (Gen ii.4 & onwards).
You are assuming the salient point of your argument "as if it is true" that is not how you "prove" the point.
Both use different names for 'God', both envision him differently, both have a distinct literary style, and their chronology is incompatible.
This too is in error. Gen 1:2-2:4 is a "chronological sequence" by definition "evening and morning where the nth-day" format makes it clear.
There is no "specific time at all" given in Gen 2:5-end of chapter. Trying to pit these two passages "against each other" as if they are "competing chronologies" is to ignore the details of what is a Chronological Sequence - and what is not. It also ignores the repetitive feature of Hebrew writing.
Basically as stated at the first - you are assuming your salient point rather than proving it and here you have made yet another "assumption" that Gen 2:5-end is a "Chronology" -- it is not.
The Priestly version seems to be an etiology explaining the origin of the cosmos, but most importantly the Sabbath.
"seems to be" is also a problematic form of "proof". Many things may "seem to be" to a great many individuals viewing the same artifact. What we need is "details" and "Facts" from which to draw conlusions.
in Gen 1:2-3:4 we have an account in the form of 7 "evenings and mornings" of the earth formed with atmosphere, rotation, single-sided light source, and TWO functioning lights in the sky (Sun and moon day 4) as well as an account for ALL life on earth and the establishment of a holy day memorial of that 7-day sequential chronology.
These are the "details IN the text" -- what you choose to do with them is then up to you to defend with evidence not mere assumption.
The Priestly version culminates with Yahweh resting on the Sabbath and sanctifying the day. In other words, the story reflects one tradition of why ancient Israel worshipped on the Sabbath which is also reflected in the Priestly emendation to the Elohist version of the Ten Commandments in Exo xx.10-11 (contrast that with the Deuteronomistic version of the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy v which states liberation from Egypt is the reason for honoring the Sabbath, or the Jahwist version of the Ten Commandments in Exodus xxxiv, where the Sabbath appears to be related to agricultural practices).
In Gen 1-2:4 and in Exodus 20:8-11 where that SAME chronological sequence is "summarized into LAW" we see the same 7 day chronological sequence. From that Exodus 20 event they got the "tablets of STONE" -- it was literally "written in stone"
Deut 5 comes FORTY YEARS LATER than Exodus 20 and is a summary review by Moses just before his death. In his own account -- given in Deut 5 he does not "revise history" i.e. "The stone did not change" rather he ADDS to the in-stone account yet ANOTHER reason for Israel to comply with the observance of that creation-memorial -- the addition is the fact that Israel (and not any other human nation) was ALSO the beneficiary of supernatural divine intervention in freeing them from slavery. Impossible to ignore.
Your disconnected and fractured document speculations also need an associated disconnected and fractured history where different nations and different people are somehow (in a grand story telling fashion) to be merged so that you can finally get to the ONE document at the end. A document that the NT writers appear to "swear to" including the "incovenient details" of "adam made first" and "eve first deceived and then adam" as well as "8 people preserved in the ark" and the detail of Adam and Eve being the first man and woman -- establishing marriage as a direct act of God himself. So many details in the OT are confirmed in the new that the slice-and-dice model has to come up with a glue-and-paste solution so that the NT writers can be "none-the-wiser" about the fractured disconnected many-storied origins for scripture being speculated.
Notice Peter's summation of that OT text "NO scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation but rather holy men of old MOVED by the Holy Spirit - spoke from GOD" -- or was it "spoke from Mesopotamia" -- anyway -- one of those is correct not both.
It is impossible to compose the complete many-storied set of machinations that would be needed JUST to string that story and all it's self-conflicted parts together so that we end up with an ancient Jewish nation holding to the 5 books of Moses as an account of their national history as well as the NT writers attributing it all to one source - divine revelation TO Moses.
The Jahwist version of creation seems to be reworked from ancient Mesopotamian myths,
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We have no indication that ancient Israel regarded the LAW of Moses as "an assembly of Mesopotamian myths" - again this "seems to be" platform is open to many things including Dawkins "flying spaghetti monster" -- we need facts.
in the account Moses gives -- God comes before Mesopotamians -- so also the world wide flood and the ark with 8 people -- a "detail preserved" even in the account that Peter gives. That means that Mesopotamians were FAMILY with Noah at some generational level and HAD to have had some remant of the original story handed down to them.
The hand-waiving that goes with a "seems to be" argument is not the substantive form of "proof" that your argument needs.
in Christ,
Bob
