Please help me understand the discrepancies.

[Rick W]

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).

There's another way to look at all this. Whether I believe it or not I'm not sure but I'll throw it out on the table and everyone can have a look at it.
There indeed are two creation accounts but they are not "one following the other".

Day one - creation of the heavens and earth, light and darkness (day and Night) and evening and morning
Day two - creation of the sky
Day three - creation of ground(earth) and water(sea), and all vegetation
Day four - creation of seasons, day, month, year. creation of the Sun and Moon
Day five - creation of all the creatures
Day six - creation of man and woman

1) Day one - creation of the heavens and earth, light and darkness (day and Night) and evening and morning
2) Day four - creation of seasons, day, month, year. creation of the Sun and Moon

3) Day two - creation of the sky
4) Day five - creation of fowl and fish

5) Day three - creation of ground(earth) and water(sea), and all vegetation
6) Day six - creation of beasts, man and woman

Notice how one compliments the other although there are two accounts. Yet there are 6 days of creation. One set is not chronologically following the other but rather in conjunction.

OK, there it is.
Have at it

 

[Rick W]

Something doesn't look right
lol

what am I doing wrong? :-?
Anyone see what I'm trying to say, without much success it seems.

 

[BobRyan]

Look at it from the standpoint of exegesis -- when the author numbers the days he is giving a form of text with an explicit definition of "numbered sequence". If we suppose that there is "another sequence" -- one that does not follow the numbers and that this is the real sequence that the author meant to show his readers then...

1. How more explicit could the author have been had he wanted to show the 1-7 sequence in the text -- if giving the numbered sequence we see in the text is not really the way to do it?

2. How do we expect that his primary readers -- the Hebrews at the time of the exodus could have figured out that Moses was really intending to show a sequence different from the numbering that he gave?

In other words -- looking at "clear intent IN the text" as our first concern how could we show that the author meant some other sequence than the numbered sequence he gives?

in Christ,

Bob

 

[Rick W]

I don't know. But I know the Hebrews had a different way of stating a lot of things as opposed to the way we do it today.
But of course that's no argument, just a possiblity.

Let's see.
The writer sees God creating all from heaven and earth, the waters and ground etc. Somewhat as a first set - day 1 thru 3. Then the writer depicts a second set, the "subordinants" within that which was created for 4 - 6 instead of creating one thing, populating that as required, then creating another thing and populating that one as needed and so forth. That's how we would have written it. But it could be the writer chose to create the stage in the first set - 1, 2 3 - then go back to populate it all in 4, 5 and 6.

I don't know. Is that plausible?

 

[Rick W]

It's like looking at Gen 1 then Gen 2
First you get the overall picture then Gen 2 fleshes it out.

 

[BobRyan]

Your arrangement shows typical Hebrew Chiasm 1 4, 2 5, 3 6, but chiasm argues that the initial sequence is correct however "another layer of information" is added by comparing the chiastic elements. It is like a 3 dimensional chess game where the direct reading is only one layer of true and accurate information.

In the 1 4, 2 5, 3 6 model the added information is that they are all leading to 7 in the same way. However Chiasm was never taken as "the real sequential order" for Hebrew text that I know of. It was simply used as a way to embed more information in the text than a direct rendering alone would provide.

in Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

It's like looking at Gen 1 then Gen 2
First you get the overall picture then Gen 2 fleshes it out.

When you see plants referenced in Gen 2 without a mention of "a specific day" you simply look back to the Chronological Sequence (there is only one of those -- and that is given in chapter 1-2:4) and find that on day 3 God created plants - but with Chapter 2 info you can add "and there was no rain - a dew would rise each day and water the Earth". That is more data than you had in Chapter 1 alone.

When you get to the creation of animals and man and woman in Chapter 2 -- you go back to the Chronological sequence and see that this is a reference to Day-6 and you now have even more information than you had for day 6 in Chapter 1 because now you know that Adam was created first and that he named Eve and you know the basis for Marriage -- rules about the Tree of knowledge, the existence of the Tree of Life, etc. And you know that mankind as first created was in direct communication with God.

So you are right chapter 2 fleshes out more details -- but does not repeat the details of chapter 1.

Adding them together we get a more refined - more detailed picture.

in Christ,

Bob

 

[Veritas]

I've heard it said before that the Hebrews did not view events or think about things in "step logic" like we do today, but rather "block logic". The Hebrews liked to group similar ideas together...

You can see this in Psalms

"Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path." Psalms 119:105

there are not two different things being said here, just one thing, in two different ways.

and proverbs....

"My son, do not forget my teaching, and keep my commands in your heart." Proverbs 3:1

another pretty good example is just a little later in Genesis...

Lamech said to his wives, "Adah and Zillah, listen to me; wives of Lamech, hear my words. I have killed a man for wounding me and a young man for injuring me." Genesis 4:23

Lamech only killed one person, it's just said twice in two different ways.

 

[Rick W]

Chiasm

C-H-I-A-

Hold on a sec Veritas. I'm still trying to figure out what Bob just said. :
:-D

 

[Veritas]

Sure Potluck... I can throw out another pretty neat thing as well...

You can read the account of Genesis and actually see six parallel stories. Quite the intricate writing if that's how it was intended... wanna see em?

 

[BobRyan]

I've heard it said before that the Hebrews did not view events or think about things in "step logic" like we do today, but rather "block logic". The Hebrews liked to group similar ideas together...

You can see this in Psalms

"Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path." Psalms 119:105

there are not two different things being said here, just one thing, in two different ways.

and proverbs....

"My son, do not forget my teaching, and keep my commands in your heart." Proverbs 3:1

another pretty good example is just a little later in Genesis...

Lamech said to his wives, "Adah and Zillah, listen to me; wives of Lamech, hear my words. I have killed a man for wounding me and a young man for injuring me." Genesis 4:23

Lamech only killed one person, it's just said twice in two different ways.

True and that is what you get in Gen 1 vs Gen 2 -- but there you don't see as much repetition as you see added information in Chapter 2 that was not given in 1.

in Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

Chiasm

C-H-I-A-

Hold on a sec Veritas. I'm still trying to figure out what Bob just said. :
:-D

Chi is the letter "X" in greek. If you take the first 3 days as the first leg of the X and the next 3 days as the 2nd leg of the X -- then cross them you will find that the first part of leg 1 -- corresponds to the first part of leg 2 -- just as you showed that day 1 and day 4 are related.

you did a good thing.

in Christ,

Bob

 

[Rick W]

Sure Potluck... I can throw out another pretty neat thing as well...

You can read the account of Genesis and actually see six parallel stories. Quite the intricate writing if that's how it was intended... wanna see em?

Sure thing.

 

[Veritas]

True and that is what you get in Gen 1 vs Gen 2 -- but there you don't see as much repetition as you see added information in Chapter 2 that was not given in 1.

yeah... and I think... there could be actually six, not just two repeated stories each giving added information.

Here we go!

Creation story 1
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Genesis 1.1 the word "created" in hebrew is "bara" which I think also means "fattening"... so it could be read as God fattening or filling up the earth.

Creation story 2
"and the earth was unfilled and empty and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Wind of God was hovering over the waters." Genesis 1.2

...maybe I'm stretching it here... but couldn't this "hovering" be God about His work...maybe the action of the Wind of God filling up the earth?

Creation story 3
"And God said, 'Let there be light', and there was light and God saw that the light was good and he separated the light from the darkness and God called the light 'day', and the darkness he called 'night' and there was evening, and there was morning, the first day". Genesis 1.3-5

Now I know this is called the "first day" but I think there could be a deeper meaning because the word "echad" is used for "first" instead of what you might expect.."reshon". Reshon is used for seqential stuff but "echad" means "one" or "in unity". So, it looks like not only do we have a first day but also there is a parallel being made with all the days of creation. And, if you think about it, the first day of creation is also a parallel with the whole of creation as the earth was in darkness and the act of filling the earth brought light to the earth.

Creation story 4
Genesis 1.3-13. The first three days of creation are the days of separating. On the first day God separated light and darkness. On the second day God separated the waters above from the waters below forming the sky and the seas. On the third day God separated the land from the water forming dry land. This can actually be viewed as a complete story which gives a little more information than the first 3....

Creation story 5
Genesis 1.14-31 The second set of three days of creation are the days of filling. On the fourth day God filled the light with the sun and the darkness with the moon and stars. On the fifth day God filled the sky with the birds and the sea with the fish. On the sixth day God filled the dry land with the animals and man. A little more information plus there is correlation between the first set of three days of separation with the second set of three days of filling.

Creation story 6
All of Genesis 1 together make a continuous story!

Oh.. I guess there is a story 7 too! Chapter 2:4-25!

 

[wavy]

***

 

[wavy]

I don't know. But I know the Hebrews had a different way of stating a lot of things as opposed to the way we do it today.
But of course that's no argument, just a possiblity.

Let's see.
The writer sees God creating all from heaven and earth, the waters and ground etc. Somewhat as a first set - day 1 thru 3. Then the writer depicts a second set, the "subordinants" within that which was created for 4 - 6 instead of creating one thing, populating that as required, then creating another thing and populating that one as needed and so forth. That's how we would have written it. But it could be the writer chose to create the stage in the first set - 1, 2 3 - then go back to populate it all in 4, 5 and 6.

I don't know. Is that plausible?

Yes. The Priestly creation narrative is constructed to where 'God' first forms the sky, land, and water (pre-existent in verse 2) and then proceeds to fill them.

Thanks,
Eric

 

[wavy]

I've heard it said before that the Hebrews did not view events or think about things in "step logic" like we do today, but rather "block logic". The Hebrews liked to group similar ideas together...

You can see this in Psalms

"Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path." Psalms 119:105

there are not two different things being said here, just one thing, in two different ways.

and proverbs....

"My son, do not forget my teaching, and keep my commands in your heart." Proverbs 3:1

another pretty good example is just a little later in Genesis...

Lamech said to his wives, "Adah and Zillah, listen to me; wives of Lamech, hear my words. I have killed a man for wounding me and a young man for injuring me." Genesis 4:23

Lamech only killed one person, it's just said twice in two different ways.

These are called parallelisms and they cannot be invoked to 'prove' some great parallelism between Genesis i & ii (they amount to two similar phrases meaning the same thing).

Thanks,
~Eric

 

[wavy]

True and that is what you get in Gen 1 vs Gen 2 -- but there you don't see as much repetition as you see added information in Chapter 2 that was not given in 1.

yeah... and I think... there could be actually six, not just two repeated stories each giving added information.

Here we go!

Creation story 1
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Genesis 1.1 the word "created" in hebrew is "bara" which I think also means "fattening"... so it could be read as God fattening or filling up the earth.

Creation story 2
"and the earth was unfilled and empty and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Wind of God was hovering over the waters." Genesis 1.2

...maybe I'm stretching it here... but couldn't this "hovering" be God about His work...maybe the action of the Wind of God filling up the earth?

Creation story 3
"And God said, 'Let there be light', and there was light and God saw that the light was good and he separated the light from the darkness and God called the light 'day', and the darkness he called 'night' and there was evening, and there was morning, the first day". Genesis 1.3-5

Now I know this is called the "first day" but I think there could be a deeper meaning because the word "echad" is used for "first" instead of what you might expect.."reshon". Reshon is used for seqential stuff but "echad" means "one" or "in unity". So, it looks like not only do we have a first day but also there is a parallel being made with all the days of creation. And, if you think about it, the first day of creation is also a parallel with the whole of creation as the earth was in darkness and the act of filling the earth brought light to the earth.

Creation story 4
Genesis 1.3-13. The first three days of creation are the days of separating. On the first day God separated light and darkness. On the second day God separated the waters above from the waters below forming the sky and the seas. On the third day God separated the land from the water forming dry land. This can actually be viewed as a complete story which gives a little more information than the first 3....

Creation story 5
Genesis 1.14-31 The second set of three days of creation are the days of filling. On the fourth day God filled the light with the sun and the darkness with the moon and stars. On the fifth day God filled the sky with the birds and the sea with the fish. On the sixth day God filled the dry land with the animals and man. A little more information plus there is correlation between the first set of three days of separation with the second set of three days of filling.

Creation story 6
All of Genesis 1 together make a continuous story!

Oh.. I guess there is a story 7 too! Chapter 2:4-25!

Yes, this is a huge bit of stretch. No reputable scholar would carve such a simplistic narrative like this. Verse 1 is prefatory, and I would argue that verses 1-2 form a single sentence (as the translation by the Jewish Publication Society reads, or as in Young's Literal). In other words, when Yahweh began to create the sky (shamayim) and land (erets), the conditions of existence were as in verse 2 with four pre-existing elements: land, darkness, water, and wind (ruach). The rest of the chapter narrates how God created the ordered universe with ('heavens and the earth') with the raw materials he had to work with. Pretty straightforward.

I do agree that he forms the major elements (firmament, sea, dry land) and then fills them, which correlates day 1 with day four, and day 2 with day 5, and day 3 with day 6.

Thanks,
~Eric

 

[Veritas]

These are called parallelisms and they cannot be invoked to 'prove' some great parallelism between Genesis i & ii (they amount to two similar phrases meaning the same thing).

According to who? You? That's fine if you believe that, but I don't think you could 'prove' there isn't a similar parallelism going on here. Seems reasonable to me to assume the same culture that thought in this "parallelistic" or "block logic" way would simply like to do this sort of thing. It actually makes good sense to me thinking of Gen 1 and 2 in a western way as well.

Yes, this is a huge bit of stretch. No reputable scholar would carve such a simplistic narrative like this.

Ah.... reputable scholar defined by whom?

 

[wavy]

According to who? You? That's fine if you believe that, but I don't think you could 'prove' there isn't a similar parallelism going on here. Seems reasonable to me to assume the same culture that thought in this "parallelistic" or "block logic" way would simply like to do this sort of thing. It actually makes good sense to me thinking of Gen 1 and 2 in a western way as well.

Gen i & ii hardly strike me as saying the same thing in a different way. The second account reverses order, switches up the literary style, and omits several things found in the first. Parallelisms are words/phrases that appear in poetic statements, not in entire narratives.

Ah.... reputable scholar defined by whom?

Is that relevant? Gen i & ii do not qualify as parallelisms, since parallelisms occurs between two words/phrases in poetry, not between two entire narratives. Anyway, anyone reading your post can see that it was a stretch (and you admitted as such).

Thanks,
~Eric