 The first two chapters of Genesis are an enigma to many theologians. They both seem to contradict each other regarding the stories of creation. The purpose here is to bring some of these contradictions to light and try and make sense of them. Specific passages of the bible will not be included on this page. If you want to see them go to the link htmlbible.com located on the bottom of the page. To help illustrate the differences between the first chapter a table will be included that will display lists of the facts of the two different versions of creation in Genesis.
Table of Differences
Genesis 1
Both Men and Women were created at the same time
God is only referred to as "God"
There were six days of creation with one day of rest
God uses the phrase let there be...
when something is to be created
God doesnt explicitly create things, it just happens,
as evidenced in the statement above
Genesis 2
Man was created first, followed by woman,
who was created from the rib of man
God is referred to as LORD God, not just God
All the forms of creation occurred in only one day
It is evident that God is the one doing all the creating
Obviously there are some discrepancies with this story of creation. One explanation for this is the fact that through translation the words may have changed. In the second chapter when the word created is used presents a potential problem through translation from Hebrew. The word in Hebrew for created can also be translated as had created thus creating a difference in when things are said to have happened in the second telling of creation. Even with this explanation for the difference in the stories there still remains some discontinuity. There are many theories as why there were two different stories. Some of them are how there may have been two writers of Genesis, or there were two stories being told and the writer could not decide which one to put in the bible, so he put both. Though there are two clashing stories, the basic idea for this story of creation can still be seen. There is still the basic premise that God creates the universe, and from that He creates Earth, light and dark, night and day, flora and fauna, and man and woman. And with the aforementioned error in translation, we can assume that this all takes place in six days with one day of rest.
 |
