The Creation Narrative
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The Creation Narrative
The Bible raps up with two creation narratives. Both displays similar accounts as they both explain the creation of human beings, animals, and plants. However, some distinctive ways that these two creation stories even contradict one another on crucial aspects. For instance, few similar accounts in the creation stories are described in different orders. The creation of plants and animals follow each other; then God creates a man and a woman simultaneously. Gen 2 gives a different story as God makes a human, later animals, and then divides the human to form a male and female. Most people view God as a magician on the way He conjures parts of the universe: “Let there be … and that was done.” According to historical studies, the traditional creation narrative is faulty. Instead, the Bible raps up with the first two verses that explain the chaos that came before God’s creative ordering of the cosmos. The story describes how the earth was formless void before God created heaven and earth, which is why it was chaos in the beginning.
The rest of Gen 1 unfolds how God transformed the dark chaos and come up with an ordered, and inhabited cosmos often described as “very good.” The light was created first and serves to ground day and night patterns, which is in the chapter’s vast parts. God created the dome on day two and is primal to the rest of the creation’s flourishing. On day three, God created dry land and plants. Day four brings the creation of light, corresponding to the day one creation. On day five, He creates sea and air to inhabit day two realms. On the sixth day, God creates humans and animals to inhabit day three creation: dry land and consume plants that sprung from it. Gen 1 wanted to cement or rather to put across that God controls everything, and everything created was perfect.
In Gen 1 account, its deity name is Elohim, which means “God,” while Gen 2 creating account uses tetragrammaton, YHWH, meaning “Lord.” The two versions display a distinctive literary style. In the first creation account, everything seems to be neatly prepared in three days of the organization, and the actual formation follows in the last three days. After every creation, a formulaic expression concluded by “and there was Y.” God rested on the seventh day following the creation and existence of all things in their proper sphere. The orderly pattern represents an orderly universe. The second creation narrative starts in the second half of Gen 2:4 and continues towards the conclusion of chapter 3. In the second creation, the first creation account is absent in terms of structure and the focus. In other words, it tends to be much less formulaic; instead, it is somewhat a dramatic story in the form of seven scenes.
The appealing divergencies make it seem like two different authors holding unique theological ideas drafted these accounts. The divergencies in the narratives show a distinctive pattern; each narrator conceptualizes the deity. God appears to be at a distant ordering thing to happen, “creating” through word of mouth according to a master plan. On the contrary, in Gen 2 creation myth, the author depicts God so that He appears to have a human-like figure walking in the garden trying to create things in somewhat a trial-and-error approach. Gen 2 creation version presents God in a more accessible manner than the Gen 1 transcendent creator.
