In the beginning...
Genesis: Chapters 1 & 2 contains two very well known creation stories which are so much the foundation of all the Biblical religions. These stories show Gods power, and his status as the supreme being. They lay the foundations for why we are to worship him as the giver of all life, and why we should fear his judgment.
Most Christians unknowingly combine these two stories in to one single story. Since most Christians have been told the story before they can read, and already know what the stories say, if they ever actually read the stories for themselves, they tend to read what they already believe instead of actually reading the words written, and don’t notice any problems. This practice of reading what you believe instead of reading what is written is very common. Ignorance is a very powerful tool which has been used by the Christian church from its beginning. As a result, it can be a laborious project even showing many people that there are two stories.
The fact that there are two stories is, in and of itself, not a problem. So, long as both stories agree on any shared details then they could simply be differing views of the same event. One popular, though unfounded belief is that both stories were written by Moses. This notion is rejected by Bible scholars who say that the two stories were written by different authors more than a century apart, and base the stories on other stories written by other people hundreds of years earlier. The scholars’ explanation of the stories is largely ignored by literal intepretationists.
The literal interpretationists who do accept that there are two separate stories will often say something along the lines of: ‘Genesis chapter 2 is a detailed description of the creation of man contained in chapter one, which is why it may seem like a different story.’ Or, as it was once put to me: the differences are the same as my telling you one day that I went to the mall on Saturday, and then my later giving you a list of stores that I went to while at the mall on Saturday. Either way, I went to the mall on Saturday.
The problem is that the Genesis version of this story would be closer to your telling me that you went to the mall every day for a week and giving me a list of stores that you went to while at the mall in a specific order, and then later saying that you went to the mall last week and giving me a list of the same stores in a different order. You have given me two different lists only one of which can be correct. With normal person to person contact, this wouldn’t be a big deal as people make mistakes. But, if the lists you give me are to be taken as the infallible divinely inspired word of God which I am to believe every single word of, then the two lists must match perfectly.
Genesis’ lists don’t even come close to matching.
Genesis Chapters 1 & 2: A Summary
(Since most literal interpretationists use the King James version of the Bible, that is the version I will use here, but the details for the stories are universal across all accepted versions. The problems with differing versions and why they even exist will be discussed in future posts)
Genesis Chapter 1 (Gen 1) contains the well-known day by day order of creation:
Genesis Chapter 1 & 2: Detailed Comparison
Chapter one creation starts with God floating over a dark, empty blob which is to become the Earth then goes on to explain in a detailed ordered list how everything else was created over a span of six days.
Chapter two creation, which says it is “...the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created,” talks about how all creation, including the Earth-blob which was there when chapter one starts, was done in one day.
If you ignore either Gen 2:4 , or Gen 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, and 31, as wrong, then there is no contradiction. Or, you could say that the term day does not necessarily mean the 24 hour rotation of the Earth on its axis as we understand it to be, but instead could be 24 hrs, six days, or even a millennia, and that these definitions are different in different chapters and in different parts of chapters. To do this you must first ignore Gen 1: 14-18 as wrong. Either way you have to say that one part or another is wrong, but this can’t be possible if the whole thing is right, so you could do as most believers do and ignore this problem all together.
So, lets do as most believers do: accept that a day is sometimes not a day, pretend that Gen 2:4 doesn’t even exist, and continue on blissfully ignorant of this problem and accept the creation story in chapter two as a detailed description of day(?) 6 from chapter 1.
Since the first part of the chapter 2 story uses the word and instead of then it can be argued (albeit weakly) that there is no conflict between it and chapter 1 which liberally uses then to give it order. There is no conflict since and doesn’t explicitly imply a definitive order. However, the first word of Gen 2:15 is then, so now we have an order of creation. Everything in chapter 2 before this word happens before everything after this word.
In Gen 2: 4-14--The “heavens and earth”, a man, the Garden of Eden, and every tree are created. THEN in Gen 2 15-21 God puts the man in the Garden, makes him a vegetarian, creates the land animals and birds (we have to assume that fish and other sea creatures were created at a different time), and creates a woman.
Genesis Chapters 1 & 2: Conclusion
So lets compare:
Gen 1-
But, the contradictions are obvious:
Having opened the Bible and just read the first few pages we already have a problem. The first two chapters of the Bible are in direct conflict with each other. If the Bible is to be believed then there can be only one true order of creation: either things were created in one order or they were created in another order. It cannot be both. There can be no conflicting order in the Bible because it simply can’t happen if it is the divine work of God.
Of course there is the obvious answer to this problem: the Bible is a piece of fiction written by ancient men, pieced together, by men, from documents or parts of documents spanning hundreds of years and different geographical locales and cultures in order to fill in parts of their mythology, and give their god power. In short, they are not the infallible work of divine inspiration from a perfect higher being.
Disagree? Why? Prove it?
After all, you are commanded by the Bible to spread God’s word...right?
Most Christians unknowingly combine these two stories in to one single story. Since most Christians have been told the story before they can read, and already know what the stories say, if they ever actually read the stories for themselves, they tend to read what they already believe instead of actually reading the words written, and don’t notice any problems. This practice of reading what you believe instead of reading what is written is very common. Ignorance is a very powerful tool which has been used by the Christian church from its beginning. As a result, it can be a laborious project even showing many people that there are two stories.
The fact that there are two stories is, in and of itself, not a problem. So, long as both stories agree on any shared details then they could simply be differing views of the same event. One popular, though unfounded belief is that both stories were written by Moses. This notion is rejected by Bible scholars who say that the two stories were written by different authors more than a century apart, and base the stories on other stories written by other people hundreds of years earlier. The scholars’ explanation of the stories is largely ignored by literal intepretationists.
The literal interpretationists who do accept that there are two separate stories will often say something along the lines of: ‘Genesis chapter 2 is a detailed description of the creation of man contained in chapter one, which is why it may seem like a different story.’ Or, as it was once put to me: the differences are the same as my telling you one day that I went to the mall on Saturday, and then my later giving you a list of stores that I went to while at the mall on Saturday. Either way, I went to the mall on Saturday.
The problem is that the Genesis version of this story would be closer to your telling me that you went to the mall every day for a week and giving me a list of stores that you went to while at the mall in a specific order, and then later saying that you went to the mall last week and giving me a list of the same stores in a different order. You have given me two different lists only one of which can be correct. With normal person to person contact, this wouldn’t be a big deal as people make mistakes. But, if the lists you give me are to be taken as the infallible divinely inspired word of God which I am to believe every single word of, then the two lists must match perfectly.
Genesis’ lists don’t even come close to matching.
Genesis Chapters 1 & 2: A Summary
(Since most literal interpretationists use the King James version of the Bible, that is the version I will use here, but the details for the stories are universal across all accepted versions. The problems with differing versions and why they even exist will be discussed in future posts)
Genesis Chapter 1 (Gen 1) contains the well-known day by day order of creation:
- Day One-the earth is already there and God creates light.
- Day Two-God creates the sky
- Day Three-God separates the waters on the Earth and the land that is there ‘appears’. He then creates grass, trees, and other plants.
- Day Four-God creates the Sun, the Moon, and the stars. These creations, according to the Bible, give us our 24 hr day and 365 day year and our four seasons.
- Day Five-God creates “every” animal that lives in the water, and “every” bird that has wings (no wingless birds).
- Day Six-God creates “every” land animal, then one of the Gods creates man and woman in his image. He tells his newly created people that they are vegetarians, that they should have sex and make babies, and that they are in charge of every animal on the planet.
Genesis Chapter 1 & 2: Detailed Comparison
Chapter one creation starts with God floating over a dark, empty blob which is to become the Earth then goes on to explain in a detailed ordered list how everything else was created over a span of six days.
Chapter two creation, which says it is “...the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created,” talks about how all creation, including the Earth-blob which was there when chapter one starts, was done in one day.
If you ignore either Gen 2:4 , or Gen 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, and 31, as wrong, then there is no contradiction. Or, you could say that the term day does not necessarily mean the 24 hour rotation of the Earth on its axis as we understand it to be, but instead could be 24 hrs, six days, or even a millennia, and that these definitions are different in different chapters and in different parts of chapters. To do this you must first ignore Gen 1: 14-18 as wrong. Either way you have to say that one part or another is wrong, but this can’t be possible if the whole thing is right, so you could do as most believers do and ignore this problem all together.So, lets do as most believers do: accept that a day is sometimes not a day, pretend that Gen 2:4 doesn’t even exist, and continue on blissfully ignorant of this problem and accept the creation story in chapter two as a detailed description of day(?) 6 from chapter 1.
Since the first part of the chapter 2 story uses the word and instead of then it can be argued (albeit weakly) that there is no conflict between it and chapter 1 which liberally uses then to give it order. There is no conflict since and doesn’t explicitly imply a definitive order. However, the first word of Gen 2:15 is then, so now we have an order of creation. Everything in chapter 2 before this word happens before everything after this word.
In Gen 2: 4-14--The “heavens and earth”, a man, the Garden of Eden, and every tree are created. THEN in Gen 2 15-21 God puts the man in the Garden, makes him a vegetarian, creates the land animals and birds (we have to assume that fish and other sea creatures were created at a different time), and creates a woman.
Genesis Chapters 1 & 2: Conclusion
So lets compare:
Gen 1-
- God creates everything in the universe
- THEN creates men and women at the same time.
- God creates “the heavens and the earth”, every tree, and a man.
- THEN God creates, land animals, birds, and a woman.
But, the contradictions are obvious:
- Gen 1 men and women are created at the same time--Gen 2 man and woman are created at different times.
- Gen 1 men and women are created after the trees--Gen 2 man is created before the trees, and woman is created after, or at the same time as the trees.
- Gen 1 birds are created before men and women--Gen 2 birds are created after man is created, and before or at the same time as woman is created.
- Gen 1 land animals are created at the same time as men and women--Gen 2 land animals are created after man is created but before woman is created.
Having opened the Bible and just read the first few pages we already have a problem. The first two chapters of the Bible are in direct conflict with each other. If the Bible is to be believed then there can be only one true order of creation: either things were created in one order or they were created in another order. It cannot be both. There can be no conflicting order in the Bible because it simply can’t happen if it is the divine work of God.
Of course there is the obvious answer to this problem: the Bible is a piece of fiction written by ancient men, pieced together, by men, from documents or parts of documents spanning hundreds of years and different geographical locales and cultures in order to fill in parts of their mythology, and give their god power. In short, they are not the infallible work of divine inspiration from a perfect higher being.
Disagree? Why? Prove it?
After all, you are commanded by the Bible to spread God’s word...right?
