3.3: Biblical Creation in Genesis

Biblical tradition offers two accounts of creation, contained in the first and second chapters of Genesis (1:1-2:4) and (2:5-25). In some respects the two accounts align, while in others they contradict. However, such contradictions aren’t unusual for ancient cultures. In the Hesiod’s Theogony, Eros, the personification of cosmic love, is born amongst the first elements. Later, he is seemingly demoted to the adopted son of Aphrodite, making his importance secondary to erotic lust. Lens and neurological theories offer reasonable explanations that in the oral tradition, stories taking place over centuries were often compressed, minor and sometimes major details compiled into a singular memorable event, making them more “transportable” and transmissible before the time of literacy (Barber and Barber 10, 117). Like Hesiod, the biblical scribes and editors would’ve had numerous sources and versions, including the Enuma Elish. The first account in the Bible is accredited to a sacerdotal author from Mesopotamia during the sixth century BCE, a time when many literate Israelites were imprisoned in Babylon. The narrative, which uses the honorific Elohim (“divine being”) for God, begins similarly to the Enuma Elish, with a chaotic void and undifferentiated waters. However, the chief difference from the Babylonian story is the use of a single deity, God, as chief manager of creation. This also removes the chaotic, violent conflict that stemmed from the polytheistic Enuma Elish. The Biblical God orders the world in a series of six commands–spoken words, as seen in the Egyptian Creation–which clearly articulate his supreme generative powers.

After the separation and ordering of the elements, God turns to the decorative phase, establishing dry land, creating plants and animals in a thoughtful process which appears to allow for evolution science, rather than exclude it from the grand creation, and which serve as precursors to his final act, the birth of humans. Another distinctive feature of the first account is the simultaneous creation of man and woman, each mirroring “the image of God,” and representing the ultimate artistic expression of His creative abilities. Biblical scholarship offers a specific interpretation for the oft-quoted phrase “in God’s image,” as “compatible with or consistent with God,” or a being who God can have discourse with and can educate. Humans feeling frail and awed in the presence of God might find dignity in their “likeness” to Him.

In many translations of the second account, God is often referred to as Yahweh, the presumed personal name of God. However, the name of God was sacred, and it was likely that Ancient Israelites would’ve only written or spoken the consonants (YHWH), but not the vowels. Yahweh is an approximation, an educated guess as to the true name of God (Barber and Barber 19).

The second account’s creation takes an entirely different route, setting the scene in an arid desert in need of rain. Next come the rivers that offer an ongoing cycle of water, the necessary agent for life. Then God sculpts the first human, Adam, and then the animals. Next, like Hesiod’s recognition of Eros as essential for procreative love, He creates Woman from Adam’s rib, Eve.

Rabbinical texts offer an explanation of the contradiction between the creation of woman as the erasure of Lillith, who is referenced as the first wife of Adam, later demonized after she left Eden.