How many creation accounts are there — one or two?

The issue is that there are many differences between the descriptions of creation in chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis, and this could lead to the conclusion that there are two accounts. Some of these differences are listed in the table below:

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The notion that there are two different creation stories was unacceptable to early Jewish sages, including the composers of midrashim and Medieval Jewish exegetes. The creation story is a factual account, and there can hardly be two versions of the same facts.  It must be, therefore, that there is only one account of creation, and chapter 2 is no more than an elaboration of chapter 1. Thus, apparent differences between the two have to be harmonized.

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The authoritative biblical commentator Rashi explains that the second creation story is but an amplification of the first. This is hinted at in the opening words of chapter 2:

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These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created; in the day that YHWH Elohim made the earth and the heavens (Genesis 2:4).

 

The first part of this verse refers back to the first sentence in chapter I, which mentions the heavens before the earth, while the second part of this verse, which places the earth before the heavens, refers to events about to be described in chapter 2.  Nevertheless, Rashi has to admit that these two stories do sound like different accounts:

 

One who hears this is under the impression that [the second account of the creation of man] is a different incident [from the earlier mention of his creation], yet it is nothing but a detailed account of the first mention.1 

 

An example he gives of this elaboration is that in Genesis I, fowl and fish arose from water. The seas were formed from the deep waters between the landmasses and it is from these very watery beginnings that fish and fowl arose:

 

And Elohim said: “Let the waters teem with swarming living creatures and fowl that fly about over the earth across the expanse of the heavens” (Genesis 1:20).

 

However, in the second creation account all life (except for fish) arose from the earth:

 

Now YHWH Elohim formed [had formed] out of the ground every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to man to see what he would call each one, and whatever the man called each living creature that remained its name (Genesis 2:18).

 

Rashi’s harmonization of this apparent contradiction is that fowl were formed from a combination of water and earth – i.e., from mud.2 Rashi has resolved the contradiction, although not necessarily in a way that everyone will find satisfactory.

 

Another possible contradiction is Genesis 2:18, where man appears to be formed before the beasts and birds, whereas in the first creation story man is created as the final act of creation. One way of resolving this contradiction is to translate the word “He formed” (viytzar) with respect to the beasts and fowl in the second creation account as “He had formed.” In other words, the beasts and fowl had previously been formed and were now brought to Adam to name. However, the pluperfect tense in Hebrew has its own grammatical construction and this also is not a completely satisfactory resolution of the contradiction.

 

An alternative understanding of these text is to accept that there really are two accounts here. This is the approach of the documentary hypothesis discussed in the chapter “Who wrote the Torah?” with its notion that the Torah is composed from different sources. According to this hypothesis, the second chapter of Genesis was written by a J source most likely in the southern Kingdom of Judah in about 950 BCE, whereas the first chapter of Genesis is from a P or priestly source written in about the sixth century BCE or later. For the many reasons, as discussed in the essay “who wrote the Torah?” most orthodox Jews are unable to accept this idea, primarily because it removes divine authority from the Bible and replaces it with at the most divine inspiration.

 

The first authoritative figure in the Jewish religious world to acknowledge that there may indeed be two different creation accounts was R’ Joseph Soloveitchik in his well-known essay “The Lonely Man of Faith.” Prior to teaching at Yeshiva University in New York, R’ Soloveitchik studied philosophy at Berlin University and he was doubtless familiar with the direction of secular German biblical scholarship. In this essay he proposed that the two accounts reflect two different aspects of man, particularly Jewish man. The following quotations from his essay summarize the direction of this seminal work:

 

There are two accounts in early Genesis of the creation of man. . . . The two accounts deal with two types of Adam, two representatives of humanity, two fathers of mankind. . . . Adam I wants to be a “man,” to realize his humanity by being distinguishable from the rest of creation, by becoming the master over his environment. . . .  Adam I is engaged in creative work, trying to imitate his creator. . . . Adam I’s creativity is not limited to the mind. He also creates beauty with his heart, in the physical and literary arts. He also creates legal systems to govern an orderly society. . . . It is important to note that Adam I is not a rebel. He is merely carrying out God’s mandate to him on the sixth day of creation when God acknowledged his singularity by addressing him and summoning him to “fill the earth and subdue it. . . Adam the second is committed to a full realization of the image of God, to the experience of redemption through covenantal community, to living a life of faith. . . . Adam the second lives in the loneliness of man as a spiritual being, yearning for God, for a thou, for a partner in a covenant.3

 

Unlike Adam I of the first creation account, Adam II, the Adam of the Garden of Eden story, does not seek to dominate nature but to serve that mysterious “He” that he perceives in creation. In a word, Adam I seeks dignity and is practical-minded, while Adam II aspires to holiness and is faith-oriented.

 

The influence of this essay on orthodox American Jewry cannot be underestimated. R’ Soloveitchik’s article provided an answer to a very real question that was posed by religious immigrants to America and their families. How can a traditional Jew participate fully in American life and yet remain faithful to Orthodoxy? R’ Soloveitchik’s answer is that there is almost a biblical mandate to become involved in the sciences, humanities and arts. This is the role of Adam I. But having participated in these activities, the man of faith, Adam II, retreats to his family and faith community and seeks a relationship with God. In effect, religious man oscillates between Adam I and Adam II. It is a lonely existence, which explains the title of the essay “The Lonely Man of Faith.”

 

As an approach to seeking solutions to contemporary issues from the Torah this was a very meaningful essay. However, as a work of biblical scholarship it has a major limitation, namely that there is no suggestion of a duality in mankind throughout the rest of the Pentateuch.

 

Nevertheless, R’ Soloveitchik has breached a major barrier for the modern religious world in raising the possibility that within the first three chapters of Genesis are two different accounts of creation, each with its own unique emphasis.

 

The God-man relationship in the two creation accounts

 

An alternative way of viewing these stories is to recognize that these two creation accounts describe two different types of relationship between God and man, which are reflected in the two names of God Elohim and YHWH. This has far more to do with the attributes of God in His relation to man than the approach of man to God as described by R’ Soloveitchik. The two creation accounts are different because their emphases are different.

 

To appreciate this, it is helpful to review the nature of man in the two creation accounts.

 

In the first chapter in Genesis, man is created by Elohim to subdue and rule the earth:

 

And Elohim said: Let us make Man in Our image, after Our likeness (bezalmeinu kidmoseinu). They shall rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and over the animals, the whole earth, and every moving thing that treads upon the earth. So Elohim created man in His image, in the image of Elohim He created him, male and female He created them. Elohim blessed them and Elohim said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every living thing that treads upon the earth” (Genesis 1:26-28).

 

As discussed in my essay “The First Creation Account as a Polemic against its Mythological Counterparts,” Rashi explains that the “image” (tzelem) of God means in “the mold” of God, while “after our likeness” means that man has the capability of achieving intellectual knowledge.4 Lest there be any misunderstanding, he repeats this explanation in relation to the next verse: 

 

In the image of God He created him: [the verse] has explained to you that the image which is fixed for him is the image of the semblance of his Creator.5 

 

Rashi’s explanation fits well into the remainder of the paragraph. Man is created to rule the world. It is appropriate, therefore, that he have the physical and intellectual abilities to fulfill this role.

 

A different perspective, although with very similar conclusions, is provided by Jose Faur.6 He notes that in the pagan world, the spiritual essence of a god could be transferred to an idol so that the idol now becomes the abode of that force of nature. In the Accadian language this physical image was termed a salmu. This would explain how the ancients believed that inanimate stone, clay or wood could become a living force. In the first creation story, as the “zelem” or “salmu” of Elohim, man becomes the recipient of some of the powers of Elohim that will enable him to assume his role as master of the world. 

 

As controller of the world, the Adam of Creation I relates to a transcendent and distant God called Elohim, Who is concerned with all humanity. This is not to say that the Adam of the first creation account is not a spiritual being. He will, after all, be called upon to acknowledge the creation of the Sabbath, but his relationship with God is not as intimate as in the second creation account.

 

In the second creation account, man is created from earth, but also possesses a spiritual soul or “a soul of life” (nishmas chayim) blown into him by God. 

 

And YHWH Elohim formed (vayiitzar) man of the dust from the ground, and He blew into His nostrils the soul of life (nishmat chayim) and man became a living being (nefesh chaya) (Genesis 2:7). 

 

Animals are also formed from the ground and are also described as a “living being” (nefesh chaya) (Genesis 2:19), but unlike man they do not have a soul endowed with the breath of God. Jewish commentators also point out that the verb “formed” (vayiitzar) (וַיִּיצֶר) in Hebrew describing the creation of man has two letter yods, while the same verb describing the creation of animals “vayitzar” (וַיצֶר) has only a single yod. The yod is the first letter of the name of God YHWH. With this duplication, the Torah may be hinting at the dual nature of man - his earthly body and his spiritual soul from God.

 

Did the Garden of Eden really exist?

 

There cannot be two different versions of the same facts. If one accepts that the second creation account is truly a different story from the first creation account, then it must be that either one, or more likely both, are allegorical.

 

In actuality, it would have been readily apparent to any reader (or more likely listener) from ancient Israel that the Garden of Eden story was an allegorical account. Consider the following verses towards the beginning of chapter 2: 

 

A river issues forth from Eden to water the garden and from there it is divided and becomes four headwaters. The name of the first is Pishon, the one that encircles the whole land of Chavilah, where the gold is. The gold of that land is good; bdellium is there and the shohan stone. The name of the second river is Gichon, the one that encircles the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Chidekel, the one that flows towards the east of Ashur; and the fourth one is the Euphrates (Genesis 2:10-14).

 

There is no place in the Near East at which four great rivers join together. The river “Chidekel” is usually identified with the Tigris, known in Mesopotamia as “Idiglat,”7 and this river does join the “Euphrates” near the Persian Gulf. However, this point in the Persian Gulf is nowhere near “Cush.” The “land of Chavila” is mentioned elsewhere in the Bible as the land where Ishmael’s progeny lived, but this was not in Mesopotamia —“They dwelt from Chavila to Shur – which is near Egypt – towards Assyria” (Genesis 25:18).8 Mesopotamia has little mineral wealth. However, the upper reaches of the Nile were well known for their “gold.” Hence, it is likely that “Pishon” and “Gichon” were two tributaries of the Nile that joined together in southern Egypt.  

 

What the Bible appears to be describing is an imaginary place in which the most desirable water and mineral resources of the known world are joined together to form the most fertile and bountiful paradise in the Near East.

 

The 19th century Biblical commentator R’ Samson Raphael Hirsch, after proposing the unlikely suggestion that these rivers joined together underground, explains:

 

Four districts seem to be named which, each in its way, yielded the richest of products. All the riches and all the abundance which lay separately in these lands were found together in Paradise.9 

 

Other allegorical imagery used in the second creation account, such as the serpent and different functional trees, may well have been borrowed from well-known myths of the time.  

 

Having said this, no myth has been found that closely resembles the Garden of Eden account. This should not surprise us. These types of stories were mainly transmitted orally and would not necessarily have been written down on clay tablets. Even if they were, there is no certainty that they would be discovered by archeologists.

 

Nevertheless, a Babylon cylinder seal has been found, currently located in the British Museum, showing a man and woman seated on opposite sides of a tree with their hands stretched out towards it. Behind the woman is an upright snake.

 

There is also a Sumerian legend called Edinu, (i.e., having a name not dissimilar to Eden), about Enki, the god of wisdom and water, and the mother goddess Ninhursag. In this myth, which was composed well before the Biblical period, Enki creates a beautiful garden for Ninhursag in which she can sustain herself. However, conflicts arise between them as a result of his eating forbidden plants and causing harm to her, although there is eventual reconciliation.

 

A hint as to the mythological basis of the Garden of Eden comes from the prophet Ezekiel. He makes reference in his book to a garden called either “Eden” or “garden of Elohim.” The context is individuals who have been living in a very satisfactory world, called figuratively Eden, but who have forfeited this privilege. This suggests that a utopian world called Eden was well-known in the ancient world.

 

In the following passage, Ezekiel compares the Pharaoh of Egypt to a cedar tree first in Lebanon and then in Eden. Noteworthy, is that Ezekiel’s Garden of Eden is also called Gan Elohim, or a garden of God, using the name Elohim and not YHVH. By contrast, when the Torah wishes to describe an example of a particularly fertile location in the Jordan Valley, it is called “like Gan of YHWH” (Genesis 13:10), thus obviating the possibility of any confusion. Like the Garden of Eden of Genesis, the garden described by Ezekiel is full of trees, although not fruit trees.

 

It became beautiful in greatness, in the length of its tendrils, for its roots were upon abundant waters. [Even] cedars could not obscure it in the garden of God (be’gan Elohim), cypresses could not compare to its boughs and chestnut trees were nothing like its branches; no tree in the garden of God (be’gan Elohim) could compare to it in its beauty. I made it so beautiful with its abundant tendrils that it was envied by all the trees of Eden that were in the garden of God (be’gan Elohim) (Ezekiel 31:7-9).

 

Another example from the Book of Ezekiel is when he describes the prince of Tyre as being in a utopian place called Eden, this time in a garden containing precious stones:

 

You were in Eden, the Garden of God (gan Elohim). Your canopy was of every precious stone — odem, pitdah and Yahalom; tarshish, shoham and yashfeh; sapir, nophech and barkas — and gold? … You were a great sheltering cherub, and it is I ([Who} granted you this; You were upon the holy mountain of God; you walked among fiery stones . . . (Ezekiel 28:13-14).

 

The Bible does not ignore precious stones, but places them all in Havilah, together with gold. Ezekiel’s Eden contains a person who is like a “cherub” and a “holy mountain of Elohim” (Ezekiel 28:14). Cherubs do guard the entrance to the Garden of Eden of Genesis, but are not within it.

 

All this suggests that Ezekiel was aware of mythological Garden of Eden stories. It also suggests the likelihood that the Torah used a garden of the gods story, but made significant changes to it to convey its monotheistic and ethical messages.

 

It is puzzling, incidentally, that Ezekiel seems not to have had accurate knowledge of the Torah’s Garden of Eden story and had to turn to other mythological accounts to make his point. Ezekiel’s lack of knowledge of aspects of the Torah has been noted in other instances and was of sufficient concern to the Men of the Great Assembly that there was serious debate as to whether his book should be included in the canon.10

 

Two accounts — different but interconnected

 

There are two different accounts of creation based on two types of relationship —with a transcendent God named Elohim in Genesis I and an immanent God called YHWH in Genesis II. Nevertheless, although different stories they are interconnected and part of a single narrative. This is evident from the first sentence of the Garden of Eden story:

 

These are the generations/products (toldos) of the heavens and the earth when they were created on the day of YHWH Elohim’s making of the earth and heavens (Genesis 2:4):

 

Most of the early stories of Genesis are separated by a genealogical chapter. This always starts with the words These are the generations (toldos) of so and so. Hence chapter 5 begins with the words “This is the account of the descendants (toldos) of Adam. . . .” (ibid 5:1) and is located between the story of Cain and Abel and the story of Noah. The genealogical chapter 10 begins with the words “These are the descendants (toldos) of the sons of Noah. . . .” and separates between the story of the Flood and the Tower of Babel story. Here too, in chapters 1 through 3, a generation story is being told through two creation accounts and this sentence makes the connection between them. There are, of course, no generations yet of man. Instead, there are different generations (toldos) of the heavens and the earth.

 

In conclusion, the Adam created by the transcendent Elohim of the first chapter of Genesis is to “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it; and rule over” it.  This Adam possesses the attributes enabling him to assume mastery over the world.

 

In the allegory comprising the Garden of Eden story, Adam needs to adhere to one command related to its Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad in order to maintain his close relationship with YHWH and remain in utopia. This one command is representative of the entire moral universe in which man exists.

 

But what type of knowledge does this tree endow?

 

The whole point of an allegory is to provide a framework for conveying important messages. Unravelling the meaning of this tree will therefore be our next task.

 

References

1. Rashi’s Commentary to the Torah to Genesis 2:4. Translation by The Sapirstein Edition of The Torah with Rashi’s Commentary, The Artscroll Series.

2. Rashi to Genesis 2:8.

3. The Lonely Man of Faith by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik http://www.traditiononline.org/news/converted/Volume%207/No.%202/The%20Lonely%20Man.pdf.

4. Rashi to Genesis 1:26.

5. Rashi to Genesis 1:27.

6. God as a Writer in The Horizontal Society. Understanding the Covenant and Alphabetic Judaism by Jose Faur, p21, Academic Press, Brighton, MA 2008. He provides the following additional references: The Şalme in Mesopotamia in Art and Religion by Douglas Van Buren, Orientalia n.s. 10 (1941) and “God, Image of” in Encyclopedia of Judaism, supplement #1.

7. A Commentary on the Book of Genesis by Umberto Cassuto, Second paragraph. The Planting of the Garden of Eden, p121, The Magnes Press, Jerusalem, reprinted 1998.

8. Nachmanides (commentary to Genesis 2:10) considers the Land of Chavila to be to the north and east rather than the south and west of Israel, and therefore dismisses Genesis 25:8 about Ishmael’s progeny as being irrelevant to the location of Chavila as described in the second chapter of Genesis. In support of his position is that an individual named Chavila is mentioned twice in Genesis, once as the grandson of Ham and nephew of Mizraim (Genesis 10:7), and also as a sixth generation of Shem and grandson of Ophir (Genesis 10:28). The descendants of Shem dwelt in “the mountain to the East” (Genesis 10:30). The phrase “where the gold is” could identify this particular Chavilah as being in the territory of Ophir, which is mentioned as being a source of gold at the time of King Solomon (Kings I 9:28).  On the other hand, Nachmanides accepts the Pishon as being the Nile (commentary to Genesis 3:22), and interprets the confluence of these rivers in a symbolic manner. 

9. The Pentateuch, Translation and Commentary by Samson Raphael Hirsch, commentary to 2:10-14.

10. Examples of discordance with the Torah are sacrifices in his future Temple (Ezekiel 40-48), inheritance laws (ibid 46:16-18), the role of a prince (ibid 44:1-3; 45:7-8; 46:1-8) which is not mentioned at all in the Torah, and the treatment of foreigners (ibid 47:22-23).