The Two Creation Stories

I may not buy into religion, but I find biblical scholarship absolutely fascinating. I keep tossing out biblical creation in favor of evolution, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a healthy affection for the poetry of Genesis.

Most biblical scholars acknowledge that Genesis actually contains two, slightly contradictory, creation stories. Most people mix together the two stories to form what is the popular conception of the Biblical Creation story.

The first account is Genesis 1:1-2:4a and contains the classic six days of creation terminating with God resting on the seventh day. The authorship of this story is attributed to what is known as the P, for Priestly, source, and is dated to around 450 BCE. The second account is Genesis 2:4b-2:25. The authorship of this story is attributed to the J, for Jahweh, the German form of Yahweh, source. This second story is considered far older and is dated to around 850 BCE.

Christian Apologists and fundamentalist Christians in general deny there are two stories or that there are any discrepancies between the two accounts. We’ll ignore that position for the moment and focus upon the two, seemingly contradictory, stories of the creation of the female half of the race.

Genesis 1:27 has God creating male and female together in his image on the 6th day.

Genesis 1:27 - So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

However in the 2nd account Adam is created first and then, after Adam can’t find a helpmate among all the animals created by God (although rumor has it he thought about picking the sheep), Eve is created from Adam’s rib.

Genesis 2:21: So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh.

Genesis 2: 22: Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

Now the early Jews noticed this discrepancy and being more practical and rational than the average fundamentalist Christian, acknowledged it as a discrepancy and went looking for a solution. What some of them came up with was Lilith.

Now Lilith is your typical uppity female as well as your typical spurned woman. In Lilith’s point of view since she was created at the same time and from the same material as Adam, she wasn’t about to kowtow to anybody. Lilith was history’s first feminist. One thing led to another and Lilith stomped out of the Garden of Eden.

This led first to the fiasco with the animals and then to God’s creation of a more pliable substitute from Adam’s rib. Eve, without Lilith’s ideas about equality, appeared to be more accepting of a subservient role which suited Adam just fine. God was just happy to finally get some peace and quiet. Then that silly serpent had to go and screw things up.

Since Lilith left the garden before the fall, she’s immortal and still has a grudge against ex-hubby and his replacement wife. This grudge takes the form of causing sickness and death in their new born descendents even to this day. Like the man said, hell has no fury like a woman scorned.

The Christian Apologist take on this is that there is no discrepancy but rather Genesis 2:4b-2:25 is the same story with simply a more focused emphasis on the creation of mankind. In other words, it’s sort of like zooming in on one aspect of creation. Well, perhaps, but then I wonder what God intended Adam to do with his genitals before he had a mate to be fruitful and multiply with? Or did God do some renovating on Adam after he created Eve from Adam’s rib?

I find the Lilith story more creative than twisting the words of Genesis and engaging in heroic eisegesis. Still, unless one is a Hebrew linguist and an expert in biblical cultures, it can be dangerous to come to any concrete conclusions about what the Tanakh is really saying. Sometimes things get lost in translation, linguistic and/or cultural.

I do find it rather comical that the Jews recognize the female creation discrepancy but that fundamentalist Protestant Christians have figured out there is no discrepancy. Due to what? Their superior knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures? I’m not sure where the Catholic Church stands on this earth shattering issue but since the Vatican doesn’t hold to a literal biblical interpretation, I suspect it can safely acknowledge that there are two slightly different accounts. Maybe I can find a Priest that will still talk to me and ask him?