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Ever had one of those moments when wonder why people can't seem to get their stories straight? Some have wondered about this very thing when they read Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 along side of each other and realize that these two accounts of creation seem to be different. So what about this? How do we make sense of the differences? What can we learn from reading these two stories separately and together?
Reading The Stories Together
Take a few moments to read the two stories (which you will find to the right) with these questions in mind:
Genesis 1 (Creation Story 1) TNIV
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
6 And God said, "Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
9 And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good.
11 Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
20 And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky." 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth." 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.
24 And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, "Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, [a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
27 So God created human beings in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
29 Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so.
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day. 1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
Footnotes:
Genesis 1:26 Probable reading of the original Hebrew text (see Syriac); Masoretic Text the earth
Genesis 2 (Creation Story 2) TNIV
4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.
5 Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth [a] and no plant had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, 6 but streams [b] came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. 7 Then the LORD God formed a man [c] from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
8 Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 The LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
10 A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin [d] and onyx are also there.) 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. [e] 14 The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will certainly die."
18 The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."
19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.
But for Adam [f] no suitable helper was found. 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 [g] and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib [h] he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
23 The man said,
"This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called 'woman,'
for she was taken out of man."
24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
Footnotes:
Genesis 2:5 Or land; also in verse 6
Genesis 2:6 Or mist
Genesis 2:7 The Hebrew for man (adam) sounds like and may be related to the Hebrew for ground (adamah); it is also the name Adam (see Gen. 2:20).
Genesis 2:12 Or good; pearls
Genesis 2:13 Possibly southeast Mesopotamia
Genesis 2:20 Or the man
Genesis 2:21 Or took part of the man's side
Genesis 2:22 Or part
How are these stories unique/different?
How are these stores similar in what they have to say?
Often when we read stories we are concerned about such things as the precise order in which things happened and how we might explain how things happened from a scientific perspective. In short, we read our own questions or perspectives back into the text. But what if the original writers and readers of these stories were not too concerned about those issues, but rather were interested how God was different from the gods that others worshiped, particularly in regard to
What God was really like?
How God was related to the world around them?
What kinds of things mattered to God?
What God wants us to experience/do/be?
If these are the kinds of issues these stories are trying to address, how does that change the way you compare and contrast these stories?
If you decided to share the story of your family, how might you tell the story differently depending upon whether or not you wanted to focus on:
Your Education, Degrees, or other skills or talents you have developed and shared?
The Places in the world you have lived?
The People that have most influenced you on a personal level?
If you were to read these stories together, how would they overlap? How would they be unique?
How The Stories Are Seen
It is interesting to see how artists have portrayed this story over the course of several hundreds of years. If you want to explore some of the images that these stories have brought to the minds of artists, check out this link: Notice which images resonate the most with you
Other Famous Parallel Stories in Scripture:
1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings and 1 & 2 Chronicles
These Old Testament books parallel and overlap in a number of different ways. Take a few moments to skim through these books noticing how they compare and contrast with each other. What insights do you gain by doing this? What questions does this raise for you?
The Gospels
Perhaps the most well know example of parallel stories are the Gospels. Each gospel tells the same story of the life and ministry of Jesus, but are written to different audiences, by different people, and develop different themes.
Mark, which traditionally has been seen as reflecting the voice of Peter, is written to a Roman audience and develops a picture of Jesus as a man of action.
Matthew is written to a Jewish audience, developing the concept of Jesus the messianic king and teacher, with lots of emphasis on how Jesus fulfills Old Testament prophecy.
Luke, who openly compiles his gospel from lots of sources, writes to a Greek audience with an emphasis on Jesus as the savior of the world and friend of all people.
John, writing later than the other gospel writers, writes to the church as a whole as it moves into the second century, focusing on the divinity of Jesus.
All of the gospel writers select and organize their material in different orders and different ways to help people catch the picture of Jesus they are trying to share. The gospels, especially the first three (synoptic gospels) share many of the same stories, but they also have material that is unique to each of them. The materials they do share are often presented in different orders, and sometimes vary in details from each other. They are both unique in their purpose, and yet the same in that they draw from the same story.To often, people get bogged down in discussions as to which of these stories are the most accurate, rather than listening carefully to what each unique story is trying to say - and in the process, miss the forest for the trees. If neither of the creation stories were primarily intended to scientific or historical works, but rather powerful statements about who God is, and the kind of relationship God wants to have with us, and for us to have with each other, then we need to be careful that we do not wind up focusing on things that the authors were not terribly concerned about -- and in the process miss what they really were trying to say.A Picture to Ponder. Depending on the context in which a story is told or heard, things that are actually parallel can appear to have less in common than they actually do.
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