Biblical Parallels Index – Bereshit 1/0

Biblical Parallels Index – Bereshit 1

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Two Creations – Bereshit 1 and 2

Tanakh Lab demonstrates that one of the chapters that shares the greatest number of textual elements with Bereshit 1 is Bereshit 2. These two chapters contain two accounts of the creation of the world.

Literary Analysis Tools

• See the Tanakh Lab to compare the two sets of chapters and view their linguistic parallels.

Primary Sources

• Mishnat R. Eliezer,  Rashi, R. Yosef Bekhor Shor, Rashbam, Radak, U. Cassuto – These sources view the repetition of the Creation story in these two chapters as a literary technique, in which the Torah first presents a general overview of the world's creation and then returns to provide greater detail about its most significant individual components.
• Hoil Moshe – According to Hoil Moshe, Chapters 1 and 2 describe two distinct events. While Chapter 1 describes the earlier creation of the whole world and the entire human race, Chapter 2 speaks of a subsequent and wholly separate creation of the Garden of Eden and the individual Adam.

Articles

• See Bereshit 1–2 for a comparison and analysis of these two accounts of creation. The essay presents three approaches to the repetition and parallels, viewing them as either a literary device, as complementary accounts owhich each portray a distinct facets of creation, or as describing two totally distinct creations.
• See Bereishit: The Two Stories of Creation by R. Menachem Leibtag for an exploration of the two accounts as reflective of two perspectives on the nature of human existence and the relationship between God and man
• R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik's The Lonely Man of Faith contains an extensive discussion of the two accounts of the creation of man and woman.
• The Ideal and the Real by R. Zvi Grumet suggests that the first two chapters of Sefer Bereshit describe the ideal world that God created, followed by an account of the world as it actually existed through the partnership of God and man.

Creation and Re-Creation Post Flood  – Bereshit 1 and 6-9

Tanakh Lab demonstrates that Bereshit 6, 7, 8, and 9 are the chapters in Tanakh that have most in common with Bereshit 1. The two stories parallel each other because they represent two creations of the world.

Literary Analysis Tools

• See the Tanakh Lab to compare the two sets of chapters and view their linguistic parallels.

Articles

• See Undoing and Redoing Creation for an analysis of the flood as a story of undoing and redoing creation.
• R. Zvi Grumet’s article The Ideal and the Real explores the notion that Tanakh often presents Hashem’s ideal blueprint, followed by a description of the reality as it played out within this world.
• See The First world and the Second by R. Yonatan Grossman for an exploration of the ways in which man’s essential mission changed after the flood.
• See Noah: Decreation and Recreation by R. Alex Israel for further analysis of the meaning behind the parallels.