Two Accounts of Creation: Bereshit 1–2/2/en

Two Accounts of Creation

Exegetical Approaches

Literary Device

The repetition of the creation story with its varying details is a literary device in which an author first presents a general overview and then proceeds to speak in more detail about important individual components.

Sources:RashiBereshit 2:8About R. Shelomo Yitzchaki, RashbamBereshit 1:27About R. Shemuel b. Meir, U. CassutoBereshit 2:4About Prof. Umberto Cassuto

Creation of Man and Women  - together or separate?

Man in the image of God or from earth

Commands to Man: to conquer or to guard??

Creation via speech?

Order of Creation

Names of Hashem

Verbs Used (עשה/ברא versus יצר)

Two Facets of Creation

The two chapters describe different aspects of the same creation.

Creative Man versus the Man of Faith

Chapter 1 focuses on man in his creative capacity and his search for control over his environment while Chapter 2 describes the submissive man of faith and his search for redemption. As each prototype approaches his surroundings differently, the description of the creation of each and his world differs.

Sources:R. J.B. Soloveitchik

Structural unit – This approach views Chapters 1 and 2 as one unit;  only when read together can one appreciate the complexity and multifaceted character of mankind.  Humans are are not soley the creative men of Chapter 1 nor the thinkers of Chapter 2 but an oxymoronic conglomerate of both.

Creation of Man and Women  - together or separate?

Man in the image of God or from earth

Commands to Man: to conquer or to guard??

Order of Creation

Names of Hashem

Verbs Used (עשה/ברא versus יצר)

Natural World versus Revelatory World

Chapter 1 depicts the world in its natural state, with God's justice at its core, while Chapter 2 highlights the aspect of revelation and God's attributes of mercy.

Sources:R. Mordechai Breuer

Structural unit – This approach views the first two chapters of Bereshit as one unit.

Order of Creation – In the natural world the simple precedes the complex and so creation proceeds from plant to animal to human.   In the miraculous world of revelation, in contrast, natural laws of development do not apply.  Instead, the essential precedes the incidental and so man, the raison d'etre of creation, is mentioned before the vegetation and animals.

Names of Hashem – The name Elohim connotes God's attribute of justice which rules the natural world. Here God is hidden and not known by his proper name.  In the revelatory world, though, there is room for Hashem's mercy, and thus the name Hashem (which implies this attribute) is added in this account of creation.¹  Moreover, throughout Torah, the name Hashem implies a personal God who relates to man, fitting the God of revelation.

Creation of Man and Women  - together or separate? In the natural world, the continuation of the species is of prime import.  Thus, the account in Chapter 1 describes males and females as being created together for their partnership is necessary for the continued existence of mankind.  Chapter 2, which speaks of a world in which Hashem is involved and in which He desires that His creations be happy, instead describes man's search for his appropriate mate.  A period of loneliness is required before she can be created for only afterwards can man truly appreciate and love her.

Man in the image of God or from earth

Commands to Man: to conquer or to guard??

Verbs Used (עשה/ברא versus יצר)

Distinct Events

While Chapter 1 describes the creation of the world and the human species as a whole, Chapter 2 speaks of a later creation, the planting of Gan Eden and the formation of the individual, Adam.

Sources:David Nissani

Structural Unit – This approach views Chapters 1 and 2 as two distinct units.

Why two creations? According to Nissani, Adam was uniquely created and placed in the Garden of Eden since he was to father a special race.²

Evidence of multiple humans – Nissani supports his claim that many humans existed besides Adam and Eve from the following:

• "כָל מֹצְאִי יַהַרְגֵנִי" – Kayin's lament after his punishemnt for killing Hevel that "all who will find me will kill me" only makes sense on the backdrop of other existing humans.
• Progeny – If there were no other people in the world besides Adam, Chavvah and his children, whom did Kayin marry and how did he bear children?³
• "וַיְהִי בֹּנֶה עִיר" – After Kayin bears his child, Chanokh, the verse states that he built a city.  A city connotes an area inhabited by many, not just Kayin's immediate family.

"לְמִינוֹ" – By the creation of all life (vegetation, fish, birds and animals) with the sole exception of mankind, the verses explicitly state that Hashem created each according to its species.  This difficult for Nissani who claims that mankind too was created as a species.

Names of Hashem – The name Elohim connotes a universal God, appropriately used when discussing the creation of the world at large.  The name Hashem, on the other hand, reflects God's personal providence, and is thus added when describing the creation of an individual race whom God cares for in particular and with whom He converses.

Order of Creation – Since the two chapters describe totally different events, there is no reason for the order of creation to be the same in both.⁴

Creation of Man and Women  - together or separate? In Chapter 1 when the human species is created, both male and female are created simultaneously,⁵ but when Hashem forms the individual, Adam, he creates him separately from Chavvah.

Commands to Man: to conquer or to guard?? Hashem blesses the human species as a whole to multiply and places them at the apex of creation, in control of the lesser beings.  In Chapter 2, in contrast, Hashem gives very specific commands to Adam, meant for him alone in his unique abode, the Garden of Eden.

Man in the image of God or from earth

זֶה סֵפֶר תּוֹלְדֹת אָדָם – The opening two verses of Chapter 5, which leads into the genealogy of Adam (presumably thus speaking of Adam of Gan Eden) are also difficult for Nissani since the description of Adam's creation there matches that of Chapter 1⁶ (mankind) and not Chapter 2 (the individual Adam).  Nissani attempts to claim that the two verses serve as a summary of the entire creation account in Chapters 1-5, rather than an introduction to Chapter 5 itself.

Verbs Used (עשה/ברא versus יצר) – In Chapter 1, where God created ex nihilo, the verbs "ברא" and "עשה" are used.  The creations of Chapter 2, though, were formed from pre-existing matter, and therefore the more appropriate verb "יצר" is used.

Creation via speech? Only the original creation was made via speech, perhaps related to it being a creation out of nothing.

Longevity – Nissani suggests that the long life spans of the people listed in the generations from Adam to Noach likely refer only to Adam's descendants and are not representative of the rest of the people living in the world at the time.  Having originated in the Garden of Eden, and perhaps having tasted from the Tree of Life, they merited long life.  Over the generations, though, Adam's descendents mingled with and married other humans and eventually life spans were lowered for all.

Age of the World – Nissani posits that the creation of Adam in the Garden might have occurred thousands of years after the original creation.  This allows for harmonization with scientific data according to which the world and  human life is much older than dating in Torah would seem to allow for.

בְּנֵי הָאֱלֹהִים and בְּנוֹת הָאָדָם – Nissani suggests that the "בְּנֵי הָאֱלֹהִים" of this story (Bereshit 6) are the descendants of Adam who had lived in the Garden and eaten of the tree.  They took advantage of their special status and knowledge to capture the daughters of the rest of mankind whom they had taken a liking to.⁷  See בני הא־להים and בנות האדם for other understandings of the enigmatic passage.

¹ One might have expected that the name Hashem alone (rather than Hashem Elohim) would be found throughout Chapter 2.  R. Breuer suggests that the names are combined because the whole point of juxtaposing the two accounts is to show that both aspects of creation co-exist and that in reality God is both a God of justice and mercy, both a personal and lofty God.

² It is from his line specifically that Avraham and the nation of Israel were to descend.  Nissani proposes that it is for this reason that the Torah goes out of its way to trace the lineage from Adam to Noach and then from Noach to Avraham.  This would be more convincing if after the flood there were other people who had not descended from Adam and the Garden, but considering that from that point on everyone is a descendent of Noach, and hence of Adam, the verses are probably not making any statement about Avraham's unique status. 
Nonetheless, the verses might be pointing out that the flood wiped out all non-descendants of Adam, leaving only the unique race created in the Garden who had eaten of the Tree of Knowledge.

³ Nissani notes that though one might posit that he married one of Adam and Chavvah's later offspring, he points out that Kayin had been exiled from them and was no longer living with them.  R. Natan in Bavli Yevamot 62a solves the problem by suggesting that Kayin was born with a twin sister.

⁴ The vegetation, man, water etc. of Chapter 2 are distinct from those of Chapter 1, and might have first been created even years later.

⁵ This is logical, since the procreation necessary to produce a species requires a male and female.

⁶ It uses the verb "ברא" rather than "יצר", speaks of formation "in the likeness of God" similar to Bereshit 1's "בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים בָּרָא אֹתוֹ" and echoes verbatim the fact that "זָכָר וּנְקֵבָה בְּרָאָם".

⁷ According to Nissani, though, one might have thought that the terms should be reversed.   The emphasis on being made in the image of God (and hence perhaps the term, "בְּנֵי הָאֱלֹהִים") is in reference to the creation of all of mankind.  Similarly, according to Nissani, the phrase "בְּנוֹת הָאָדָם" which emphasizes a connection to Adam specifically would better describe the daughters of the individual Adam.