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.  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, but in reality both are fundamentally part of all creation.

Structural unit – This approach views chapters one and two as one unit.

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)

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

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.¹ 

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

Man in the image of God or from earth

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.

Creation via speech?

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.

Proofs

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