What Accounts for the Different Creation Stories in Genesis?
In the first chapter of Genesis, we have god creating
- the plants,
- then the fish and the birds,
- then the animals,
- and then humans (man and woman at the same time).
http://www.godvsthebible.com/chapter06
In the next chapter, he creates man first and god is referred to as "the Lord God."
Did the religion of Judea begin with the second chapter of Genesis. It appears that the first book was written before the religous tradition began and as a means to explain the world's existence, like a pre-science Origin of the Species.
It's in the second creation story where a "Lord" appears. A lord is something that commands obediance and adherence to its whims.
Why was the first story allowed into the text? Why would the ancients not scrap it as being incompatible with the second, especially since it puts men and women on equal footing? Part of the OT tradition is keeping women subservient and obediant---an afterthought--(Adam's rib).
Genesis is not the only place which has different stories about the same topic. The reason for this is that the Bible (Old and New Testaments) is like a garage in that there's more stuff in there than merely a car. Yes, the words of God are in there; but so are other words. So can a person figure out which are which? Yes. The way to do this is mentioned in the second paragraph at http://greatriddle.flifree.com/comments/comment-006-gospel.htm
Being a heretic is not automatically being wrong.
Most likely the ancients never found the stories to be contradictory.The second chapter is a dischronologised narrative repeating the events of the first in a different order and in more detail.Similar features of repitition are found in accounts in Assyrian mythology and literature.
Have a look at this
http://www.tektonics.org/jedp/creationtwo.html
"When a bunch of screwballs think I'm a screwball, I must be doing something right"
-John Armstrong upon receiving his screwball award
I find it rather insulting to ancient scholars that they would not have noticed the contradiction. Simply considering the philosophy and mathematics that were being discovered and explored at the time is a good indication that people of those times (or at least a decent percentage of them) were very intelligent when it came to logic.
There is, of course, a more obvious answer: The "Good Book" is bogus. It really doesn't look good any way you cut it, as far as I'm concerned. At best, the stories got mixed up due to the fact that the stories were passed down with words and, in the case that they were written down, only a few copies could be produced. At worst, it was not an error caused by the passing of stories down from generation to generation by word-of-mouth, but rather that the Bible was written by people who did not notice the glaring contradictions -- "idiots" is the word I guess I'm looking for there.
NKHart
Regarding the two creation stories: Maybe they couldn't decide which one they liked the best and used them both. I don't care because I don't believe in the creation stories.
But I have a problem. I also don't believe in the theory of evolution either. We are missing the fossils of the creatures "in-between." The missing "link(s)."
We really don't know who we are and where we came from.
This is what happens when you let a commitee not only vote on reality, but on which words belong in the 'one true word'.
Good point. Maybe the committee couldn't agree on which creation story they wanted so they compromised and put in both!
Gee, sounds like how they came up with the idea of the Trinity. Jesus is God and also not God at the same time and somehow our brains can't figure out how that's possible? Tell me that's not a compromise by committee.
Tell me how an all powerful god needs a full week to do anything and tell me how his one true word couldn't be shared by one individual or at least a small group who could co-author it on the spot.
QUOTE: "Tell me how an all powerful god needs a full week to do anything"
The Bible doesn't make Yahweh all powerful until the NT. It's one of many ways the Biblical god changes from OT to NT.