Genesis 1-3 - A Tale of Two Stories (original) (raw)

Six Differences between Two Creation Stories in Genesis Meir Bar-Ilan In Genesis 1-3 there are two creation stories, a fact that has been recognized for centuries and became a corner-stone in modern Biblical scholarship. The aim of this paper is to discuss the intrinsic differences between the stories. It will be shown that the creation stories differ in the following aspects: 1. Time/Space: The first story is time-oriented while the second story is space-oriented. 2. God/Man: God is the only protagonist in the first story and man governs 20% of the text only. In the second story Man appears in 80% of the text. 3. Divine/Human Word: The first story exemplifies words as divine and part of the creation while the second story exemplifies words as a tool of communication (vid. Plato, Cratylus). 4. With/Without Order & Law: Order and law prevail in the first story (without explicitly these concepts) unlike the second. 5. With/Without Numbers Predilection: The Role of numbers – there are many more number-words in the first story (2.016% of the text) than in the second (0.937%). 6. Sermon/Story: The first creation description is a sermon while the second is a Bildungsroman.