There are many differences between the creation accounts of chapter 1 and chapter 2 of Genesis. These are listed in the table below:

 

Table 1.  Some of the major differences between the two creation accounts

 

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Does this mean the Torah contains two different creation stories?

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Early Jewish biblical commentators, including the composers of midrashim, regarded both creation stories as versions of a single story. Therefore, any apparent differences between them need to be harmonized.

This approach was also adopted by the medieval exegetes. The great biblical commentator Rashi, for example, explains that the second creation story is but an amplification of the first. This is hinted at by the opening words of Genesis II:

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These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created; in the day that YKVK Elokim made the earth and the heavens (Genesis 2:4).

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He points out that the first part of this verse refers back to chapter I in which its first sentence mentions the heavens before the earth, while the second part of this verse, which places the earth before the heavens, refers to events about to be described in chapter 2.  On the other hand, Rashi has to admit that these two stories do sound like different accounts:

 

One who hears this is under the impression that [the second account of the creation of man] is a different incident [from the earlier mention of his creation], yet it is nothing but a detailed account of the first mention.1 

 

As an example, he mentions that in Genesis I fowl and fish arise from water. In this account, the seas are formed from the deep waters between the landmasses, and heaven is formed as a layer or firmament between the water on earth and the water above the firmament. Fowl and fish arise from these very watery beginnings:

 

And Elohim said: "Let the waters teem with swarming living creatures and fowl that fly about over the earth across the expanse of the heavens" (Genesis 1:20).

 

In the second creation account, on the other hand, all life arises from the earth:

 

Now YKVK Elokim formed [had formed] out of the ground every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to man to see what he would call each one, and whatever the man called each living creature that remained its name (Genesis 2:18).

 

Rashi’s harmonization of this apparent contradiction is that fowl were formed from a combination of water and earth – i.e., from mud.2 Rashi has resolved the contradiction, although not necessarily in a way everyone will find satisfactory.

 

Another possible contradiction is in Genesis 2:18, where man appears to be formed before the beasts and birds, whereas in the first creation story man is created as the final act of creation. One way of resolving this contradiction is to translate the word “He formed” (viytzar) with respect to the beasts and fowl in the second creation account as “He had formed.” In other words, the beasts and fowl had previously been formed and were now brought to Adam to name. However, the pluperfect tense in Hebrew has its own grammatical construction and this also is not a completely satisfactory resolution of the problem. 

 

An alternative way of understanding the contradictions is to accept that there are indeed two accounts here.

 

This is the approach of the Documentary Hypothesis discussed in the chapter “The names of God.” This hypothesis proposed that the second chapter of Genesis was written by a J source in the southern Kingdom of Judah in about 950 BCE, whereas the first chapter of Genesis comes from a priestly source written somewhat later, in about the sixth century BCE or later.

 

Most orthodox Jews are unable to accept the Documentary Hypothesis since it removes divine authority from the Bible and replaces it with, at the most, divine inspiration. Recent work demonstrating linguistic similarities in alleged different sources, plus an obvious flow rather than disruptions in the narrative also make this hypothesis unlikely.

 

The first authoritative figure in the Jewish religious world to acknowledge that there may indeed be two different creation accounts was R’ Joseph Soloveitchik in his well-known essay “The Lonely Man of Faith.” Rabbi Soloveitchik studied philosophy at Berlin University and doubtless became familiar there with the direction of secular German biblical scholarship. He later taught at Yeshiva University in New York. In this essay he proposed that the two accounts reflect different aspects of man, particularly Jewish man. The following quotation from this essay summarizes the direction of this seminal work:

 

There are two accounts in early Genesis of the creation of man. . . . The two accounts deal with two types of Adam, two representatives of humanity, two fathers of mankind. . . . Adam I wants to be a “man,” to realize his humanity by being distinguishable from the rest of creation, by becoming the master over his environment. . . .  Adam I is engaged in creative work, trying to imitate his creator. . . . Adam I’s creativity is not limited to the mind. He also creates beauty with his heart, in the physical and literary arts. He also creates legal systems to govern an orderly society. . . . It is important to note that Adam I is not a rebel. He is merely carrying out God’s mandate to him on the sixth day of creation when God acknowledged his singularity by addressing him and summoning him to “fill the earth and subdue it.3

 

Unlike Adam I, the Adam in the Garden of Eden story, Adam II, does not seek to dominate nature but to serve that mysterious “He” that he perceives in creation. In a word, Adam I seeks dignity and is practical-minded while Adam II aspires to holiness and is faith-oriented.

 

The influence of this essay for orthodox American Jewry cannot be underestimated. R’ Soloveitchik’s article provided an answer to a very real question being posed by religious immigrants to America and their religious children. Namely, how can a traditional Jew participate fully in American life and yet remain faithful to Orthodoxy? R’ Soloveitchik’s answer is that there is almost a biblical mandate to become involved in the sciences, humanities and arts. This is the role of Adam I. But having participated in this task, the man of faith, Adam II, retreats to his family and faith community and seeks a relationship with God. In effect, religious man oscillates between Adam I and Adam II. It is a lonely existence, which explains the title of the essay “The Lonely Man of Faith.”

 

As an approach to seeking solutions to contemporary issues from the Torah this is a very meaningful essay. However, as a work of modern biblical scholarship it has a major limitation, in that the notion of two types of humans, particularly as they relate to the names of God, cannot be extended beyond the two creation stories.  There is no evidence, for example, of two types of Noah or two types of Abraham.

 

Nevertheless, R’ Soloveitchik has breached a major barrier for the modern religious world in raising the possibility that within the first three chapters of Genesis are two different accounts of creation, each with its own unique emphasis.

 

A fourth way of viewing these two stories, and this is the approach taken by this chapter, is to recognize that the two creation accounts relate primarily to the nature of the relationship between man and God, and this is reflected in the names of God Elohim and YHVH. This has more to do with the nature of God than the nature of man. Moreover, these two accounts are indeed different because of their different emphases and they should be regarded as allegorical rather than factual stories. 

 

To appreciate this approach, we need to review the nature of man in the two creation accounts.

 

In the first chapter in Genesis, man is created by Elohim to subdue and rule the earth:

 

And Elokim said: Let us make Man in Our image, after Our likeness (bezalmeinu kidmoseinu). They shall rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and over the animals, the whole earth, and every moving thing that treads upon the earth. So Elokim created man in His image, in the image of Elohim He created him, male and female He created them. Elokim blessed them and Elohim said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every living thing that treads upon the earth” (Genesis 1:26-28).

 

Rashi explains that the “image” (tzelem) of God means in “the mold” of God, while “after our likeness” means that man has the capability of achieving intellectual knowledge.4 Lest there be any misunderstanding, he repeats this explanation in relation to the next verse: 

 

In the image of G-d He created him: [the verse] has explained to you that the image which is fixed for him is the image of the semblance of his Creator.5 

 

Rashi’s explanation fits well into the remainder of the paragraph. Man is created to rule the world. It is appropriate, therefore, that he have the physical and intellectual abilities to fulfill this role.

 

A different perspective is provided by biblical scholarship. In the pagan world, the spiritual essence of a god could be transferred to an idol, so that the idol now becomes the abode of that force of nature. In the Accadian language this physical image was termed a salmu.6 This would explain how the ancients could believe that inanimate stone, clay or wood could be a living force. In the first creation story, as the “zelem” or “salmu” of Elohim, man becomes the recipient of some of the powers of Elohim to enable him to assume his role as master of the world. 

 

As a master within the world, the Adam of creation I can relate to a transcendent God called Elohim Who is concerned with all humanity as described in the chapter “The names of God.”

 

Very different is man’s creation in the second creation account:

 

And YKVK Elokim formed (vayiitzar) man of the dust from the ground, and He blew into His nostrils the soul of life (nishmat chayim) and man became a living being (nefesh chaya) (Genesis 2:7). 

 

Man in this account is created from the earth, but he also possesses a spiritual soul or “a soul of life” (nishmas chayim) blown into him by God. Animals are also formed from the ground and are also described as a “living being” (nefesh chaya) (Genesis 2:19), but unlike man they are not endowed with the breath of God. Jewish commentators also point out that the word “formed” (vayiitzar) (וַיִּיצֶר) in Hebrew describing the creation of man has two letter yods, while the same word describing the creation of animals “vayitzar” (וַיצֶר) has only a single yod. The yod is the first letter of the name of God YHVH. With its duplication, the Torah may be hinting at the dual nature of man - his earthly body and his spiritual soul from God.  

 

The immanent God YHVH has developed a close relationship with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, although the couple will not be receptive to all His directions. 

 

That the Garden of Eden story is an allegorical account would have been readily apparent to any reader (or more likely listener) from ancient Israel. Consider the following verses from towards the beginning of chapter 2: 

 

A river issues forth from Eden to water the garden and from there it is divided and becomes four headwaters. The name of the first is Pishon, the one that encircles the whole land of Chavilah, where the gold is. The gold of that land is good; bdellium is there and the shohan stone. The name of the second river is Gichon, the one that encircles the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Chidekel, the one that flows towards the east of Ashur; and the fourth one is the Euphrates (Genesis 2:10-14).

 

There is no place in the Near East at which four great rivers join together. The river “Chidekel” is usually identified with the Tigris, known in Mesopotamia as “Idiglat,”7 and this river does join the “Euphrates” near the Persian Gulf. However, this point in the Persian Gulf is nowhere near “Cush.” The “land of Chavila” is mentioned elsewhere in the Bible as the land where Ishmael’s progeny lived, but this was not in Mesopotamia (“They dwelt from Chavila to Shur – which is near Egypt – towards Assyria” (Genesis 25:18).8 Mesopotamia also has little mineral wealth. However, the upper reaches of the Nile were well known for their “gold.” Hence, it is likely that “Pishon” and “Gichon” were two tributaries of the Nile that joined together in southern Egypt.  

 

What the Bible is describing here is an imaginary place in which the most desirable water and mineral resources of the known world were combined together to create the most fertile and richest paradise in the Near East.

 

 The 19th century Biblical commentator R’ Samson Raphael Hirsch, after proposing the unlikely suggestion that these rivers joined together underground, explains as follows:

 

 Four districts seem to be named which, each in its way, yielded the richest of products. All the riches and all the abundance which lay separately in these lands were found together in Paradise.9 

 

It is worthwhile mentioning that the basis of some of the allegorical imagery used in the second creation account, such as the serpent and trees with different properties, was very likely borrowed from popular myths of the time, as was likely the case for the first creation story.  

 

Having said this, no myth has been found that closely resembles the biblical account. This should not surprise us. These types of stories were mainly transmitted orally and would not necessarily have been written down on clay tablets. Even if they were, there is no guarantee they would be discovered by archeologists.

 

Nevertheless, a Babylon cylinder seal has been found that is now located in the British Museum that shows a man and woman seated on opposite sides of a tree with their hands stretched out towards the tree. Behind the woman is an upright snake.

 

There is also a Sumerian legend called Edinu, i.e., having a name not dissimilar to Eden, about the god of wisdom and water, Enki, and the mother goddess Ninhursag. In this myth, composed well before the Biblical period, Enki creates a beautiful garden for Ninhursag in which she can sustain herself. However, conflicts arise between them as a result of his eating forbidden plants and causing harm to her, although there is eventual reconciliation.

 

Of considerable interest are references to Eden in the book of Ezekiel. The context is individuals who have been living in a wonderful world, called figuratively Eden, but who have now forfeited this privilege. This Eden is very different from the Eden of Genesis II. This suggests that a utopian world called Eden was well-known in the ancient world. Disturbing is that Ezekiel seems not to have had accurate knowledge of the Torah’s Garden of Eden. Ezekiel’s lack of knowledge of aspects of the Torah has been noted in other instances and was of sufficient concern to the Men of the Great Assembly that there was serious debate as to whether his book should be included in the canon.10

 

This is one of his sentences describing exceedingly tall trees in Eden amid a plentiful supply of water:

 

It became beautiful in greatness, in the length of its tendrils, for its roots were upon abundant waters. [Even] cedars could not obscure it in God’s garden (be’gan Elohim), cypresses could not compare to its boughs and chestnut trees were nothing like its branches; no tree in God’s garden (be’gan Elohim) could compare to it in its beauty. I made it so beautiful with its abundant tendrils that it was envied by all the trees of Eden that were in God’s garden (be’gan Elohim) (Ezekiel 31:7-9).

 

In this passage, Ezekiel is comparing the Pharaoh of Egypt to a cedar tree first in Lebanon and then in Eden. Noteworthy, is that Ezekiel’s Garden of Eden is called Gan Elohim, or a garden of God, using the name Elohim and not YHVH. Gan Elohim could also mean Garden of the gods, although this is unlikely in this book. By contrast, when the Torah wishes to describe an example of a particularly fertile location in the Jordan Valley, it is called “like Gan YHVH” (Genesis 13:10), thus obviating the possibility of any confusion. Like the Garden of Eden of Genesis, Ezekiel’s garden is also full of trees, although they are not fruit trees.

 

Another interesting example from the Book of Ezekiel is when he describes the prince of Tyre as being in Eden, this time in a garden containing precious stones:

 

You were in Eden, the Garden of God (gan Elohim). Your canopy was of every precious stone – odem, pitdah and Yahalom; tarshish, shoham and yashfeh; sapir, nophech and barkas – and gold? … You were a great sheltering cherub, and it is I ([Who} granted you this; You were upon the holy mountain of God; you walked among fiery stones . . . (Ezekiel 28:13-14).

 

Again, Ezekiel has made his Garden of Eden more for God than Genesis’ Garden of Eden. His Eden contains a person who is like a “cherub” and a “holy mountain of Elohim” (Ezekiel 28:14). By contrast, the Garden of Eden of Genesis is meant for the use of humans alone and contains no “fiery stones” since they would have been of no use to Adam. Genesis does not ignore precious stones, but places them all in Havilah, together with gold. Cherubs do guard its entrance in Genesis, but are not within it.

 

All this leads to the conclusion that Ezekiel was aware of another more mythological Garden of Eden story. It also allows us to see how the Torah likely used a garden of the gods story, but made significant changes to it to convey its monotheistic and ethical messages.

 

In conclusion, the Adam created by the transcendent Elohim of Genesis I is to “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it; and rule over” it. The Adam created by YHVH-Elohim in Genesis II also has very “earthly” concerns. His role is to “work and tend” the Garden of Eden. Midrashim will expand this role to include a spiritual function, but on a non-exegetical level his task is very much here on earth. However, in order to maintain his close relationship with God and remain in utopia he needs to adhere to one command related to its Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad.

 

But what type of knowledge can this tree endow? The whole point of an allegory is to provide a framework for conveying messages of significance. Unravelling the meaning of this tree will therefore be our next task.

 

References

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1. Rashi’s Commentary to the Torah to Genesis 2:4. Translation by The Sapirstein Edition of The Torah with Rashi’s Commentary, The Artscroll Series.

 

2. Rashi to Genesis 2:8.

 

3. http://www.traditiononline.org/news/converted/Volume%207/No.%202/The%20Lonely%20Man.pdf.

 

4. Rashi to Genesis 1:26.

 

5. Rashi to Genesis 1:27.

 

6. God as a Writer in The Horizontal Society. Understanding the Covenant and Alphabetic Judaism by Jose Faur, p21, Academic Press, Brighton, MA 2008. He provides the following additional references: The Şalme in Mesopotamia in Art and Religion by Douglas Van Buren, Orientalia n.s. 10 (1941) and “God, Image of” in Encyclopedia of Judaism, supplement #1.

 

7. A Commentary on the Book of Genesis by Umberto Cassuto, Second paragraph. The Planting of the Garden of Eden, p121, The Magnes Press, Jerusalem, reprinted 1998.

 

8. Nachmanides (commentary to Genesis 2:10) considers the Land of Chavila to be to the north and east rather than the south and west of Israel, and therefore dismisses this sentence about Ishmael’s progeny (Genesis 25:8) as being irrelevant to the location of Chavila as described in the second chapter of Genesis. In support of his position is that an individual named Chavila is mentioned twice in Genesis, once as the grandson of Ham and nephew of Mizraim (Genesis 10:7), and also as a sixth generation of Shem and grandson of Ophir (Genesis 10:28). The descendants of Shem dwelt in “the mountain to the East” (Genesis 10:30). The phrase “where the gold is” could identify this particular Chavilah as being in the territory of Ophir, which is mentioned as being a source of gold at the time of King Solomon (Kings I 9:28).  On the other hand, Nachmanides does accept the Pishon as being the Nile (commentary to Genesis 3:22), and interprets the confluence of these rivers in a symbolic manner. 

 

9. The Pentateuch, Translation and Commentary by Samson Raphael Hirsch, commentary to 2:10-14.

 

10. Examples of discordance with the Torah are sacrifices in his future Temple (Ezekiel 40-48), inheritance laws (ibid 46:16-18), the role of a prince (ibid 44:1-3; 45:7-8; 46:1-8) which is not mentioned at all in the Torah, and the treatment of foreigners (ibid 47:22-23).