Part 2
We don't need to look far for our first instance of biblical editing, which can be found in the very first chapters of the first book of the Bible: Genesis. In Genesis 1 and 2, we see two different accounts of the creation of the world and of humankind. As has been shown previously on this blog (see "Adam and Steve"), these two accounts contradict one another, and are generally thought to have been originally two separate stories that were eventually compiled into a single book (Genesis). This means that Genesis was not written by a single author, but rather is the product of multiple unknown authors, which was put together by an unidentified editor or series of editors.
This article will look at the two contradictory stories of creation found in Genesis 1 and 2. Since Genesis is part of the Torah (the first 5 books of the Bible, sometimes referred to as the Pentateuch), I will start by briefly presenting some of the prominent views in academia on how the Torah came to be composed as we have it today, and will then analyze the two creation myths within Genesis, noting instances of contradictions between the texts as well as significant differences in content.[1]
Authorship of the Torah
For centuries, the two creation myths of Genesis were understood to be complementary. They were thought to be two versions of the same story, written by a single author, Moses. However, with the rise of rationalism came a new way of reading the Bible—a way that allowed for critical questioning and didn't assume the Bible's internal coherence nor unified message. With this new academic perspective, scholars began to note a number of inconsistencies in the Bible, many of which were found in the Torah. Here are only a few of the problems they found:- Is Noah instructed to bring a pair of every animal with him on the ark? Or does he bring a pair of every unclean animal, and 7 pairs of every clean animal?
- Does Jacob rename the city of Luz "Bethel" on his way from his father Isaac's house to his uncle Laban's? Or does he rename Luz "Bethel" on his way back from his uncle Laban's house to his father Isaac's?
- Is Moses' father-in-law named Reuel? Or is he named Jethro?
- Is Caleb alone allowed to enter the promised land for trusting Yahweh while the rest of the Israelites did not? Or is both Caleb and Joshua allowed to enter?
The multitude of such examples make it clear that the Torah was not the product of one author such as Moses, but rather is the result of a combination of multiple earlier traditions.[2]
By the end of the 19th century, the dominant view in biblical scholarship was that 4 early documents were interwoven together at various points in history to eventually make the Torah as we know it today. This became known as the Documentary Hypothesis, and is still a common perspective held by modern scholarship.[3] Here is a brief description of these 4 proposed early sources:
J Source
"J" here stands for Yawhist (from the German spelling "Jawhist"), and is named this way due to its preferred use of the personal name "Yahweh" for God (translated as "the LORD" in most modern Bibles). The J Source is thought to cover the creation of the world, all the way up to the death of Moses. J Source is also known for often depicting God anthropomorphically (that is, as if he were similar in being to a human rather than a purely spiritual being).
E Source
This source is known as the Elohist source due to its preference to refer to God as some variation of "El" (generally Elohim; in pre-biblical times, "El" referred to the name of a Canaanite deity, but in the Bible its plural form, Elohim, is used as a general term for a god or gods). Indeed, unlike J Source which has the Genesis patriarchs know God by his name, Yahweh (see, for example, Genesis 28.10-17), in E Source God first reveals his name to Moses, stating that “I am [Yahweh]. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as [El Shaddai], but by my name ‘[Yahweh]’ I did not make myself known to them" (Exodus 6.2-3). E Source begins with God making a covenant with Abraham, and ends with Moses' death. In E, God is usually seen interacting with humans indirectly, such as through dreams or messengers (which we call angels).
P Source
Here, P stands for "Priestly" because this source is known for containing passages concerned with order and the ritualistic worship of God. P Source also begins with the creation of the world, and ends with the death of Moses. As is the case with E, P often refers to God as some variation of El, and depicts God as interacting with humans indirectly as well.
D Source
D stands for "Deuteronomist," and is named this way because it is found only in the book of Deuteronomy of the Torah (although other sources are thought to be present in the book of Deuteronomy as well, and the D Source is thought to be present in later books of the Bible, such as Joshua). D takes place in a single day, and is largely comprised of Moses' last speech to the Israelites.
In the 21st century, many scholars began to seriously question the Documentary Hypothesis, and instead promoted a version of the Supplementary Hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, the Torah was originally a single coherent document, and has undergone significant editing and additions to the text throughout the centuries, most of which is often thought to have taken place during the Babylonian Exile in the 6th century BCE.
In other words, while the Documentary Hypothesis claims that 4 separate complete texts were interwoven to create the Torah, the Supplementary Hypothesis claims that there was one original complete document that additional stories were added to it later. While there is no unanimous view on exactly how it came to be, it is widely accepted that the Torah we have today is the product of significant editing by anonymous editors. Keeping this in mind, then, let's look at the two creation myths in Genesis to see an example of why most scholars in academia came to find different traditions present in single book.
Creation Myth #1 (P Source?)
The first creation myth can be found in Genesis 1.1-2.4a. I will present sections of the text colored in gray, followed by brief summaries for readers who do not wish to read the original text, followed by commentary. This first creation myth is thought to belong to the P Source, so let's keep that in mind when reading the text to try to see why many bible scholars have considered it as such. Genesis 1.1 starts with the first day of creation:In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
Here, we see God ("Elohim" in the Hebrew) beginning the process of creating heaven and earth, but all that was there was a watery chaos. On the first day of creation, he separates light from darkness, creating day and night. Now let's move on to the second day:(Genesis 1.1-5)
And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
On the second day, God needs to make space for creation, so he creates a massive dome to separate the water below the dome from the water above the dome and names it "Sky." It is this same sky-dome that opens to let the waters above fall down to flood the earth in the story of Noah found in Genesis 7.11. The third day:(Genesis 1.6-8)
And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.
Now that there is room, God condenses the waters under the dome into seas, revealing land. Once this land is revealed, he creates all kinds of vegetation on it. The fourth day:(Genesis 1.9-13)
And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
God creates celestial bodies, including the sun (the greater light) and the moon (the lesser light) to distinguish day from night. This is significant because the author of this creation myth does not name the sun, moon, or stars. While some non-Israelite peoples identified the sun and the moon with their gods, Genesis 1 makes it clear that they are just there to signify time. The fifth day:(Genesis 1.14-19)
And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.” So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.
On the fifth day, God creates from the water sea creatures and birds of every kind, instructing them to reproduce. The sixth day:(Genesis 1.20-23)
And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.
On the beginning of the sixth day, God creates land animals. Now let's see what he creates later on that same day:(Genesis 1.24-25)
Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”
So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Later on the sixth day, God creates humankind, and just like the animals, the man and woman are instructed to "be fruitful and multiply." Unlike animals, however, humans were created resembling God. It is odd to many readers that his words are "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness" (from Genesis 1.26, emphasis is my own). Why is God talking in the plural? It is likely that he is talking to his divine assembly. Many ancient cultures had assemblies of gods, including ancient Canaan. In fact, we know of one assembly of gods in ancient Canaan that is headed by a deity named El![4] In the Bible, we see that Elohim/Yahweh is the head of a divine assembly, but his council is made up of lower divine beings that we call angels today.[5](Genesis 1.26-31)
It is also noteworthy that God creates man and woman together, giving them dominion over all the other creatures on the earth. He then instructs that seed-yielding plants and fruits are for human food, and every green plant for animal food. The first creation myth then concludes:
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.
On the seventh day, God rests, prefiguring the establishment of the Sabbath found later in the Torah.(Genesis 2.1-4a)
According to the Documentary Hypothesis, this first account of creation belongs to P Source, which can be seen by its preferred name for God (Elohim) and its connection to the later laws which require the Israelites to rest on the seventh day of the week. Additionally, God seems more distant from his creation, merely speaking humans into existence. Keeping these things in mind, then, let's take a look at the second creation myth.
Creation Myth #2 (J Source?)
This creation myth can be found starting at Genesis 2.4b, and is thought to belong to the J Source rather than the P Source. Like before, I will present sections of the text while offering summaries and commentary in between:In the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground—then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the LORD God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
In the beginning of this account, we see Yahweh (translated as "LORD") create man from the dust of the earth, and place him in his garden where all kinds of trees grew, including two special trees: the tree of life which grants immortality, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Before moving on, we should note a few things.(Genesis 2.4a-9)
First, we see that God is being referred to as "LORD God," or "Elohim Yahweh," rather than merely "Elohim" as is the case in the first creation myth. The author of this myth prefers to use God's personal name, Yahweh, not merely his impersonal title Elohim.
Second, it appears that here Yahweh made the earth and heavens in a single day, unlike the first creation myth, which has God creating the heavens (the sky-dome) on the second day, and land on the third day.
Third, creation here seems to start with dry land, not watery chaos. Indeed, the problem here seems to be that while there is land and some water (though not from rain, only the water that Yahweh has spring out from the ground), there is no one to work the land. In response to this, Yahweh creates a man from the abundant dust on the ground, plants a garden to place the man in it, and only then can trees of every kind grow. This is contrary to the first creation myth, where we saw God create trees of every kind grow on the third day, and he doesn't create man until the sixth day.
Fourth, the way Yahweh creates is more physical. He does not merely speak things into being, but instead does things like forms man from a substance available to him (dust), plants a garden in the ground, and places the man in said garden. God is depicted in performing actions as a human would who had divine power.
Now let's continue on with the narrative:
A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
These verses work to establish the Garden of Eden in real geography. This is problematic, however, given that the Euphrates and Tigris do not start from the same source, and it is uncertain where Pishon and Gihon are. After this, the story resumes:(Genesis 2.10-14)
The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”
It is reiterated that Yahweh places the man (Adam) into his garden so that he may maintain it, and then Yahweh gives him permission to eat of any tree in the garden (including the tree of life), but forbids him from eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, upon threat of death.(Genesis 2.15-17)
It is often thought that the Garden of Eden was created for Adam and Eve, making it puzzling why God would plant the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden to begin with. It seems here, however, that God makes man specifically to take care of his garden, not the other way around. This is also in contrast to the theme of humanity's domination of creation found in the first myth.
Moving on:
Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” So out of the ground the LORD God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called Woman,
for out of Man this one was taken.”
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.
Yahweh decides that the man could use a partner to help him in his gardening duties, and so he makes land animals and birds of every kind, which the man names. The man did not find any of these partners to be adequate as a helper, so Yahweh causes the man to sleep and uses his own body to make the first woman (Eve). The man finds the woman to be a suitable helper, and the narrator states that it is because of this manner of creation that men marry women—they are reuniting the separated flesh. Both the man and the woman lived in the nude because they knew no shame.(Genesis 2.18-25)
Once again, let's point out a few problems.
First, in this version Yahweh creates man and woman separately instead of together, as God did in the first myth.
Second, not only is woman created later, but Yahweh creates animals and birds as attempted partners for the man before thinking to create woman. In the first creation myth, animals are created before man and woman: birds are created on the fifth day, and land animals are created on the sixth day, but before man is.
Third, the reason for creating woman is different in this second account. In the first myth, God creates man and woman together to "be fruitful and multiply." In other words, woman was made alongside man in order to reproduce. In the second myth, however, woman is made to be a helper of man, only created when animals just didn't cut it as suitable partners. Reproduction does not seem to be the goal of creating man and woman in this myth.
This second creation myth continues to narrate the well-known story of Eve being tempted by a talking snake to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, both Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit, and then both getting kicked out of Yahweh's garden. I will skip a detailed analysis of the remainder of this story, and instead look at how this fits in with the Documentary Hypothesis.
This second myth is believed to belong to the J Source. As we have seen, it refers to God by his name, Yahweh. Additionally, this depiction of God seems much more human than in the first myth. In the first account, God is in complete control and creates the cosmos so that it is very good, ordered as he commands. He creates humans so that they can reproduce and fill the land, eating from seed-bearing plants and dominating the animals. In the second myth, Yahweh creates humans to tend his garden, and when they disobey him, he shoos them out of the garden before they can partake of the tree of life, saying “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” (Genesis 3.22). Indeed, it almost seems as though Yahweh expels Adam and Eve because he is threatened that they could rival him if they ate from both the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. J's God seems much more human in character than P's.
While there is no universally agreed upon theory in academia on exactly how the Torah came to be written, it is clear that it was not written by a single author, and contains a multitude of unique traditions within its text that differ both in plot and underlying theology. In Genesis 1, we see God create the world in six days through his divine commands exactly as he intended it, creating man and woman to dominate the other creatures of the earth. In Genesis 2, we see Yahweh create man from the earth to take care of his divine garden, and then woman to help man with his duties, only to expel both when they eat from the forbidden tree out of fear that they may also become immortal like Yahweh himself.
It has been suggested by some Christian apologists (those who try to defend their perception of the traditional Christian faith) that while these two creation narratives may contradict one another from a modern perspective, they make perfect sense in the ancient Hebrew style of writing, and are actually the work of a single author. To accept such a position is to accept that internal narrative inconsistency is a literary style, which I find difficult to believe. It may be problematic to see Genesis as anything but the divinely-inspired single work of Moses to some, but I do not see it as such. What I find incredibly fascinating is that the editor(s) chose to preserve multiple sources in scripture rather than make a logically coherent narrative. Was it an attempt to be inclusive to different traditions in ancient Israel? Was it out of pressure from two competing groups with different myths, one of which would be offended if their tradition was excluded? Was it merely the product of many editors adding onto the text to insert their own beliefs and agendas into scripture? No one knows the answers to these questions, but with the evidence at hand it is clear that even from early on, the creation of scripture was an incredibly complicated process.
Notes
[1] Unfortunately, we do not have very early manuscripts available to demonstrate instances of editing in Genesis. The earliest manuscripts of Genesis written in Hebrew that we have is from the Dead Sea Scrolls, which date to the 1st century BCE to the first century CE. However, these manuscripts are only fragments. The earliest complete manuscripts of Genesis we have are part of what is known as the Masoretic Text, which date to the 10th and 11th centuries CE. To put this into perspective, most scholars agree that the first written version of Genesis was composed in the 10th century BCE. This means that we have fragments of Genesis manuscripts which were written 800-1,000 years after the first written version was created, and complete manuscripts written 1,800-2,000 years after. These large gaps in time make it impossible for us to utilize Manuscript Comparison to demonstrate editing of Genesis.
[2] Additionally, it has long been noted that parts of the Torah were certainly not written by Moses, such as the narration of Moses' death in Deuteronomy, and verses like Gen. 12.6, where the narrator states "At that time the Canaanites were in the land," referring to a time when the Canaanites were not in land, which Moses himself never lived to see.
[3] The Documentary Hypothesis has evolved over the years, and issues concerning the dating and style of composition of the 4 sources still vary greatly today. For instance, in its earliest form, there was thought to be only 3 documents making up the Torah: J, E, and D. Later, E became separated into E and P. For a brief overview of authorship of the Torah, see Marc Z. Brettler's "Introduction to the Pentateuch" in The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version with Apocrypha (2010). For a more detailed look at the Documentary Hypothesis, see Joel S. Baden's Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis (2012).
[4] Myths about this ancient Canaanite pantheon come from tablets discovered through archaeological digs of an ancient city called Ugarit (in modern-day Syria). These tablets were written prior to the 11th century BCE, probably predating the Bible.
[5] God's divine assembly is even made up of what most think of as evil beings, such as the "lying spirit" in 1 Kings 22, and even Satan himself in Job 1.
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