The creation account found in Genesis 1 of the Christian Bible has been revered and studied, scrutinized and criticized, for millennia. Believers and non-believers alike can often quote its first words: ‘In the beginning, God created’. Its literary rhythm of the days of creation, with their mornings and evenings, and its fantastical account of the origin of all things from the lowliest insect to the apex of man has left an indelible mark on human history and culture.
Less emphasis is often placed on the very next chapter, Genesis 2. Within this chapter, we find the notably less incidental seventh day of creation and a detailed description of the creation of Adam and Eve and the planting of the Garden of Eden. But though less popular or less recognizable, Genesis 2 has actually witnessed its share of controversy and has its own share of valuable insight to communicate to the believer. Let us dig a little see what we might find.
The Seventh Rest Day of Creation
The first important feature of Genesis 2 to note is its simultaneous continuation of and termination of the “creation week” account. In the first few verses of the chapter, the author describes God’s completion and rest from creation:
“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.”
Immediately upon reading these words, a careful reader will notice a very subtle departure from the previous chapter. In describing the completed work of creation of day seven, some important words are missing, those of “and there was evening and there was morning.” The stark chapter delineations that modern readers are used to would not have existed in the original text so the lack of the continuation of this pattern that had been maintained throughout all of the preceding creation days should inspire some important questions. Why the change? Is the difference important and functional? And does the author intend to communicate anything by this departure of the pattern?
The Seventh Day Continues
These questions highlight an important truth from Genesis 2: the seventh creation day never ended. God’s cessation from physical creation and His continued rest extends from that day to the present day and will continue until the new creation.
For some, this may be a very foreign concept so let us attempt to find some support in scripture for this idea. Hebrews 4 does an excellent job at laying out a framework for recognizing and embracing the continuing rest of God. He begins by reviewing Israel’s history of disobedience, their past wandering in the wilderness: “Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. 2 For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. 3 For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, “As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest,’” although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” He then finishes his thoughts…”For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. 9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. 11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.”
God’s Creation Has Ceased
Now, insomuch as the author of Hebrews mentions God’s rest extending from the seventh day, he seems just as adamant in emphasizing and confirming God’s cessation of creative works themselves. This begs an equally reasonable question: do we see evidence of this ending of creative activity in nature? As you might expect, the answer is yes. Prior to the appearance of modern humans in the fossil record, that record consistently shows new forms of life over time. For those familiar with the various “explosions” and extinction events related to the fossil record, new speciation had previously kept up with or indeed outpaced the level of extinction. But, beginning with the human age, extinction has increased and speciation abruptly dropped off. As we have mentioned before definitions of speciation can differ. But consider, for instance, that it is widely recognized that since modern humans appear in the fossil record, no new mammal species have been observed while half of the existing mammal species have since gone extinct.
As much as the Bible does reveal truth about the nature and timing of creation, it will likely never say enough to satisfy our modern scientific minds. And while we do not want to stretch the text too far in our analysis, given an even handling of its statements regarding God’s rest after creation, we can be confident that reality reflects the truth of scripture yet again.
Let’s Get Critical
One of the defining attributes of Biblical scholarship, at least since the enlightenment, is that it has been open to criticism. Rather than protecting scripture from criticism or analysis as some religions are prone to do, Christian scholars and theologians have been rather willing to hear and answer critical objections to Biblical truth claims. The result is a rich tradition of answering these objections and a strengthening and confirmation of much of scripture in archeology, theology, biology, and philosophy.
The Genesis creation accounts have not been immune to this higher criticism. Of particular historical note is the claim that the Genesis 1 and 2 creation accounts and their respective order of events are contradictory, the implication being perhaps that they represent different accounts taken from disparate sources and are not the result of inerrant, inspired authorship. There have been varied reactions to these claims. Some Christians take these criticisms for truth and, as a result, adopt a rather low view of scripture. Others take a more “non-overlapping magisteria” approach in which spiritual truth, such as doctrine and theological principles, are accurately preserved and communicated by scripture while historical and/or scientific truth claims found in scripture are less credible.
Another of these views attempts to reconcile evolutionary human origins with the Genesis accounts. They propose that the man mentioned in Genesis 1 should not be considered the same as man created in Genesis 2. While this approach may not materially deny the existence of a literal Adam and Eve, there are reasons both scientific and scriptural that would cast doubt on its plausibility including genetic evidence tracing human history to one very small original population size and statements made by Christ and Paul that hearken to a single, literal Adam and Eve pair.
Do Genesis 1 and 2 Contradict?
But what of this supposed contradiction? Without a doubt, if indeed Genesis 2 is in any form a compressed rehashing of the Genesis 1 account, it certainly does seem, at first glance, to treat the order and process of creation differently. A simple chronological reading of the Genesis 2 events seems to place some creation events out of order with Genesis 1. For instance, both accounts begin with some general understanding of the Heavens and Earth having been created but Genesis 2 does not include any treatment of light, darkness, or land being separated from water. Genesis 2 seems to skip to some form of plant life existing to the creation of Adam only, then to the planting of the garden, then possibly to the creation of animals and birds, then eventually the creation of woman. One can easily see why a dispassionate reader might find this account to be “messy” at the very least.
This may seem like a lot to reconcile at once so let us address each issue separately. Some who study scripture may be tempted to view Genesis 2 as a continuation of Genesis 1; a sort of “eighth day” if you will. But this conclusion does not easily follow from a careful reading of the text. For one, as we established earlier, it can be problematic to assume that God resumed any sort of substantial creative activity after His seventh day rest. Scripture seems to at least imply that God has not broken His rest from creation after it began and science also gives us no indication of the sort of mixed, out of order life history that we might expect to find were it the case that Genesis 2 introduced additional creative acts.
A Shift In Focus
As well, the introduction of chapter two gives us a rather clearly established framework with which to read it:
“These are the generations
of the heavens and the earth when they were created,in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.”
It is quite clear that the author of Genesis 2 is intending to reframe the context of what follows from a strict chronology to a more condensed one, though the order of events within that condensed account may still be important and/or intentional. This shift of focus and intent is also present in other areas of Genesis, such as the beginning of Genesis 5 where some translations use the phrasing “In the day that God created man.”We also see some signs of a shift in perspective as well. Though Genesis 2 gives a bit of description regarding the state of the land in focus, the setting quickly shifts to the Garden of Eden, the garden in the East, and continues from there.
“When no bush of the field[a] was yet in the land[b] and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6 and a mist[c] was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— 7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. 8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…19 Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed[f] every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens 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. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam[g] there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made[h] into a woman and brought her to the man.”
It is certainly possible that much of the description of events contained within this account are to be understood within the context and environment of the garden itself, not within the entire surface of the Earth. This calibration alone might be enough to satisfy issues of chronological contradiction.
What About That Crazy Order of Creation for Animals and Birds?
The remaining glaring notes that are most out of place are those of the creation of plants of the field and of the beasts of the field and birds of the air.
Regarding the creation of the plants of the field in 2:5, there are some telling textual clues, one being the Hebrew word “sodeh” for “of the field” and the other being the mention of there being “no man to work the ground.” “Sodeh” actually implies cultivated plants, which resonates well with the explicit reference to human cultivation. As such, this contradiction all but disappears if, indeed, the author is intending to communicate the lack of cultivated plant life either within the whole of the creation land (which would actually be equally telling for some Adamic viewpoints) or at least within the area that the Garden of Eden would later occupy.
Regarding the mention in verse 2:19 of the formation of beasts and birds, many modern translations actually translate verse 2:19 as above, “had formed”, which would indeed remove this supposed contradiction entirely if the intent was to hearken back to their previous creation as a sort of reminder. There is some debate (isn’t there always?) as to whether this verb choice is warranted and to what extent it is. If it is warranted, no contradiction is found. If it is not warranted, and another context is taken into account such as a narrow focus on the state of creation within the Garden itself, no contradiction may necessarily be required. Either way, it would be difficult to argue an all-encompassing disqualification of the legitimacy of either creation account based on this passage alone.
The Bottom Line
The words of Christ Himself seem a fitting way to conclude. When speaking to the Pharisees in the book of Matthew, chapter 19, verses 4 and 5, regarding divorce He says, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?” If we realize that He quotes partially from Genesis 1 and 2, from their respective creation accounts of mankind, seamlessly, seemingly treating them as complementary, and if Christ feels compelled to view them this way, then so should we.