2:1 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.
The Creation of Man and Woman
4 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.
Footnotes
[1] 2:5 Or open country[2] 2:5 Or earth; also verse 6
[3] 2:6 Or spring
It struck me, as it never had before, that there is a puzzle here. Genesis 2 apparently says that humans were created before plants were. Genesis 1, taken literally, says that plants were created on the third day, and humans on the sixth. I am not a Hebrew scholar, but the translation above, also the NIV and the NASB, seem to say that there were no plants growing until Adam was created. Here's the ASV, which is public domain:
| And no plant of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up; for Jehovah God had not caused it to rain upon the earth: and there was not a man to till the ground; |
So what's going on? Well, it seems to me that Genesis 2:5 is scriptural evidence that the days of creation of Genesis 1 are not meant to be taken literally. (Exodus 20:11 seems to be evidence that they were.)
I knew that Meredith G. Kline, who was a Bible scholar, had written about Genesis 2:5 as evidence for non-literal days, and that knowledgable Christian blogger Jeremy Pierce had written about this subject also, and that neither had argued that correctly interpreting Genesis demands that the days of Genesis 1 were literal, but reading this passage in the ESV reminded me forcefully of this matter.
Any comments?
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Note added Jan 24: There have been enough comments that I plan to post again on this subject. Also, I entered it in this week's Christian Carnival, so it may get a few more readers, who may also deserve some sort of response.
12 comments:
Hmmm...I'll have to check this out. Thanks!
I vaguely remember this question being addressed in an Old Testament class I took in college many years ago. I think the first chapter was read as chronological, and the second was an account of things in order of importance, magnitude.
Thanks for reading, and commenting, ladies.
Julana, you are probably correct here. However, the second account still seems to be strong evidence that the first one was not meant to be taken in the sense of literal days.
Hey Martin,
You might want to check some of theearly church fathers, I think it was Basil the Great, who pointed out these can not be literal days as the sun and the moon are not formed until day 3.
Here's how I understand it:
In both translations provided, the bushes, herbs, and plants are all "of the field." This refers to cultivated plants that a farmer would grow for food, hence the referral to "no man to work the ground." This doesn't exclude all plants from existence, such as trees and grasses. It doesn't contradict the original order of things in Genesis 1, but gives details as a specific reference to Man's stewardship over God's natural provisions.
I hope that helps.
Also, to Technogypsy:
The order of events in the creation story isn't necessarily supposed to coincide with science's determination of things. God obviously has His own means and methods.
Yes, technogypsy, I understand that people who have taken the Bible very seriously have not always believed that the days of Genesis 1 were meant to be taken literally. If I had to vote, I'd vote that way myself. However, the sequence could have been literal, with the sun and moon not appearing until the third day, but created earlier.
Adam, I have difficulty with the idea you present, although it may be correct, because the end of Genesis 1 does not separate the food plants provided into field plants, and others. Neither does the third day description of Genesis 1.
Thanks to both of you for reading and commenting.
My friend, Matt Grills, at TheMinorProphet, does a nice job thinking through these questions about Genesis 2. http://www.theminorprophet.com/genesisproject/Post/?post=1523
Thanks, Kathleen. I have looked at the post from Grills, and expect to respond with a post of my own soon.
Look carefully at everything said about plants just in Genesis 1. I don't have time to look at it to see which verses it's in, but you'll find a similar problem already there in what's usually thought of as the first creation account. So it's not just that the two accounts are opposed to each other, as some have thought.
This is analogous in some ways to the problem of the creation of light and days, then the creation of the bodies that serve as the source of light and the determination of when days begin and end. I think there's even another reference later on to the stars. I think the light issue is evidence that it's not chronological, but the plant issue is much more definitive. There's one possible way to try to get around both that I don't think ultimately works, which I hope I have time to post about soon when I put together some recent thoughts I've been having on the matter.
I look forward to your post, Jeremy!
I'm not sure I understand the conflict. It says
26: And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. . . .
and
7: And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Shouldn't this be read as man having been formed on the second or third day, and made in God's image, given dominion on the earth, at the sixth day?
Maybe so, but I'm not aware of anyone who reads it like that, and, I believe, Bible scholars are unanimous, or nearly so, in putting the creation of human beings on the sixth day.
Thanks for your comment.
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