Two Creation Stories, Two Worldviews: Parashat Bereshit, Part 1 | Episode 144
How can the Torah present two different creation stories in its opening chapters, while most of us remember only one?
Hello, friends. Daniel Adar here. In episode 144 of Beliefs & Consequences, “Parashat Bereshit, Part 1,” we return to the beginning. The very beginning. We are going to examine what is written, rather than simply recite what we were told in kindergarten. That sounds like a modest request. Sometimes, apparently, it is enough to unsettle an entire structure of beliefs.
We all know the familiar package: light, sky, land, animals, Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden. But that package combines texts the Bible presents separately. Read each account on its own, without automatically supplying details from the other, and differences emerge in the sequence of events, humanity’s role, and how God acts. These are substantial differences. They express different worldviews.
Before Genesis: The Sea, the Monsters, and the Victorious God
Understanding the Bible requires familiarity with the world in which it developed. Ancient Israel did not exist inside a cultural bubble. Languages, traditions, religious practices, and stories circulated among neighboring societies and influenced one another. Canaanite and Mesopotamian mythology provides context for biblical expressions that sound mysterious today.
In the episode, I use the term “theomachy”: conflict among gods, and in our discussion, also the deity’s battle against chaotic forces represented by the sea and its monsters. Chaos means disorder, a threatening condition the story presents as requiring restraint. In regional myths, victory over the sea allows order to be established and divine rule to be secured.
Now open Psalms, Isaiah, and Job. Suddenly, we encounter Rahab, the dragon, and Leviathan. Why does a god need to crush Leviathan’s heads? Since when does Leviathan have several heads? Once we know the region’s sea monster traditions, those questions become understandable. The words acquire context.
A “myth” here is a cultural narrative about the origins of the world, gods, humanity, or the social order. The term is not simply an insult meaning “a lie.” We can investigate what a story seeks to explain without accepting it as an account of actual events. Indeed, that is the point: understanding what people imagined, and what they did with those imaginings.
Genesis 1: A World Built According to a Plan
The first account organizes creation systematically. God speaks, separates, arranges, and blesses. The narrative progresses from an initial condition of darkness and water to an ordered, inhabited world, concluding with rest on the seventh day at the beginning of chapter 2.
We should pause over “raqia,” commonly translated as “firmament” or “expanse.” In the reading I present in the episode, this is a component of an ancient world picture separating upper and lower waters, rather than outer space in its scientific sense. “Cosmology” means a conception of the structure of the world or universe. Understanding an ancient cosmology requires asking what its authors could know and imagine, without placing galaxies and telescopes inside their heads.
The sequence of creation deserves attention too. Vegetation appears before the heavenly lights. The sun and moon receive functions involving illumination, days, and appointed times. The stars appear in a brief addition. This is a world narrated from the perspective of people looking upward, rather than from knowledge of the universe’s structure.
Then come the “great sea creatures.” Against the background of regional traditions, I read their inclusion as a statement: the threatening beings are not independent rivals God must overcome. In this account, they too are created. Familiar cultural material receives a new role within a different conception of divine authority.
Genesis 2: Humanity Must Work, and Loneliness Needs a Solution
The second account, beginning at Genesis 2:4, presents a different setting. The focus shifts from the first story’s cosmic organization to the soil, the absence of rain, human labor, and a garden planted in Eden. The human is formed from dust, receives the breath of life, and is placed in the garden to cultivate and guard it.
Notice: a garden in Eden. Within this narrative, it is a setting with trees, water, and work. The passage does not describe a destination for souls after death. We should not automatically assume that every later meaning associated with “the Garden of Eden” already exists in this text.
The woman’s appearance differs too. In the first account, humanity is described as male and female in its creation. In the second, the human is alone. God determines that solitude is not good, animals are brought before the human, and eventually the woman is formed. In the reading I present in the episode, a need emerges and is addressed as the narrative unfolds.
The issue goes beyond who was created first. In the first account, humanity receives dominion, a blessing of fertility, and the task of filling the earth. In the second, the human works in a garden and needs an “ezer kenegdo,” a suitable counterpart or partner. Humanity as ruler and humanity as worker are markedly different emphases. Combining them into one account obscures what each text says.
“In God’s Image”: What Are We Reading into the Words?
For many people today, “in God’s image” carries important moral meanings. But the historical question concerns what it meant in the world in which it was written. In the episode, I argue that we should take the physical dimensions of “image” and “likeness” seriously, rather than assume that these words refer exclusively to an abstract spiritual quality.
I therefore turn to Genesis 5, where the resemblance between Adam and Seth is described using the same expressions, and to other biblical depictions of a deity with bodily characteristics. Exodus 24 describes people seeing the God of Israel, including a reference to what lies beneath his feet. Exodus 33 includes a description of seeing his back.
“Anthropomorphism” means attributing human form or characteristics to a nonhuman being. We can debate how to understand each description. But the existence of that debate matters: belief in a bodiless God is no reason to erase the history of other conceptions.
The episode also mentions Shiur Qomah and Rabbi Moses Taku’s opposition to abstract philosophical conceptions of God. These disagreements remind us that Judaism has a history of developing and conflicting ideas. What someone today considers the only possible belief was not always accepted that way.
From Creation to the Chain of Command
Here we encounter “Enuma Elish,” the Babylonian creation myth whose title means approximately “When on High.” In the episode, I identify motifs that invite comparison with Genesis, including primordial waters, the organization of the world, and the functions of the heavenly lights. Comparison does not require every detail to be identical. It requires us to stop treating the Bible as though it developed without a cultural environment.
But another question arises: who benefits from the story? Origin narratives can establish hierarchy, a ranking of authority and control. When a particular god stands at the top, that god’s representatives and rulers can present the existing order as an expression of divine will. A story about the world’s beginning thereby becomes a story about people’s right to rule in the present.
In this context, I return to Rashi’s commentary on the Torah’s opening verse, which connects beginning with creation to justifying the granting of the land to Israel. A distinction matters here: this is a later interpretation, rather than direct evidence of the intentions of Genesis’s authors.
Nevertheless, it illustrates how a creation narrative can serve as an argument for ownership and authority. Once someone claims that God granted something, the question of who may challenge that grant becomes intensely political.
Reading the Bible Without Erasing Its Differences
“Biblical criticism” investigates biblical texts, their sources, editing, and historical contexts. “The documentary hypothesis” is an approach that explains the Torah’s development through the combination of different sources and traditions. In the episode, I use the existence of multiple sources to explain the differences between the creation accounts. The details and dating of that process remain subjects of research and disagreement, but the textual differences are available for everyone to examine.
“Harmonization,” meanwhile, means attempting to reconcile different accounts into a unified narrative. “Apologetics” means defending a belief or tradition through argument and interpretation. When I criticize these approaches in the episode, the question is whether an interpretation helps us understand the text or forces it to say what we have already decided.
We can love an ancient book without claiming that every detail happened. We can find interest, beauty, and meaning in a story without granting it immunity from examination. For me, respect for a text begins with the willingness to read the sentences that make us uncomfortable too.
Watch episode 144, “Parashat Bereshit, Part 1,” through our Torah portion playlist. Follow the biblical passages as you watch, and tell us in the comments: Which difference between the two accounts surprised you most? Subscribe to the channel, share the episode with friends who appreciate good questions, and continue to Part 2. There, we examine further aspects of the Genesis narratives and the consequences of beliefs built around them.
Links and References Discussed in the Episode
Genesis 5: Image and likeness in the description of Adam and Seth.
Rashi on Genesis 1:1: The Torah’s opening and the argument concerning the granting of the land.
Dr. Shahar Inbar’s episodes on the Osim Historia network, including the Osim Tanakh episodes about the two creation narratives, recommended for further exploration in this episode.
Our Torah portion playlist on YouTube: Find this episode and continue to Part 2.
The Beliefs & Consequences website: Explore further content. This episode also references episode 112 on the rise of Yahweh and the elimination of religious pluralism, and episode 17 with Yaron Yadan.