I grew up a young earth creationist. My family fully embraced the six-day creation in Genesis 1. For some reason, it never came up that Genesis 2 tells the story again, but in a different order, with a different name for God, and a completely different kind of deity. Put these two accounts side by side and you will see they contradict.
Most people only pay attention to the first “let there be light” creation story.
This first telling of creation is neat and tidy. First comes the light. Then the sky and the separating of the waters (which were already there in the beginning). Next, dry land and plants appear on the third day, followed by the sun, moon, and stars on day four. On day five, the sea life and birds of the air. Finally, the cherry on top of the creation ice cream sundae, God creates humans. And an important note here, Adam and Eve are made concurrently in the image of God and told to have a bunch of kids and also to rule the earth. So we have creation of heavens and earth, water, plants, animals, then people at the end. That is the order.
The second creation story flips the order. That story starts with the world as a barren wasteland because there was no rain or no humans to work the ground. So God’s first step is to form a man out of the dust of the ground. Yes, the first thing while the earth is still empty. Once man exists, God plants him a garden to live in. Then god fills the garden with animals. Basically God wanted to find man a suitable companion so he made animals. The animals failed to fit that role, so all-knowing God finally makes the woman out of the rib of the man.
Let’s recap the differences. In the first version, plants and animals appear before humans. It also says man and woman are formed at the same time. The second version says man is formed before plants and animals. Also, he is formed alone before the woman. To be precise, man is formed first and woman is formed last, after the animals. These are completely differing accounts and when you are expected to believe that the bible is the divine inerrant word of God, this is hard to explain away.
Another difference found in the creation accounts is the name for God. The first uses a generic word for deity, meaning God. The second uses the sacred four-letter (YHWH) name rendered as Lord. Scholars agree that this name shift definitely signals a change of author who had a preferred way of referring to God.
God also acts differently in both accounts. The first account shows an all powerful distant creator using his voice to command things into existence. The second account has God creating from the dust of the earth (he is the potter, I am the clay). We have imagery of him breathing the breath of life into the man. He plants the garden for man. He walks through the garden. This is a completely different picture of the cosmic creator.
There is even a difference in what God commands humans to do. In one version God commands humans to rule over and subdue the earth. The other version tells humans to serve and keep the garden. One version implies ruler and the other implies caretaker.
Avid young earth creationists usually justify these differences in a couple ways. The first is they assume the second creation account is just a depiction of the events on the sixth day because that is where humans enter the story. That doesn’t make sense because it still changes the order putting man before plants and animals.
The second attempt is found in some translations quietly change a verb in the second account so that God had already “formed” the animals before making the man. But scholars show that the straightforward reading of the text has God forming the animals after the man because man was lonely.
So what is the truth? Both accounts hold truth depending on your tradition. Two different authors documenting two separate creation traditions. Traditions with differences that were later placed side by side. For some reason, the person who compiled Genesis preferred to keep both accounts over forcing them into a single consistent story. That’s because the early church did not consider the bible the inerrant word of God.
This perfect, inerrant Bible is a modern invention. The bible only makes sense when you see it as a human anthology, assembled by differing older sources, by editors who respected certain traditions. Genesis is a clear example of this and recognizing this fact does not change the beauty of the creation stories or their importance to a group of people, but it does ask us to be honest and accept what they are.
The two creation accounts in Genesis are just two ancient poems about beginnings. What you do with this information is your path. I’m just here to present the facts so your beliefs, whatever they be, are grounded in truth and not dogma.
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We sat in the same pew once. I am glad we are sitting in a better one now.
Sources & Further Reading
The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis by Nahum M. Sarna (a careful scholarly commentary that lays out the distinct character of the two creation accounts).
How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now by James L. Kugel (on the difference between ancient and modern readings, including the two creation stories).
The Bible with Sources Revealed by Richard Elliott Friedman (a color-coded edition that separates the interwoven creation sources directly on the page).
that this god is literally too ignorant to know that the animals can't be Adam's mate shows that this god is not omnipotent nor omniscient. Having a woman as at best an afterthought makes this cult's nonsense ridiculous. Did Adam have to have his plumbing rearranged? this god evidently thought it was either unnecessary to make other humans or that they could just be somehow made from a human male having sex with an aardvark.