Question 1, Part A - Creation in Six Days, then Rest?

Does the Bible say that God created all things in six days and then rested on the seventh?

The Bible contains two very different stories about how God created the heavens and the earth. The first story in Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 is the very well known “Creation in Seven Days” story.

The second story in Genesis 2:4-25 is not as well known as the first, but the second story does include the very familiar story of God’s creation of the first woman out of the rib of the first man.

Get your Bible out and read these two stories. Keep three questions in mind:

(1) Does the second creation story depend upon, expand upon, or continue the “Creation in Seven Days” story that comes first?

(2) In terms of content, is the second story mostly similar to or different from the “Creation in Seven Days” story?

And (3) in terms of style (i.e., the way the story is told), is the second story mostly similar to or different from the “Creation in Seven Days” story?

Two Distinct and Separate Creation Stories

If you actually read both stories, you noticed that the second story in Genesis 2:4-25 does not continue the “Creation in Seven Days” story that comes before it in Genesis 1:1 – 2:3. The “Creation in Seven Days” story comes to a conclusion and then the second story begins.

You also noticed that the second creation story does not depend upon or expand upon the “Creation in Seven Days” story.

The second story is a complete entity in and of itself. You don’t need to know anything else about how God started things in the beginning in order to understand the second story.

Content: The Order of Things Created

Let’s look more closely at the content of the two stories. For example, what’s the order in which things are created in each story?

In the “Creation in Seven Days” story in Genesis 1:1 – 2:3, man and woman are created last. Furthermore, in this story it’s more like God creates the human race, not just one man and one woman.

Listen to Genesis 1:27: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” This act is not really the creation of a just one male and just one female.

In fact, the Hebrew word that is translated “man” in this verse here in Genesis 1:27 is a collective noun that would be better translated as “humankind or humanity.” (In fact, from now on when this Hebrew word is used in this way, we will translate it “humanity.”)

According to the “Creation in Seven Days” story, God created the human race in one fell swoop.

In the second creation story, God creates just one man first and then God creates just one woman at the end of the story, after the Garden, the trees, the dry-land animals, and the birds.

And it is from these two characters, the man and the woman, that the rest of humanity is descended, according to the second creation story.

In the “Creation in Seven Days” story, the birds are created before the animals that live on dry land. In the second story, the animals that live on dry land and the birds are created at the same time.

So, the order in which God creates things differs markedly in the two creation stories.

(More to come.)