Are there two accounts of the Creation in Genesis?
At Comparing the two accounts of the Creation in Genesis we assume that the division at 2:4 is a fact. At this page we would like to document the contrary view.
If you can help us document the case for a single creation narrative from Genesis 1:1 to 3:24 please get in touch! See here for our email.
An effort to merge the two accounts
Speaking of Genesis 2:8, Pete Enns politely writes:
At this point . . . the NIV translates the simple Hebrew past “The Lord God planted a garden” as an English pluperfect “The Lord God had planted a garden.”[1] Throughout this story the NIV handles the simple past as a simple past, but not here. Why? The NIV opts for the pluperfect in order to push the creation of the garden back before the creation of the man to preserve the sequence of Genesis 1. The NRSV is better here by preserving the simple past, therefore reading Genesis 2 sequentially.[2] The same point holds for v. 19 and the creation of the animals. Genesis 2 has them created after the man, but the NIV again uses the pluperfect to push the creation of animals back before humanity to harmonize the sequences of the two creation stories. Here too the NRSV preserves the simple past.
