God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.
And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, “Let us make humans in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created humans in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
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It often comes as a surprise to Christians to discover that there are in fact two distinct creation stories in Genesis: the first story just narrated runs from Genesis 1:1 to 2:3, and the second is found in Genesis 2:4–25 (though the story really continues at least into Genesis 3). That these are two different stories is evident from their many distinctive features. For example, in the first story God is consistently called Elohim in Hebrew, meaning simply “God,” while in the second he is called YHWH Elohim, or the “LORD God”; in the first story animals and humans are merely commanded into existence by God (1:20, 24, 26), while in the second story they are shaped by God from the earth (2:7, 19); and in the first all this happens over six “days” (1:3–31), while in the second all this is summarized in a single “day” (2:4, literally, “In the day that the LORD God made earth and heavens”).
We cannot be certain when these stories were first told, but many scholars suggest the second story is actually the older of the two. In any case, it is possible that some version of both stories were told in the homes and villages of the early Israelites or their forebears well before they were brought together in the book of Genesis as we know it. These stories are distinct, but clearly at some point the ancient Israelites believed them to be compatible, or both stories would not have been included side by side in the first chapters of Genesis.
In the previous chapter we saw that ancient cosmogonies such as these were intended to answer the deep worldview questions humans have, the who and what and why of human existence in the world. So what does the first biblical creation story have to say to these sorts of questions?
First, who is God? “God” in this story is Elohim. This is the plural form of the generic Hebrew word for a deity or, occasionally, a human ruler. El is a “mighty one.” The use of the plural does not mean that this refers to many gods, nor is this some kind of pre-Christian intimation of the Trinity (God as a plurality of persons). Rather, the plural conveys either an abstract concept—that God as Elohim is the epitome of “deity”—or it indicates an intensive or superlative idea—that God as Elohim is the “very strong one” or “mightiest one.”
God is already there “in the beginning” (1:1). God stands before time and space as we know it; God creates within the time and space we experience. Unlike other ancient creation stories, in which the natural world comes into existence incidentally out of the conflicts of the gods or erotically out of the couplings of the gods, in this biblical creation story “heaven and earth”—everything in the cosmos—is created simply by God’s divine will. God merely speaks and the pieces of creation come into being and fall into place. Furthermore, God names the most foundational created elements—the “day” and the “night” (1:5), the “sky” (1:8), the “land” and the “seas” (1:10)—indicating his sovereign control or ownership over these features of nature. This is especially significant because in other ancient cosmogonies these features are presented as gods or goddesses. In one version of the Egyptian stories, for example, the god Ra is the sun, Shu and Tefnut are air and water, Geb and Nut are earth and sky. In contrast, this first biblical creation story emphasizes that there is only one true God, and that all these features and forces of nature are not gods at all but merely creations of the one Creator God, under God’s power and control.
All this underscores God’s transcendence and omnipotence, or—to put this in “more Hebrew” terms—God’s holiness and his might. God is “holy”—completely other than all else that exists—and no one should confuse God with the natural world he has created. God is “transcendent”—beyond the constraints of this time and space, which he has created. And God is “almighty” or “omnipotent”—able to do anything he wills to do. In short, God is Elohim, the “mightiest one,” who creates and rules over all things by his sovereign will and power.
So then, what is the world? To answer this question we need to explore the way the story is structured.
The story is introduced with the well-known statement, “In the beginning God created
