Does the Bible really offer differing creation accounts?

It has been asserted by many that the Biblical account of creation is unreliable because the Bible actually contains two conflicting accounts of creation. But is this true? Before we answer this, let us first consider the subject of reading. One of the three R’s, reading, writing and arithmetic, reading is a fundamental skill. Without it is to look forward to a dismal future. Yet, while reading is important, being able to understand what you read is without question far more critical. Sadly, those who think there are two conflicting creation stories in Genesis are lacking in their reading comprehension skills.

The argument begins in Genesis 2, verse 19: And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them…. “Aha,” they say, “we now have a second and contradictory account of creation since Genesis chapter 1 says that the birds were created on Day Five, but here in chapter 2 not only are they created on Day Six, but now both they and the beasts of the field are created after the creation of man.” And thus they pronounce the Bible to be unreliable, a long suspected conclusion they were hoping to justify anyway.

I wonder, though, if they ever heard of an invention called the microscope. You see, it is entirely possible to look at the same slide under differing magnifications. You start out with your slide under the least amount of magnification so you can bring the slide into focus, find your specimen, center it, and then zoom in for greater detail. Once the magnification is increased the appearance can be altered so drastically as to seem contradictory, yet only the depth of focus has changed. The truth is that in Genesis, there is only one creation account, yet there are two focal points being examined.

In Genesis chapter 1, God has chosen to focus on his creation of man in his (God’s) own image. Verse 26 says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness….” While God himself is always masculine in gender throughout the scriptures, God is not merely forming man the male in his own image, but also included is man the female. Man being spoken here is man the race. What we need to understand here is that man as a race was the crowning of God’s creation. He was not the largest or the strongest, but he was the most intelligent. And as God ruled over all creation, being in God’s image, it would only be natural for God to place man, as his personal representative, over all the creatures God had created here on this earth.

In Genesis chapter 2, God has an altogether different focal point in mind — marriage. As man the race is the crowning of God’s creation in chapter 1, he magnifies this relationship to show us how it came to pass in chapter 2, with woman being the crowning of the race of man. In fact, Paul would later call her the glory of man. While no one seems to care that God planted a garden called Eden after he created man, effectively creating additional plant life on Day Six to that which was already there since Day Three, the idea that God could create additional air and land creatures somehow seems foreign. But this is exactly what God did, because his purpose was marriage.

In verse 20 the Bible uses the word “meet” which means “fit.” God wanted Adam to understand that out of all the creatures he created, there were none that were fit for him. Being created right before his very eyes he clearly understood that he was not even closely related to any of them, and yet he understood that he had been created above them, so they were not even fit for him. Thus after having taken a rib from Adam’s side and creating woman, we find only one creature in all of God’s creation who is fit for a man, and thus we find marriage.

Perhaps this is why some would seek to discredit the Genesis account of creation. If it can be questioned that God created the heavens and the earth, and all that is in them, then it can also be questioned whether God created marriage. But the critics of Genesis will have to dig a little deeper, for all that we find here is one man for one woman for one lifetime, just as God intended marriage to be.

Ron Hamman is pastor of Independent Baptist Church of Wasilla; contact him at 357-4229 or rghamman@mtaonline.net