Talk:Gen 1:1-2:3

Editing notes - December 2013

In the course of editing this page, I have removed numerous questions that ask what difference there is between two verses in the Genesis, Moses, and Abraham accounts of the creation. The page contains a note that this area of inquiry can be further explored. But creating several additional bullet points with unanswered "What does this tell us?" questions does not appear to me to move us any closer to understanding than the simple note that the entire area of inquiry can be further explored.

I have deleted some questions that ask "What does X mean?" This can be asked about almost anything, much as a little child who keeps asking "Why?" I have kept such questions when they appear to raise a thoughtful point and offer some suggestion about how to find answers. I have deleted such questions when they appear to be merely an exercise in demonstrating that we can always ask more questions.

I have deleted portions of questions that ask, for example: "What scriptures can you use to make your point? Where would we find out what the Lord means by that term when he says we have dominion over the whole earth and its contents?" I consider these to be test questions, not thought questions.

I have also deleted questions that ask about specific parallels to LDS temple ordinances for the simple reason that I am somewhat uncomfortable with questions that make those references and do not want to invite answers that may go beyond what is appropriate.

I have deleted questions that ask "How did God make ..." Since Genesis gives no clue, I see science questions of this type being beyond the scope of what Moses was trying to say.

I have deleted questions about topics that appear to already be discussed on the page. Several other questions I have myself turned into comments that answer the questions posed, and some questions I have rephrased.

Light and Darkness

Visorstuff, I started to answer your question and then ended up never addressing it really. My answer to your question really is about the concept of "opposition in all things." In that case, I thought maybe it would belong under a scripture more clearly associated with that concept. I'm not sure. Anyway, before worrying about where to put it and changing it to a neutral point of view, what do you think about this as an answer to your question?

Light is good and darkness is bad. (I'm not sure it makes much of a difference to this conversation whether you take that to be an actual statement about light and darkness or whether it is true because of how light is used metaphorically to talking about the good. I think though that it doesn't matter for my answer so leave that question aside for a minute.) It is necessary that the good has an opposite. But the fact that the bad is necessary doesn't make the bad good. One might choose to say "it is good that the good has an opposite." Clearly doing so will lead to a problem. My view though is that the problem exposed by this statement is either created by an imprecise use of language (essentially two different uses of the word good), or this statement is a reflection of the problem of evil. If it is the latter, I think a partial answer to the problem of evil is given here in Genesis 1:1. At the risk of getting too far off topic, I think that the scriptures never answer philosophical problems but always only partially answer them. (And as someone sometimes troubled things like the problem of evil, I find a partial answer comforting.) Here, rather than giving the answer to the problem of evil, the scriptures tell us that some ways of thinking about it are not acceptable. Here they tell us--do not think God created evil. God did not create the darkness. Rather, from the beginning "darkness was upon the face of the deep."--Matthew Faulconer 09:44, 20 Apr 2005 (CEST)

(For more on this, see discussion of Moses 2:2 where the Lord caused darkness. Also see the Problem of evil subpage I started. --RobertC 14:21, 18 Mar 2006 (UTC))

Comparing Creation Accounts in Genesis, Moses, and Abraham

With a similar account in Gen 2:1-5 [sic], is this speaking of a spiritual creation prior to the physical creation? Compare Abr 4:1-5 and Moses 2:1-5

Answering this question requires something that will not easily fit the exegesis section. I offer here one possibility, without pretending that it is the only or final answer to this question.

The first two chapters of Genesis seem to offer contradictory accounts about how God created the world. Commentators and preachers have recognized this since ancient times. Many modern scholars now believe that the two stories in Genesis stem from two documents that have their origins in two different schools of Israelite thought. At some point, these two accounts were edited together, along with other materials, to form what we now call Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The final product is not without its seams, which comes across to later readers as contradictions needing resolution.

We have no idea how the editor(s) reconciled the problems we now see in these two chapters of Genesis. It is possible that he (they) simply did not see a problem. Perhaps the original editors and their audiences simply did not demand the internal consistency that readers from a different age would. It was only later, when the text had taken on a life as the Word of God, that readers began having problems with the inconsistencies in Genesis (and elsewhere). Anyway, readers eventually detected problems with the accounts, and commentators stretched their abilities to resolve them. In a sense, the books of Moses and Abraham continue the tradition of trying to reconcile two very different and even contradictory accounts of creation.

Some early solutions posited that Adam was originally an androgynous being both male and female. Thus, God could create man "male and female" in Genesis 1:26-27 without contradicting the creation story of Genesis 2. This explanation (or variations of it) held sway for many commentators for several hundred years. Commentators have offered other solutions over time. Nearly all of them try to reconcile how both Genesis 1 and 2 could be describing the same event, i.e., the creation of the physical universe.

It seems doubtful that the original author or editor understood one account as a spiritual creation and the other as a physical one. That would be imposing a way of thinking on them that simply did not exist for hundreds of years after the accounts were written and edited. We have gotten used to dividing things between the "spiritual" and the "natural," but the essential thought pattern behind this division would be foreign to the earliest Old Testament writers. If the question before us is about original intent, then a negative answer is the most probable one.

However, distinguishing between "spiritual" and "natural" categories--though late in terms of biblical development--suggests an answer to the problems associated with the two creation accounts in Genesis. The solution offered in the Moses 2 and 3 brings later thought to bear on the Genesis accounts. Moses introduces the solution as explanatory asides which preserve most of the text of Genesis. The result is both simple and elegant. Joseph Smith was not the first person to suggest this kind of solution, but his prophetic office gave him leave to do something most other commentators would not dare. He reedited the biblical text itself.

The book of Abraham again takes up the subject of creation. What is noteworthy here is that Abraham is doing something entirely different from what we find in Moses. Cross harmonizing these two accounts is certainly possible, but Abraham also contradicts both Genesis and Moses at many points. The most prominent difference, changing the singular "God" to the plural "Gods," is only the beginning. Most strikingly, Abraham 5 has "the Gods" creating Eve before they created the animals.

In the Book of Abraham, Genesis 1 is not an account of a spiritual creation to be followed by a physical one. Instead, the story begins with explicitly preexistent material which "the Gods" form and prepare to advance explicitly eternal spirits to their "second estate." The story in Genesis 2 then becomes the fruition of the planning and preparations of the creation week. Though Abraham still preserves most of the Genesis text, it is a thorough reworking of these accounts. It not only solves problems with the original text, but also adds new theological treasures to the Mormon storeroom.

To summarize, the creation accounts in Genesis 1 and 2 may have started as two different sources brought together by a later editor. This product left some literary seams we see as inconsistencies and contradictions between the two accounts. As the book of Genesis in this form came to be seen as the word of God, the inconsistencies became problems in search of a solution. Both Moses and Abraham exist in part as ways of reconciling the contradictions. But in the process, they have gone beyond the likely intent of the authors and/or editors of the original text. Instead, the Genesis accounts are transformed in Moses and especially Abraham into springboards that burst forth with new insights about humanity's relationship with God.

Timothy A. Griffy 03:08, 15 Mar 2006 (UTC)