re: #102 sagehen

For people at a 2nd-grade reading comprehension level.

Genesis Chapter 1 is a creation narrative — it starts from nothing, goes through various steps and ends up with PEOPLE.

Genesis Chapter 2 loops back to the start and does another creation narrative — it starts from nothing, goes through various steps and ends up with PEOPLE.

But these narratives don’t put all the steps in the same order, at some steps God uses different methods. They are contradictory, incompatible narratives. They can’t both be true.

That’s the big flashing neon sign, right there in the text from the start, that Genesis was never intended to be read as a literal, factual account.

Metaphor is not a modern invention.

The explanation I heard (can’t remember where) was that the ancient Hebrews knew that God created the world and didn’t much care exactly how.