The Genesis 2 account of creation varies in certain details from the Genesis 1 account. This has led some scholars to believe that these chapters represent different stories of creation from two different ancient groups of Hebrew people. According to this theory, these two groups of Hebrews eventually merged into one but kept both stories of creation. These two stories then were both included in the Old Testament because each spoke of fundamental truths about God and humanity.

Another theory suggests that Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are not actually two different stories of creation, but rather tell the same story from different perspectives. Each focuses on different details and highlights different important moments. According to this theory, Genesis 1 presents a big-picture, “wide-screen” point of view of creation that does not spend a lot of time focused on any one part of creation and tells us more about God Himself and how He works. Genesis 2, then, presents a more focused, “zoomed-in” point of view of creation that skips over much of the big-picture information and focuses almost entirely on the creation of man and woman.

In today’s lesson, you will have the opportunity to compare Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 and decide for themselves whether they represent different stories or the same story from different perspectives.