What is the second creation story?

The second creation story in The Bible starts at Genesis 2:4b (the second sentence in verse 2:4) and continues through verse 2:20. Scholars recognise it as having been written by the early, anonymous source now known as the Yahwist, because of its style, use of a moderately archaic Hebrew language and use of the Word Yahweh (YHWH) for his God. In comparison, the first creation story (Genesis 1:1-2:4a), written by the Priestly Source, is actually much later in Hebrew lore, but was probably placed at the beginning to avoid separating the second creation story from what followed. And no doubt the Priestly Source encountered popular resistance to simply replacing the original story, and had to keep it as well as adding his own version.

As Leon R. Kass (The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis) says, pious readers, believing that the text cannot contain contradictions, ignore the major disjunctions between the two creation stories and tend to treat the second story as the fuller, more detailed account of the creation of man (and woman) that the first story simply reported. He cautions us to scrupulously avoid reading into the second story any facts or notions taken from the first, and vice versa. Thus, in reading about the origin of man in the story of the Garden of Eden, we must not say or even think that man is here created in God's image or that man is to be the ruler over the animals.

In the second creation story, the dry earth is pre-existing, but no plants grow because God has not yet made it rain. A mist arose and watered the earth, then God created Adam out of clay. It was only after he planted the Garden of Eden and created all living creatures that he created a woman, Eve, by taking a rib of Adam. Compare this to the first creation story, in which God created both man and woman after he had created all other living creatures, simply by speaking them into existence.

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