How many creation accounts does the Book of Genesis have?

The Book of Genesis has two creation accounts, and arguably a third. The first account, Genesis 1:1-2:4a, is attributed to an anonymous source now known as the Priestly Source, writing during the fifth century BCE at the time of the Babylonian Exile. The second account, Genesis 2:4b-25 and chapter 3, is attributed to an anonymous source now known as the Yahwist, writing around the ninth century BCE, and is much more primitive than the Priestly version. Some scholars say that chapter 5 is a separate creation account, while others prefer to treat it as a restatement in altered form, of the second account.

Leon R. Kass (The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis) says that although the second creation story departs from the first in content, tone, mood and orientation, the 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. Nevertheless, there really are two distinct creation accounts in the Book of Genesis.

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