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First Short Paper Arianna Nicolle Zepeda Barrera 40152886

THEO 202 – Introduction to Biblical Studies Section: AA Concordia University Tuesday October 11, 2020

The Bible, as we know, is a book composed of many other books. Various writers took part in the creation of this Holy Book. Inevitably, some stories are bound to be similar to one another. However, these stories are not being repeated, nor they are copy paste of one another; They are parallel texts with very different origins. In other words, although they have aspects that resemble each other, they are not the same. For example, in Genesis 1:1-2:25, two creation narratives can be found within those verses. Although they may have resemblances, they are not the same story. The first creation narrative can be seen from Genesis chapter 1 verse 1 to chapter 2 verse 3, and the second creation from chapter 2 verse 4 until chapter 2 verse 25. First of all, between the first and second narrative there is one clear difference: the order of the creations. They were not created in the same order and some things were mentioned in one but not the other. In the first narrative, on the first day light and darkness was created, He then separated the sky from the waters, He then created the dry land and gave it vegetations. On the fourth day, he created the sun, the moon and the stars. Afterwards, He created the birds in the sky and the animals in the waters. On the sixth day, he created the earthly living creatures and also human beings in His image. On the second narrative, the order went a little more differently. First came the creation of waters, then He created a man, then came the plants, and then the animals on the sky and on earth, and lastly, He created a woman out of the man’s rib. In the first narrative, it was mentioned that God rested in the 7 th day, whereas in the second narrative nothing of the sort was mentioned. Furthermore, in the second narrative, names of rivers and the name of the garden was mentioned, but nothing was mentioned in the first narrative. Although both narratives portray the creation of the world, they are not portraying the same occurrence. In one, men and women were created at the same time, whereas in the other narrative, the man was created at first and later came the woman that was created from the men’s rib. However, both narratives showed that God gave both man and women the power and dominion of all vegetation as well as to the animals from the sky and from earth. Secondly, both narratives came from different sources (hence the differences within the stories). I believe these 2 narratives are from the J source and the P source.

The second narrative of the creation being from the J source and the first narrative being from the P source. The J source is considered to be more colourful than the others. For example, a talking snake and giving God human emotions or terms. The second narrative was very colourful in the aspect of talking about what was God doing: He planted the garden of Eden; He made the man sleep and took a rib out to make a woman. God was very present throughout the whole process talking to the men and telling him what to do and not to do. Also, the fact that it is written that the man named all the animals also makes a point of the second narrative being from the J source. In addition, the fact that when speaking about God, it is always said “LORD God” (they were using more of a personal name of God) compared to the first narrative that He is just called God. The first narrative I believe is a P source because it is plain and simple: first day the night and day was created, then the water and sky were separated, and on the 7th day He was done, and He rested. The Priestly source is either pure or impure. In this case, it is pure because it is the creation of earth. There is nothing colourful about the P source. Just one thing after the other. It has its emphasis on the order of which things happen. It is with this narrative that the Shabbat came to be (a day to rest), which also makes sense that this is a priest source since they did have a lot of influence at the time of the return of the exiles. Since the people that came back from being exiles had no kings, the priests influenced the society a lot through writings. In conclusion, the Bible had many authors that we are yet to know, since some hid their work in other peoples’ name. So, there can be countless stories that are alike and have the same fundamentals, but they will never be same stories with different words. For example, there are 3 stories where Abraham pretends that his wife is his sister. The underlying subject is still the same, but aspects are different from one another. Since the Bible was written by many, it means the stories came from different sources, and different times. Therefore, they cannot be exactly the same. Each story teaches us something different and with a different view....