Genesis 1 & 2 Part IV

The first creation story seems to distinctly end with 2:3. Then a second creation story begins and continues to the end of chapter 2. Most curious. So, let’s look closer. Throughout 1-2:3, the Creator is consistently referred to as God or with a masculine pronoun. In this first account, God is translated from the ancient Hebrew word transliterated as Elohim. This reveals another curiosity. Elohim is plural for El which is singular. Some scholars in the past have taught that this was a “royal” plural and the plural form was used to suggest majesty. Other examples of this have not been found and this theory has gone by the wayside. Others have suggested that Elohim refers to God and the angels, but this has met with nothing but resistance as well. The reason that Elohim is plural in a monotheistic religious book has apparently been lost to antiquity. I like to think that it relates to God’s triune nature, and served as a vague portent of things to come, viz. the revelation of Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. However, I just like to think that. No one knows for sure, why the plural, Elohim, is used to refer to the one God of Hebrew theology. Elohim, like God, is a title and not a personal name.

In the second creation account, God is consistently referred to as LORD God. This is translated from the ancient Hebrew words transliterated as Yahweh (or Yehovah) Elohim. This is another distinct difference in the creation accounts, suggesting that different traditions were involved in their literary evolution. It should be noted here that everywhere you see LORD in all capitals in the KJV and many other translations; it means that it was translated from Yahweh. This may spring from an ancient Jewish superstition that Yahweh’s name was too holy to be spoken. Substituting LORD for Yahweh remains as a stubborn tradition even in today’s translations.
Yahweh is generally considered to be the personal name of our Creator and not merely a title like Lord, Adonai, God, Father, Elohim, El Shaddai, etc. Yahweh is represented by the Hebrew letters in the image above and is known as the Tetragrammaton, meaning four letters. It roughly represents YHWH, from right to left. Vowels were not added to the Hebrew written language until sometime later. Yahweh was translated and transliterated from ancient Hebrew through Latin, German, and English into the form we often see, Jehovah. This change apparently is at least partly due to German influence. Hebrew and Aramaic had nothing corresponding to the English J. But, I digress.

Textual analysis of the Old Testament, in fact, suggests four literary traditions. The first creation account is felt to fall into what is known as the Elohim (E) tradition because God is consistently referred to as Elohim. The second creation account is felt to fall into the Jehovah (J) tradition because God is consistently referred to as Yahweh Elohim. Yet another literary pattern is seen later and is called the Priestly (P) tradition because it tends to deal a lot with priestly rules, that may (or may not) have been additions to Moses’ words. Then there is the Deuteronomic (D) tradition that pretty much includes the book of Deuteronomy. One strong support for this type of classification is the repetition of stories in styles consistent with different traditions, as we see in these first two accounts of creation, regarded as E and J respectively.

I am certainly open to different perspectives and reasons for them. This is based on scholarly work (not mine) but, of course, an element of speculation is always involved whenever we interpret or translate the Bible. It is my hope to learn as well as share. Thanks for reading. God bless us everyone.
ybiC, Nick †