Brad Alles

Often skeptics of the Bible will point out that there is a contradiction in the first two chapters of Genesis—two separate creation accounts! There are not two accounts; simply the general overview of everything during days one through seven in Genesis 1:1-2:3, and then details on Adam and Eve’s creation on day six in Genesis 2:4-25.

Why is this detailed account given? Since man is the crowning part of God’s creation, and He has a special relationship with him, that’s why. Even the word for God reveals this. Moses used Elohim, a general term for God in Genesis 1:1-2:3, but in Genesis 2:4-25, Moses uses Yahweh, the covenant name for God, revealing a more personal side of God. As God makes Adam on day six, just three days after He had made all the plants, He makes a garden for him. Adam hadn’t seen God do anything in days one through five since he wasn’t around, so before any plant grew from seeds, God made a garden especially for Adam and Eve for proof of His creative ability. God may have also made animals for Adam to prove His creative ability; but clearly He made them for Adam to name. Appropriately, “Adam” means man; when no suitable helper is found for Adam, God provides Eve. “Eve” means living, for she would become the “mother of all the living” in Genesis 3:20.

We have all descended from these two people. All of us are related in one race—the human race. And we need to know that Jesus confessed this in Mark 10:6–“But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’” Jesus supported the literal six-day creation account—He should, because He was there! John 1:1-3 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.”

In the final analysis, we are left with two distinct worldviews—creation and evolution—yet only one world. We all live on this one planet, yet here are two vastly different ways to interpret what we see. Which worldview map is correct? Research chemist and author Jonathan Sarfati wrote,

“Many people have the false belief that ‘science’ has proven the earth to be billions of years old, and that every living thing descended from a single cell which itself is the result of chance combination of chemicals. However, science deals with repeatable observations in the present, while evolution/long age ideas are based on assumptions from outside science about the unobservable past. Facts do not speak for themselves—they must be interpreted according to a framework. It is not a case of religion/creation/subjectivity vs. science/evolution/objectivity. Rather, it is the biases of the religions of Christianity and of humanism interpreting the same facts in diametrically opposite ways.”

There are not two creation accounts In Genesis that contradict; rather, these chapters have a general overview of all 7 days and then details of man’s creation on day 6.