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Judaism Creation Stories Paper

Grade: 10/10

Teacher comments: Your paper is well-written and provides excellent discussion points. However, your final topic of evil stretches into the other creation account in order to find evidence of evil since there doesn't seem to be any in the Cosmogony account.

Celeste Jackson 3/20/22

REL 230   Genesis

The Cosmogony


1. In the cosmogony account of Genesis the word Elohim for God is used. Elohim is found in the first words of the Bible, Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning when God... ”. Elohim is used for the first creation in Genesis 1:3 “Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light”. Another example is in His last creation in Genesis 1:27, “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them”. God is used in all but 7 verses between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 2:3. Genesis 2:4b is where Yahweh Elohim, Lord God, begins to appear. 


2. The cosmology account of creation shows God creating something out of nothing. God said “let there be..” (Genesis1:3)  or Let the...” (Genesis 1:9) and things appeared. This changes a little in Genesis 1:26 where He says “Let us...”. This is the first time more than one God is mentioned. The Garden of Eden account doesn’t mention the creation of as much as the cosmology story. Genesis 2:4b and 2:7 say “In the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens..., (7) then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being”. Within these verses and the rest of chapter 2 the reader has to infer that when God made the earth and heaven it included the sun, moon, and stars. He uses dirt from the earth to make man, land animals, and birds (Genesis 2:7,19). In Genesis 2:22 God uses a rib from man to make woman. In Genesis 2:6 water rises from the ground and in Genesis 2:8 He planted a garden. There is no mention here of Him creating water or the garden. In Genesis 2:9 He causes trees to grow out of the ground. Here it seems that He created the trees from nothing. 


3. Creation in the cosmology takes place over seven days. On day 1 light, day and night are created. Day 2 is the sky. Day three the earth, seas, plants, and trees with seeds in the fruit are made. On day four the sun, moon, and stars are created. He created the sea animals and birds on day 5. Day 6 is the last day He creates. On that day land animals, insects, man, and woman are created. 


4. In the first creation story neither good or evil are mentioned. After each creation it says that God saw what He did and it was good. Then on the sixth day He said it was very good “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31). The ideas of good and evil show up in the Garden of Eden story. Man and woman ate fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and because of that woman will have pain in childbirth, man will rule over woman, the earth will be hard to toil, and thorns and thistle apprered (2:13-18). Also, man would return to dust and no longer live in the Garden of Eden. 
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