Genesis: Why Two Different Creation Stories

 

Many Christians have grown up with the belief that the Bible teaches all mankind came from one man, Adam. Yet, is that what the Bible really says? Some Christians believe that the second creation story in Genesis two is just going into more detail of the creation of man in Genesis one. Others disagree and believe that there are two parts to the creation story of man. With an open mind and the Holy Spirit, I believe we can come to a higher understanding that does not discount modern science and their findings as incompatible with Scripture.

I often wondered why there are two creation stories. When I joined the Ascended Master teachings they gave an answer, one that may seem incredible, but believable, if you believe in alien invasions. The first creation story would have been God's creation of man as told in Genesis one and the second creation story in Genesis two was the story of genetic engineering that was supposedly backed up by Semurian myths found on clay tablets.

The Ascended Master teachings taught that there have been mankind on earth for a very long time. During three golden ages on the earth, man supposedly talked freely with God and associated intimately with angels and elementals. Lemuria and Atlantis both had golden ages but both civilizations supposedly became corrupt and fell. The Garden of Eden was a place somewhere between heaven and earth (etheric octave) and consisted of special beings called twin flames who volunteered to come to earth to redeem fallen mankind. Under the auspices of the Cosmic Christ, Lord Maitreya, a Mystery School was developed to initiate the twin flames. The story goes that the original Mystery School was founded on Lemuria to initiate Adam and Eve, archetypal twin flames, and other twin flames on the path of the Tree of Life. They failed, tempted by fallen angels. These fallen angels came as false gurus to tear the people of light away from the true teacher, the Cosmic Christ Maitreya. They presented alternative methods to shortcut the path of initiation to make one "as wise as the gods".

Combined with these "mystery school" teachings was the story of extraterrestrials who came and intermingled with humankind, based on Zecharia Sitchin's translations of Sumerian texts and published in his 1976 book The 12th Planet. According to Sitchin the Anunnaki, a race of extraterrestrials from a planet beyond Neptune called Nibiru, came to this planet approximately 450,000 years ago and created Homo sapiens as a slave race.

Sumer flourished in Mesopotamia (now modern-day Iraq) around 4500 BC. Sumerians created an advanced civilization with its own language and is the oldest linguistic record known. They were skilled in astronomy and the arts, as well as engineering and architecture both point to the sophistication because of their understanding of math. The structure of modern timekeeping, with sixty seconds in a minute and sixty minutes in an hour, is attributed to the Sumerians. Their religious system was a complex one composed of hundreds of gods. According to the ancient texts, each Sumerian city was guarded by its own god; and while humans and gods used to live together, the humans were servants to the gods.

Another early second-millennium Sumerian myth, “Enki and the World Order,” provides an explanation as to why the world appears organized. Enki decided that the world had to be well managed to avoid chaos. Various gods were thus assigned management responsibilities that included overseeing the waters, crops, building activities, control of wildlife, and herding of domestic animals, as well as oversight of the heavens and earth and the activities of women.

According to one Sumerian story “Enki and Ninmah,” the lesser gods, were burdened with the toil of creating the earth. All the hard work such as digging ditches and farm labor had to be done by the minor deities. They toiled at this work for 3,600 years before finally, they decided they had had enough. They complained to Namma, the primeval mother, about their hard work. She, in turn, roused her son Enki, the god of wisdom, and urged him to create a substitute to free the gods from their toil. Namma then kneaded some clay, placed it in her womb, and gave birth to the first humans.

Another story states that together, Anu, Enki, and Enlil came up with a plan and decided to create a new race of beings to act as servants to the gods and do all the hard labor for them. They selected Geshtue, a god who was blessed with great intelligence and sacrificed him. The birth goddess, Ninmah, mixed his flesh and blood with clay after which all the gods spat on the mixture. 

Enki, along with the womb goddess, Nintu, then took the mixture into the room of fate where she recited magical incantations over it until finally, she pinched off fourteen pieces of the clay. She then set seven of the pieces to the right, which would become men and the other seven to the left, which would become women.  Next, the womb goddess impregnated herself with the new creation of the gods and when nine months had passed, she gave birth to them.

According to Sitchen's The 12th Planet, modern man – Homo sapiens – were created from mixing Homo erectus with the genes of the ancient gods.  He claimed these gods were the Nefilim who first landed on Earth some 450,000 years ago and that the creation of Man took place some 300,000 years ago.

At the time that Sitchin wrote his books, only specialists could read the Sumerian language. Today, sources such as the 2006 book Sumerian Lexicon have made the language more accessible to non-experts and it is generally agreed that Sitchin had many inaccuracies in his translations. According to one historian expert Sitchin frequently quoted out of context or truncated his quotes in a way that distorted evidence in order to prove his contentions.

The fact that the teachings of the Summit Lighthouse messenger and their ascended masters taught about this alien invasion, and supported the Sumerian myth story that the Sumerian gods Enli and Enki were responsible for creating Homo sapiens, and supported other of Sitchin's false conclusions, all lead to the premise that the Summit Lighthouse was not teaching the highest truth. In addition, the new leaders of the church today do not support the past teachings of their previous messengers stating in their Summit Lighthouse online Encyclopedia, "The second chapter of the Book of Genesis portrays the creation of the Matter sphere and the coming of Lord Maitreya, the Buddha, as the Initiator of those who will inhabit that sphere. It also portrays the creation of man and woman that they might meet the challenges of initiation on their respective paths to becoming the rod of wisdom’s power in the flame of the Buddha and in the flame of the Mother."

No hint of alien creations. Yet, from a footnote in an earlier1982 Pearls of Wisdom, it states:

The Book of Genesis records the story of two creations. The first is the creation of the sons and daughters of God in the image of Elohim (Hebrew, plural noun for God): “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness....So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Gen. 1:26, 27). The second is the account of the creation of physical man–some say by God and others affirm it is the artificial creation of “mankind” (i.e., Homo sapiens) by a biblical race of giants or demigods (i.e., Nephilim, Gen. 6:4): “And the LORD GOD formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Gen. 2:7). According to some theories, the Nephilim (Hebrew “those who fell” or “those who were cast down,” from the Semitic root naphal “to fall”) are an extraterrestrial superrace who “fell” to earth in spacecraft 450,000 years ago. The ascended masters reveal that they are the fallen angels cast out of heaven into the earth (Rev. 12:7-10, 12).

In a 1985 Pearl of Wisdom stating it was a dictation from Elohim Arcturus, students were told that the bodies of clay were not created by God.

Understand the clay was not the creation of Elohim. Yet, bodies physical we made. There are bodies physical and there are bodies of clay: they are not the same. But the physical bodies we have made have also become compromised. Thus, you have taken in the clay and the ‘clay consciousness’ of the clay man and lost even the spirituality of the physical body. Elohim Arcturus

The "dust" of the ground in Gen. 2:7 according to Strong's Hebrew definition means also clay, earth, and mud. The word "formed" according to Strong's Hebrew 3335 means to mold into a form, as a potter. The word suggests man was formed like the work of a potter forming his clay. Throughout Genesis 1, the Hebrew word Elohim is used and is translated “God” in the English Bibles. The Elohim are understood to be God Creators of the physical universe and all therein according to the Ascended Master teachings. Yet, they claim they did not create the Gen. 2:7 physical bodies of clay thereby supporting the idea that there are two creation stories.

Examples of the first man being molded from clay by the deity are worldwide. Besides the Sumerians, the Babylonians and Greek had their clay legends, as well as in Egyptian mythology. Many native tribes such as Mota, in the Banks Islands (Melanesia), the Maidu Indians of California, the Peruvian Indians of Tiahuanaco, the Yoruba culture of Africa, the Inca culture, and the Eskimos of Point Barrow, in Alaska, to name a few, have legends of the creation of man molded from earth clay. Many of these tribes had their beliefs long before the influence of missionaries and their Bibles. In the case of the Babylonian, Egyptian and Greek tales, the documentation existed prior to the advent of Christianity.

Science vs. Genesis
Let's return to Genesis and what it says. The creation of man in Genesis 2 is mostly interpreted to mean that Adam was the first human God created although this isn't really stated there. What it actually says is that God created humans on day six of the creation account in chapter 1, then God rested on day seven which is at the beginning of chapter 2, then follows the story of Adam's creation. Many interpret these two creation descriptions as the same event with the second story going into greater detail.

In these modern times, with our scientific studies about the history of our planet and humanity, science has come in direct conflict with traditional interpretations of Genesis. Hence, many scientists, according to the Pew Research Center, are roughly half as likely as the general public to believe in God or a higher power. By contrast, 95% of Americans believe in some form of deity or higher power, according to a 2006 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center. The poll of scientists finds that four-in-ten scientists (41%) say they do not believe in God or a higher power, while the poll of the public finds that only 4% of Americans share this view. (As an aside, chemists are more likely to believe in God (41%) than those who work in the other major scientific fields such as social scientists. That is not surprising because chemistry is a subject full of awe and wonder, which is often the feelings of Christians for the Creator God.)

Today, backed by the dissemination of information via the Internet, many more people are siding with the scientists and rejecting the Bible as nothing more than mythology. Many of them cannot resolve the theory of evolution with creationism, based on a literal reading of Genesis that the creation of the world and all life in it was done over a period of six twenty-four hour days. Young-Earth creationists interpret the Bible to mean that the Earth was created more or less in its present state about 6,000 years ago. Whereas science states the earth is about 4.5 billion years old.

Interestingly, a recent article1 about David Gelernter, a renowned Yale computer science professor, explains why he now rejects Darwin's theory of evolution. Gelernter states that the incremental development of new species is largely not there. “Most species enter the evolutionary order fully formed and then depart unchanged.” Darwinism can’t explain that. Back in Darwin’s day, very little was known about molecular structure. Science has outgrown Darwin’s theory.

Gelernter said that the biggest flaw with Darwinism is how hard it would be to randomly make new functional proteins. "With our understanding of molecular biology developed after Darwin", he said, "his theory doesn’t fit well with this new understanding. Darwinian evolution depends on evolution to create a huge number of functional proteins." I recommend reading the two articles linked below.

Another Darwinian belief he doesn't agree with is that “gene mutations drive macro-evolution.” He goes on to explain that these mutations can explain changes in existing forms, but not the development of new forms. "The mutations are fatal, and the organism dies before it can reproduce. There are no examples of mutations that are not fatal." 

For those of us who have already rejected Darwinism but also can't accept a literal interpretation of the world created in six twenty-four days, is there an alternative? I have never been an intellectual. Having faith in God's word is more important to me than being able to explain how I can believe in the Bible with so many scientific contradictions and differing interpretations of His word. Yet I have always been a seeker of truth and have an open mind in order to allow God to raise me up to a higher understanding of His word.

Many New Agers believe they have the highest truth or higher truths than traditional religious dogma. I entered the New Age spiritual movement not because I was disappointed in my religion but because my religion lacked a higher understanding of what I believed within me. I was impelled from within to go out and search for a religious teaching that incorporated my inner beliefs. Those beliefs did not come from any worldly teaching. They came from within and seemingly there always. I was led to the New Age movement from within. In other words, I was spiritually directed. Whether it was something I agreed to before this embodiment or some surprise God had for me, I entered the movement like I was following a script already written out for me to follow.

That is not to say that I was led to the movement because it was the highest truth. I innocently believed that was so because some of what I experienced resonated within me as a higher truth. Like with any religion, one can be drawn to a particular belief system because it resonates with something you already believe or it fascinates you with something you never have believed before with possibly some reward for you in accepting this new belief. That reward could be something you always wanted to do or believe to give you some new freedom of thought or action, companionship or a positive direction towards a greater sense of self-esteem.

My reward was believing I was leading a more spiritual and holy life while yet living in the world doing all the normal things like having a family and career. I eventually lived in a spiritual community who went to the same church as I did as well as I worked at a business that employed their workforce from the same spiritual community. It was a dream come true for me and the best of all was to be married to someone in the same spiritual community. Whether at work, home or church we were always praying together and for the most part, praying for the same things.

The Ascended Master teachings had answers and explanations for everything in the Bible. There was no "it is a mystery" sermons about Scripture. Since God was now speaking through these "ascended" masters you did not question whatever their explanations were. You could not or you would invariably leave the teachings. You could not doubt their words or you would be doubting God. You could doubt their spokesperson (messengers) and their ability to perfectly release the masters' dictations, yet if you did you would also lose faith in the messenger and ultimately, faith in what the masters' through the messenger were revealing. When someone came to the point of doubting the messenger or losing faith in the messenger they ultimately would leave the teachings.

If we can now look at Darwinism with new eyes, and messengers as fallible, can we also open our mind, heart, eyes, and ears and look at Scripture with the Holy Spirit and understand what God's message was and is through these holy men and women who shared their stories with us in the Bible.

Discovery of the Atom
Greek philosophers Leucippus and Democritus came up with a theory that matter was compromised of something they called atoms from the Greek atomon, meaning "uncuttable.'' Democritus said the universe is made up of two elementsː the atoms, and the space where they exist and move.

Incredibly, their central ideas about the atom have remained essentially unchanged today. Democritus believed that there is an infinite number of atoms which differ in shape and size and that between atoms, there lies empty space and that atoms are completely solid and indestructible. He also theorized that atoms were in constant motion in a void, collided with each other; and during these collisions, could rebound or stick together.

Today we learn from science that:

  • Atoms are not solid but are made up of particles.
  • These particles are composed of neutrons and protons within the nucleus and that there are electrons that surround the nucleus.  
  • The identity of an atom is determined by its proton or atomic number and that different chemical elements differ in their numbers of protons and electrons and this gives them different physical and chemical properties.
  • According to this theory, atoms of matter are in constant random motion and possess kinetic energy.
  • This motion is greater in gases than in liquids, and it is greater in liquids than in solids. But even in solids, atoms are constantly vibrating in place.
  • A single atom is mostly empty space.

Not long after Democritus introduced the atomic theory there was opposition to it. The idea of the atom was strongly opposed by Aristotle, and many accepted Aristotle's position and came to equate atomistic ideas with Godlessness.  It was not until almost two thousand years later that John Dalton put the atom on a solid scientific basis.

Democritus and Leucippus tuned in to the building blocks of the universe. Democritus was a philosopher but also it appears he was an atheist. Yet his beliefs did not change the truth that atoms existed. The scientific basis was true but his philosophy about atoms could be debated.

Still, no one has yet seen an atom. However, its parts (electrons and neutrons) can be observed in the physical creating changes in matter, thereby affirming that the atom does exist. Through science other things that we accept on faith may also one day be legitimized like detecting the spirit or soul and that this soul or spirit continues existence after the death of the physical body.

While science has brought to light that hominids have existed on this planet for millions of years they have not be able to find proof that humans descended from apes. Evolutionary biologists call this species the "last common ancestor" and by most laypersons by the non-scientific name the "missing link". Homo sapiens (modern man) made their appearance on the planet between 300,000 or 400,000 years ago, supposedly out of archaic human varieties derived from Homo erectus. Neanderthals, believed to be a cousin of modern humans, lived at the same time but died off around 29,000 years ago roughly around the same time that modern humans arrived in Europe.. DNA evidence has proven that some Neanderthals interbred with Homo sapiens.

"Discoveries all over the world in the last decade have led to a complete rethinking of our evolutionary past. It shows that new fossils do not always support existing hypotheses, and that we must be prepared to change our views and formulate new theories based on the evidence at hand."The Conversation2

How long before science will be able to confirm such things as the soul or spirit? While science does not give credence to a soul or spirit yet, a Russian scientist Konstantin Korotkov has discovered a technique similar to Kirlian photography. Using a bioelectrographic camera that captures the images of a body using his Gas Discharge Visualization technique it shows blue hues in the life force of a dying person leaving his/her body. His technique shows that the navel and the head are the areas of the body that first lose their life force while the groin and the heart are the final areas where the “spirit” departs. Whether his technique is true or not, there are those scientists who do believe in God that can contribute to building links between faith and our known reality.

Let's go on to look at what the Bible might be telling us in Genesis chapter one. Many people over the ages have debated and theorized in abundance what the words in chapter one mean. Some of these people have good theories that make a lot of sense. The key is to look at the original Hebrew words to understand the original meaning better. Some probably have been inspired with their interpretations by the Holy Spirit and some are just thinkers who use rationale and have come to some good conclusions. As stated aat the beginning of this article I was looking for answers (as many countless others have) to why the different creation stories. There are connections and patterns that have been discovered and some very fascinating discoveries such as the multiple uses of the number seven just in the first verse of Genesis 1 starting with the use of seven Hebrew words. These extraordinary patterns only confirm that the words and stories within the Old Testament are God-inspired.

Genesis one in summary
The first two verses describe the initial creation. On day one, Elohim, translated God in the English Bible, creates light and separates it from darkness, forming day and night (Gen. 1:3-5). On day two, God separates the waters and creates the sky (Gen. 1:6). On the first part of day three, he separates dry land from the sea (Gen. 1:9-10). Next, God begins filling the realms he has created. On the remainder of day three, he creates plant life (Gen. 1:11-13). On day four he creates the sun, moon, and stars (Gen. 1:14-19) in the sky. The terms “greater light” and “lesser light” are used rather than the names “sun” and “moon,” thus discouraging the worship of these created objects and reminding us that we are still in danger of worshiping the creation instead of the Creator. On day five, God fills the water and sky with fish and birds that could not have survived without the plant life created earlier (Gen. 1:20-23). Finally, on day six, he creates the animals (Gen. 1:24-25) and—in the image of God—humanity to populate the land (Gen. 1:26-31).

Genesis Beginning Through Creation Day One
In Gen. 1:1 God begins with the announcement that He created heaven and earth in the beginning. The initial act of creation was ex nihilo, out of nothing but God. In verse two He describes what the earth was like before creating a world where man, animals and plant life can live. "And the Spirit of Elohim moved upon the face of the waters" (Gen. 1:2). God was present in Spirit. This description of the original state of the physical realm tells us that the “heavens and earth” that were created did not appear originally in the state that God eventually created in the six days. This early stage could have manifested for eons of time as we know, yet time was not necessarily created since there was no day yet. Yet there is no space or time in God's realm.

Mark Moore in Early Genesis, suggests that creation happened in two different realms but the two realms do not respond equally to God's commands. When God created, it was instantly manifest in the third heaven described by St. Paul. Paul states that somehow, someway, "a man he knew in Christ", speaking most likely of himself, was transported to a third spiritual realm (2 Corinthians 12:2-4) where he heard things he could not repeat to others. It is from this third heaven that creation responds in the verses with "and it was so". It is also the realm of angels.

We must note that God is the source of everything in creation. Yet creation is not identical with God. God gives his creation free will and the choice to conform to His will. Someone described this as the meaningful existence of the creation as distinct from God Himself. While God creates everything, He also literally gave creation the ability to create This is best captured in the description of God’s creation of the plants. “God said, ‘Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.’ And it was so" (Gen. 1:11). While creation is forever dependent on God—“In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 7:28)—it yet remains distinct. Our work has its source in God, yet it also has its own distinction we bring back to God as a unique expression.

In each of the creation days beginning with verse three starts with the phrase "And God said" confirming that verses one and two are not a part of day one.  In Gen. 1:3 God begins shaping the world to make it habitable by speaking "Let there be light." God is Light and His Word is Light. When He spoke "Let there be Light!" there was Light. His Word went forth as Light. There is no "and it was so" in this declaration because the speaking of the Word was its own accomplishment. The Word is also one with Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

In the next verse Gen. 1:4, God separates the Light from Darkness after proclaiming the Light is good. Previous to the Light manifested the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. God declares the Light good while the darkness brings the welcoming contrast to magnify the Light. God does not proclaim that darkness is good although God created the darkness in the beginning. Darkness will become the means of separation of evil from God Good. In Gen. 1:5 begins the first creation day, "And the evening and the morning were the first day".

Creation Day Not Necessarily 24-hours
Psalm 90:4 says, "For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday" and 2 Peter 3:8 says, "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The "Day of the Lord" seems to be a period of time, not just 24 hours.

For the young-earth creationists the creation days of Genesis one are six literal (24-hour) days, making the earth some 6,000–12,000 years old thereby, refuting any scientific facts based on radiometric dating that the earth is a least four billion years old. The words beginning Gen. 1:5 "And God called the Light Day" define light as a day not a 24-hour period of darkness and light that we humans define a day as. The "evening" is not a part of the day just the condition which precedes it. There are different usages for the word day and thus the various conclusions in what defines a creation day. We know that there are not days and night in some parts of the world at certain times. If you were in the North Pole how would you calculate a day for six months of the year when there is no darkness/night to end the day light?

Origen (c. 185–254) and Saint. Augustine (354–430) held to a figurative or allegorical view of the creation days, suggesting that since there was no sun, moon or stars on the first three days, they could not be considered ordinary days. Augustine suggested that those first six days could have occurred in a form unfamiliar to us. In Philo: On The Creation, Philo says, "Creation cannot have taken place in six natural days, for days are measured by the sun’s course, and the sun is but a portion of creation" (Philo 1929, xiii).

In 1905, Albert Einstein introduced a new framework for all of physics and proposed new concepts of space and time. This was the theory of special relativity. According to this theory time is relative to distance and velocity. For example, time appears to flow slower for a person standing still than from the perspective of one who is moving. Another point is that space-time is expanding

The Judgment
In Gen. 1:6-8 God creates the heavens in the midst of the waters. As the second day dawned, the earth was still covered with water with no dry land and no breathable atmosphere.  Also covering the earth were heavy, thick clouds, fog, and mist, all of which engulfed the earth in pitch black darkness (Genesis 2:6).  God then separates the waters above and below the heavens creating the physical laws that will cause the clouds, fog, and mist to leave the face of the earth and rise up and hang in the sky above the earth. God is changing the earth to create an atmosphere for plants to grow and the air space to sustain life.

God affirms "it was so" but not that "it was good" as appears in subsequent verses. Water is God's means of judgment as noted in the Bible, starting with the flood of Noah. Rains, floods, and storms can destroy. And as we have just seen in Hurricane Dorian, the devastation in the northern Bahamas, where Dorian "planted itself," stalled with maximum Category 5 winds and flooding for 48 hours, obliterating everything in its path.

Separating the waters in heaven above the firmament from those below the firmament would allow different standards on earth for a time until the end of the age. God's mercy intervenes when we "believe on The One whom He has sent" (John 6:29). We would not need His mercy if we stopped sinning. Only God knows when and how the judgment descends on those who rebel against His will. The sea on earth is not permanent. Rev. 21:1 states "there was no longer any sea" on the new earth. The division of the two realms, the natural and supernatural worlds will no longer be separated.

Day Three
Genesis 1:9-10 brings the creation of dry land. This occurs in heaven and on earth with the Promised Land. Dry land is the deliverance of judgment from the floodwaters. Scripture describes many instances where dry land appears. "Moses stretched forth his hands and the waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left" (Exodus 14:21-31). They were delivered from the hands of the Egyptians.

Moore contends that creation, the Higher Realm of Creation responds with "and it was so" and on this third day, creation starts helping fulfill God's commands. Prior to this day God/Elohim is doing all the work and from the supernatural realm, the third heaven, answers with "and it was so" responding instantly to God's command. The natural realm below responds with "and God saw that it was good" but it is a process. Nature responds with a suitable copy but due to the resistance from the darkness, God's word of light meets opposition to His will.

The rest of the Genesis one and beginning of Genesis two will continue in part II, as well as the conclusion as to why there are two creation stories.

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1Article Famed Yale computer science professor quits believing Darwin’s theories, July 30, 2019. Another article by David Gelernter, Giving Up Darwin, goes into greater detail about how impossible it is to randomly create new proteins.

2Quote from Hester Hanegraef, September 7, 2019.