One of the first questions in Lesson 3 (The Creation) of the Sunday school Old Testament manual is, "How do the accounts found in Genesis, Moses, and Abraham differ from each other?" I'm glad you asked! Unfortunately, the brief answer provided in the manual is woefully inadequate. There are lots of subtleties that escape even a careful reading. We miss them, in part, because we have been conditioned by familiarity to not see things staring us right in the face. We also lack contextual understanding about their composition. I thought I would lay the differences I have collected over the years. You may find that this side-by-side comparison is helpful for following along.
Who does the creating?
Genesis 1: God (Hebrew = Elohim)
Genesis 2: LORD God = Jehovah God (Hebrew = Yahweh Elohim)
Moses 2: God
Moses 3: Lord God
Abraham 4-5: the Gods (likely reflecting the literal Hebrew meaning of elohim, which is plural)
What is the overall story?
Genesis: God creates the heavens and the earth, and life on it, in six days and rests on the seventh day. Then for some reason we get a second story where the LORD God creates man, vegetation, animals, and then woman [1].
Moses: God creates the heavens and the earth in six days and rests on the seventh day. Then we are told that everything previously mentioned was a spiritual creation, and on the seventh day the Lord God creates man, vegetation, animals, then then woman.
Abraham: The Gods create the inanimate portions of the heavens and the earth (expanse, oceans, dry land, lights in the sky) and prepare the earth to bring forth life, in six days/times. At the beginning of the seventh time, the Gods carry out their plan for creating life by creating man, vegetation, woman, and then animals.
Elements unique to The Book of Moses:
- The account is changed to first person from God's point of view
- God speaks to his Only Begotten
- Sea and water are singular in some cases
- The sun and the moon are specifically named
- 'green herb' becomes 'clean herb'
- Moses 2:4: "I, the Lord God, made the heaven and the earth." The order of heaven and earth is reversed to match the reference earlier in the same verse.
- The mist is called forth by God
- Extended explanation of spiritual creation
- Man is the 'first flesh' or first creation
- Animals have the breath of life
- "This I know now is bone of my bones..."
Elements unique to the Book of Abraham
- Everything is done by 'the Gods'
- Different vocabulary including: organized, empty and desolate, brooding, and expanse. Some of these reflect Sexias's Hebrew grammar, which Joseph had studied.
- In Abraham 4:1 and 5:1, 'heavens' is plural, which reflects the plural Hebrew word
- References to both days and 'time'
- 'breath of life' is replaced with 'spirit'
- The rivers in Eden are not named
- Reference to Kolob and the Lord's time
- Woman is created before the animals
- "This was bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; now she shall be called Woman..."
- "and for Adam, there was found an help meet for him." Since woman was already created, the word 'not' has been removed.
The Harmonization Instinct
I want to go back to what I said about familiarity causing us to miss things. The harmonization instinct is very strong within Mormonism and we sometimes have difficulty allowing passages to speak for themselves because we want them to say what they are supposed to say. For example, the Abraham 4 and 5 chapter headings say that the plans for the six days of creation are set forth and then implemented. However, a careful reading shows that there is actually a mixture of creating and preparation going on. The Gods actually do create light, create the expanse, create dry land, and organize the luminaries. The planning part has to do with the eventual creation of life. The six days describe the preparation of conditions for life to be created, and then life is created in the following chapter, beginning with Adam.
Similarly, Moses describes six days of spiritual creation, followed by physical creation on the seventh day. Although this runs against the grain of mainstream interpretation, several elements of the story fall in to place when the account is read that way, including the fact that Adam is described as the 'first flesh.' And as a matter of fact, that appears to have been the predominant (or at least an acceptable) interpretation around the turn of the nineteenth to twentieth century (see First Flesh). This interpretation also makes sense of the following passage from the Doctrine and Covenants:
Q. What are we to understand by the sounding of the trumpets, mentioned in the 8th chapter of Revelation?
A. We are to understand that as God made the world in six days, and on the seventh day he finished his work, and sanctified it, and also formed man out of the dust of the earth, even so, in the beginning of the seventh thousand years will the Lord God sanctify the earth...
(D&C 77:12)
If you are thinking, "Well, that's not how it's described in the temple or in Church publications," you are making my point. We tend to force all four creation accounts (Genesis, Moses, Abraham, temple) to tell the same story rather than taking them on their own terms. And that's why we are likely to miss subtle differences. Our challenge, rather than trying to homogenize them, is to tease out why they are different.
Notes:
1. The explanation from scholars of the Hebrew Bible is
two separate stories have been merged together. The change in God's name is one prominent clue.
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