Genesis creation myth

The Genesis creation narrative is the creation myth of both Judaism and Christianity. Two creation stories are found in the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis. In the first (Genesis 1:1–2:3) Elohim, the Hebrew generic plural word for God, creates the heavens and the earth in six days, starting with light on the first day and ending with mankind on the sixth, then rests on, blesses and sanctifies the seventh. In the second story (Genesis 2:4–2:24), God, now referred to by the personal name Yahweh, creates Adam, the first man, from dust and places him in the Garden of Eden, where he is given dominion over the animals. Eve, the first woman, is created from Adam and as his companion.

Borrowing themes from Mesopotamian mythology, but adapting them to the Israelite people's belief in one God, the first major comprehensive draft of the Pentateuch (the series of five books which begins with Genesis and ends with Deuteronomy) was composed in the late 7th or the 6th century BCE (the Jahwist source) and was later expanded by other authors (the Priestly source) into a work very like the one we have today. The two sources can be identified in the creation narrative: Genesis 1:1–2:3 is Priestly and Genesis 2:4–2:24 is Jahwistic. The combined narrative is a critique of the Mesopotamian theology of creation: Genesis affirms monotheism and denies polytheism.Robert Alter described the combined narrative as "compelling in its archetypal character, its adaptation of myth to monotheistic ends".

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