Judeo-Christian tradition begins with the beautiful account of spiritual creation in Genesis 1. Here God—Elohim, “the mighty or strong one”—makes man, male and female, in the divine image and likeness. Everything God makes is perfect (see Deuteronomy 32:4). God then blesses His creation, giving man dominion over all His works.
Genesis 2 opens by confirming that God’s work is finished. However, this conclusion is contradicted a few verses later, when the chapter launches into the story of Adam and Eve. This allegory presents a material creation—imperfect, blameworthy, cursed—created by a humanlike God, Jehovah. In this account, man is supposedly given a mind and a will of his own.
Religions have long tried to combine these two stories, to make God the author of both a perfect and an imperfect creation. But that is impossible—the two accounts are exact opposites! How could omnipotent, omniscient God, Spirit, who creates only that which is good and is “of purer eyes than to behold evil” (Habakkuk 1:13), produce a sinful race or lose control of His creation? Trying to combine good and evil is like trying to put darkness and light together. So why include two opposing accounts in the Bible, one of which is just an allegory?
