Genesis 2:5 describes a period of time, prior to the coming of the underground stream waters, during which there was land, but no surface water to irrigate it:
and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth (Genesis 2:5)
However, this contradicts Genesis 1:9-11 (see below), where it is perfectly clear that land and the separated waters were created
simultaneously by the act of drawing the water away from certain parts of the earth and placing it in seas, like the Sea of Galilee, for example. Thus, there was
never a time in the first creation story when there was not water available for irrigating plant life. This clearly contradicts the second creation story.
9 And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation"…and it was so. (Genesis 1:9-11)
While it's true the Genesis 1 author does not explicitly say that the waters gathered into "seas" were used to irrigate plants in Verse 10, he nevertheless obviously expected us to know that the seas and land were created simultaneously and that the seas thus formed provided the water to promote the plant growth that would occur in the very next verse. Thus, there
always was water on or near the land to irrigate the plants, even though the Genesis 1 author didn't choose to spell out what should be obvious.
I earlier wrote,
Nemesis argues that this account does not specifically say that the gathered waters irrigated the land, but how else could the vegetation have grown in Verse 11 if the land wasn't irrigated by the gathered waters in Verse 10?
Nemesis responded,
The irrigation would come later
In the second creation story that's true, but what about the first creation story? How could it have been true, as the Genesis writer said, that "it was so" (plants had grown) in Verse 11, if there had not been water to promote the growth? Thus, there MUST have been water available. What was the source of that water? Well, the first creation story author makes the answer to that question clear: in the previous verse (Verse 10) he tells us that land and the seas are formed simulataneously. Thus, land and land water in lakes were created at the same time, and so there was never a time in the first creation story when there was land without water available for irrigation. This contradicts the second creation story.
I know it's hard to accept that there are contradictions in the creation story, but it can be easier if one first admits that there are obviously two different stories from two different traditions. This is what makes this question relevant to our discussion, I believe.
From the first tradition we have an author who called the deity "God" exclusively, 35 times in a row; then, suddenly, at the exact beginning of the second creation story, the name changes to "LORD God," and that name is used exclusively until the end of the second account. Before fundamentalists present arguments which deny the possibility that there are contradictions in the creation stories, they should address the question of the divine names.
So, Nemesis, I ask you once again to comment on this.
Nemesis, do you agree that there were two different authors contributing to Genesis 1:1-2:25, and that the first author was the one who called the deity "God" thirty-five times in a row, never called him by another name, and that the second author, who begins his story at Genesis 2:4, called the deity "LORD God" nine times in a row, and never called him by another name?
If you agree with this, do you think that the likelihood that there could be a contradiction between the two stories is greater than there would be if there were only one author?
Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"
http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html
