Eve and Adam

Scholars have identified two different creation stories at the beginning of Genesis, one in Genesis 1–2:4a and the other in Genesis 2:4b–3:24.

The first is attributed to the “P” source (the Priestly tradition) and the second is attributed to the “J” source (the Yahwist tradition).^a The two accounts differ in many ways. Their language and style are very different: The P account is repetitive and uses set formulas (for example, “it was evening and morning, the first day”; “and God saw that it was good”). The J account, on the other hand, flows along like a good story. The P account begins with a lifeless watery chaos from which dry land must emerge for life to begin, while the J story moves in the opposite direction from a lifeless dry land to which water is added to permit life to begin. In the P account, God creates by speaking a word; in the J account God acts like a potter, a gardener and a builder.