Theological and Non-Factual Narrative
It is hard to avoid this question. In over twelve years of teaching an introductory Bible course at the university level, not a single year has gone by without a student raising this question in the very first session. Indeed, the story of the world being created in six days seems to clash with scientific theories about the origins of the universe, particularly the Big Bang and the theory of evolution, leading some to reject both the Bible and the Christian faith altogether.
The point here is not to rehash the old debate between faith and science, nor to interpret the text in a way that makes it compatible with scientific findings (such as the idea that the word “day” should not be understood as a literal 24-hour period), nor to claim, on subjective grounds, that the text is symbolic. Rather, the aim is to demonstrate, through the biblical texts themselves, that the creation story was never intended to explain how creation happened.
Two Stories, Not a Continuation
The Bible contains not one creation story, but two, placed one after the other:
- the first, Genesis 1:1–2:4a
- the second, Genesis 2:4b–25
The first runs from the opening of Genesis to the middle of chapter 2, verse 4. It tells of six days of work and a seventh day, and it stops there. The second begins in the second half of the same verse. It does not continue the week. It begins again: the earth and the heavens, a garden, a man, the animals, the woman.
At first glance, the reader may think that the second passage is a continuation of the first, offering more detail about the creation of man and woman. But a closer reading leaves no room for doubt: these are two distinct creation narratives, with divergences that are difficult to reconcile.
The Name of the Creator
The first difference is in the name of the Creator. In the first account, the name used is God (Hebrew: Elohim), while in the second it is the Lord God (Hebrew: Yahweh Elohim) — in English Bibles, the Lord printed in small capitals. The distinction is consistent throughout, without exception. This strongly suggests that the two texts were written by different authors and stem from different traditions.
What matters for the present question is the fact of the difference, and that it never slips. Who those authors were is another question.
How God Creates
The second difference concerns the mode of creation. In the first account, God creates ex nihilo (out of nothing): by speaking (“Let there be light,” Genesis 1:3), by separating (the light from the darkness, the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome), by making (the sun, moon, and stars), or, in the case of living beings, by creating (Hebrew: bara).
The second account does not describe the creation of the cosmos. It focuses on the creation of living beings. Here, the Lord God acts like a potter, forming man and animals from the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7, 19).
The Order of Creation
The third and most significant difference concerns the order of creation.
In the first narrative, the creation of humanity is the culmination of God’s work. After preparing a habitable space and populating it with marine, aerial, and terrestrial creatures, God creates human beings and gives them dominion over all other living things. It is as if the purpose of creation is precisely man. God also creates humans in his own image, male and female at the same time:
So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
(Genesis 1:27)
In the second narrative, the sequence is quite different. From Genesis 2:5 (“there was no one to till the ground”) and 2:15 (“the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it”), we can infer that man was created to cultivate the earth. So God forms him from the dust and breathes life into him. Then, realizing that the task is too great for one person alone, God creates animals to assist him:
It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner. (Genesis 2:18)
The help he then makes is not yet the woman. Out of the ground the Lord God forms every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brings them to the man (Genesis 2:19). It is not enough:
but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. (Genesis 2:20)
So God creates a true companion for him: the woman.
Thus, the man who comes last in the first story, male and female together, comes first in the second. The animals who precede him in the first story are formed after him in the second, and fail as the helper he needs. The woman who is created with him in the first story is created from him in the second, and only once the animals have proved insufficient.
What these Differences Show
These two narratives clearly present striking differences: the name of the Creator, the method of creation, the purpose of creation, and the order of created elements. It is evident, then, that the compilers of these texts were fully aware that these accounts were not meant to describe how God created the world, but simply to affirm that he did create it. They should not be read as a factual report. They are to be interpreted theologically: for the image of God the authors intended to convey, and for the relation between God and humanity that they presupposed.
Cain’s Wife
The rest of Genesis only reinforces the non-historical nature of these accounts. We all know that the first human couple had two sons, Cain and Abel, and that Cain soon killed his brother out of jealousy (Genesis 4). God then cursed Cain, driving him from the land stained by his brother’s blood and condemning him to a life of wandering. So far, the narrative follows a logical moral arc: human wrongdoing followed by divine punishment. But Cain’s reaction is surprising:
Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear! Today you have driven me away from the soil, and I shall be hidden from your face; I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and anyone who meets me may kill me.” (Genesis 4:13–14)
But who else is there to meet Cain? Besides Adam, Eve, and Cain himself, who else exists on earth? And the text continues:
Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch… (Genesis 4:17)
Where did Cain’s wife come from? And where did the wives of all his descendants come from: those of Enoch, Irad, Mehujael, Methushael, and Lamech? (Genesis 4:18–19). It is clear that the authors of these texts were not attempting to provide a factual account of the origins of the world.
Conclusion
Did God create the world in six days?
Not in the sense the question usually means. Not as a report of how the world was made, and not as a timetable of six working days — to be taken as history, or stretched until it agrees with a scientific account.
Genesis does not offer one creation story that might be reconciled with such an account. It offers two, placed one after the other, and does not reconcile them. What they insist on is not the method. It is the fact: God created. They are theological narratives. A few chapters later, Cain fears people who, on a literal count, are not there, and marries a wife the story has never introduced. That is not how a chronicle of origins is written.
Who wrote these two accounts, and what story each of them was telling, is the question the next essay will take up.
This article is part of the series “From the book,” adapted from Questions and Misconceptions about the Bible (WestBow Press, 2026).