Genesis 2:1-4 and 15-17

This passage has some poetic symmetry, it also has some literary references to later parts of Genesis. The Heavens and Earth are, I believe, partially personified, so that God is pictured as God over the great Powers of Heaven and Earth, unlike outside mythologies which had gods of comparable power vying for ascendancy.

It is likely that this section was either taken as a whole from another document (like many believe the case to be with several sections of Genesis), or carefully adapted by the compiler of Genesis from a resource for which we have no complete copy (we would say no longer extant, in the field of biblical studies). I'm rushing through this, so there may be errors.

This is the account of The Heavens' and The Earth's creation,
on the day in which Adonai God created The Heavens and The Earth.

When plants had yet to exist on The Earth,
And flora had yet to sprout up from The Ground,
Because Adonai God had not yet provided rain for The Earth,
And there was no person to serve on The Earth,

Then mist came up from The Earth and irrigated the whole surface of The Earth,
And the Lord God formed the People-of-Dust from The Ground and breathed into their nostrils the spirit of life, and humanity became a living being¹

Then Adonai God planted a garden in Eden in the east and placed in it the human whom he had made.
Then Adonai God caused every tree that was beautiful, and every one that grew good things to eat, to grow from The Ground with The Tree of Life and The Tree of Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil in the middle of the garden.
. . .
Then Adonai God took the man and let him stay in the Garden of Eden, to serve it and protect it.

Then Adonai God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone, I will make him a helper different than him."²

So Adonai God created all the wild animals of the field and all the animals that fly in the sky from The Ground and he took them to the man to see what he would call them and everything that the man called each living thing, that was its name.



1. "Man" is used here in Hebrew, but context seems to indicate a collective value to the man, he is the representative for all humans, for it is here they come to life.

2. Too lit. "a helper opposite."