Another Account of Creation

1. Another Account of Creation As a collection of oral traditions and lost papers, the author/collector of Genesis seems to have felt compelled to included information that provided alternative stories, differing interpretations and sometimes even seemingly contradictory stories. In this alternate version of the Garden of Eden, a river flows out of Eden and splits into four separate rivers. Two of these have always been identified as the Tigris and Euphrates in modern day Iraq . Only recently did satellite technology identify the presence of two dried-up river beds (called wadis) which at some time in the past met the Tigris and Euphrates and merged to become the four rivers of Genesis’ alternate Garden of Eden. Geological changes in the earth’s surface have led archeologists to conclude that the Garden of Eden was most probably in a fertile plain which is now underwater in the Persian Gulf. In this second story of Creation, God creates a partner for Adam by extracting a rib from Adam and using that rib to make a woman. God then brought that woman to Adam who then says: “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken.” Genesis then concludes this section with the text found in all wedding celebrations to this very day: “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.” This expression defines the very essence of the marital bond between a man and a woman.