Chapter Two: 2:4b-25-25 - Another Account of the Creation

• The chiasm between 2:4a and 2:4b (heavens/earth/created//made/earth/heavens - ABCCBA) binds the two narrative accounts of creation and suggests they should be read together.
• The concern with time in chapter one does not entail a deep concern with chronology in chapter two.
• The discrepancy between the chronology of the two accounts testifies that there is a deeper concern in the text than surface events (later described as structural symmetry coupled with chronological disarray, or palistrophic balance contrasted with chronological disarray).
• The different terms used for God (narrator -Yahweh Elohim; Woman and Serpent - Elohim; Man - doesn't speak the name of God despite having named all the animals) are contrasted with the consistent use of Elohim in chapter 1. Whereas the historical critical method would see this negatively as lack of integrity in the narrative and evidence of disparate sources Turner sees this positively as a 'reminder to us to distinguish between the perspectives of narrator, characters and reader in this and any other plotted narrative.'
• Another contrast with chapter one is the amount of 'loose ends' in chapter two which are 'unpredictable' and 'intrigue the reader'. Some of these, such as the trees will have greater significance in subsequent chapters.
• The rivers in/from the garden mirror the creation of the seas but this account is concerned only with earth whereas chapter one is concerned with the heavens and the earth. They may be divided into known and unknown (Pishon and Gihon unkown - although Gihon is presumably named after a spring of the same name in the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem (referred to in Chron.32:30)) whereas the Tigris and the Euphrates are known.
• These known rivers introduce movements eastward, 'generally associated with exile' in a way that is 'ominous' for someone 'familiar with Israel's history of exile in Mesopotamia.'
• 'The source of the rivers of exile is in Man's home itself'
• The 'ominous note' sounded by the rivers of exile is underlined (a terrible mixed metaphor) by the introduction of the tree of death.
• God's evaluation throughout chapter one (that it was good) is contrasted with the incompleteness of man, on his own and needing a helper.
• Turner rejects the notion that the animals were created as part of an experiment to see if they could help man since this is inconsistent with the threefold commision to multiply, subdue the earth, and exercise dominion over the animals.
• Instead, according to Turner, the creation of animals impresses upon man the need for woman, even with the animals he is 'impotent' to fulfil his commision. 'Retarding' her introduction 'from the man's perspective underlines how crucial she is...Hence the cry of released frustration on meeting her: 'This at last...".
• Vocations are linked to origins (man - till the ground; woman - help the man)
• Man's naming of woman illustrates his authority (he has named the animals and it echoes God's naming of the elements in Chapter One).
• 'In procreation they will replicate their own creation, becoming once again 'one flesh'''.
• Turner says that their intimacy (which is implied in the image of 'one flesh') 'is heightened by their mutual nakedness which lacks all embarrassment'.