• FourPacketsOfPeanuts@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    People say there are two genesis creation myths “mashed” together. I think this is true, but not really giving enough credit to the people doing the mashing who I think - as the rest of the literature pans out - not generally in the habit of writing directly contradictory things (usually you have to dig deeper for mistakes, but blatant surface level ones are not so common). They didn’t have science, but they knew how stories worked. I think it’s possible the original editor, when joining the myths together, intended the “man” created in myth 1 (the sixth day) to be understood as humanity in general. And myth two following on immediately is the specific creation of Adam on the eighth day. That would at least explain why Cain’s wife is referred to so casually (as well as the implied peoples Cain is afraid of)

    • maynarkh@feddit.nl
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      That’s what I mean, ChatGPT recombines existing stuff without knowing and caring about a larger context. It seems the same thing happened with the Bible, I guess other “holy books” as well. It’s not really a dig at the Bible, more like an interesting parallel between the mechanisms.