The Holy Bible which is considered a sacred book by all Christians presents to humanity God, who is an all powerful and the creator of heaven and earth. Through it, and more specifically in the Old Testament, God reveals himself to those people who seek to know and understand him therefore making these people his own. Both the prophets, the teachers of the law and the authors of the books of the bible acknowledge this fact and seek to explain how God is and how he relates to his people in a couple of ways. This leads to the understanding of the different perspectives employed in this venture more so the Priestly and the Yahwist creation stories aside from many others. These two theories compare in some ways while they differ in others but the bottom line is that they seek to present the position of God which is presented in the creation accounts that existed several years ago not forgetting that they also have a relationship with the present day theories of creation.
The similarity between the two accounts, that is the Priestly and the Yahwist stories of creation can be seen through the way both present the image of God and his relationship with human beings. Both show God as a very loving and caring being towards his creation more so man. Through both stories, it is evident that man and God communicate to each other in as much as the communication is differing. Again, it is also clear that human beings really matter to God. God seems to be the patron but there has to be some form of loyalty to him from the part of man and therefore it is a two way form of operation. Both are also purely mainly set in the first two books of the Old Testament, which are Genesis and Exodus. William Brown in his book The Ethos of the Cosmos: The Genesis of Moral Imagination in the Bible states that both accounts present how the creation stories go and it delves into explaining how God went about creation from the very beginning (118).
When it comes to their differences, the Priestly and Yahwist accounts stand for ideologies that when they are looked at critically are one and the same but communicating a different message all together. First, the Priestly creation account is believed to have been written by people who were either priests or those who were close to them. The major aim of this account was to emphasize the traditional role of the priests as put forth by the ritualistic laws given to human beings and other procedures that pitted them in their leadership positions. On the other hand the Yahwist story portrays God as an all powerful being who is the creator of both heaven and the earth besides being the one who gave human beings authority over the earth and all that which is in it more so the garden of Eden at least as acknowledged by Lawrence Broadt in his book Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction (118). The Yahwist creation account seeks to explore the relationship that exists between God and man and God is pitted as very wise and merciful too. Its major concern is also to jog man’s psychology a little because it puts the notion of free will and choice to man. The current creationist theories on their part seek to justify recent studies and research in an effort to confirm the already existing creation theories and even to falsify them.
There is also another difference exhibited by the Priestly and Yahwist creation stories in regard to their timing. The time frames upon which both were written differ greatly. The Priestly story was written approximately 500 B.C with the main reason of sustaining and rebuilding the identities of the Israelites after the Babylonian captivity and exile. Those people who survived the exile more especially the priests saw their exile as a punishment from God and therefore wrote literature that sought to depict God as the one who made them go through the exile. The Yahwist story on its part was written approximately 1000 B. C. during the times of Kings David and Solomon just because of the love the people had for the royal house because of their actions and achievements (Creation Story). This was meant to provide the people with their history and the sense of destiny for the new kingdom that had been established under King David because in a way it served as a connection between them and the lands that God gave to Abraham. It can therefore be said that one of their major differences is drawn from the time that both these accounts were written.
Another major difference between the two accounts is evidenced in the creation and exodus stories as documented by the Priestly Code of the year 2009 as documented in the Encyclopedia Britannica. The theological meanings of these stories are different in such a way that the Priestly story depicts God as the powerful creator of everything in heaven and those that are on earth and that he gave human beings the power over everything on earth (Broadt 118). The Yahwist story on the other hand presents the relationship that exists between God and man and sin as an impulse that makes man almost God like. This is so because upon creation God forbade man from eating the fruit of the tree that stood at the middle of the garden because it was the tree that could make one see the difference between good and bad, an attribute that only God has (Priestly Code). By man eating the fruit, it elevated him to a different level that which was close to being God like. The image of God as seen or presented by the two is also different because whereas the Priestly account does not specify how God and man resemble in image that is whether the likeness is in the physical or mental, the Yahwist account put humanity in a position where the likeness could be in terms of wisdom because at least they are wise all thanks to eating the forbidden fruit.
These two stories can be put against some of the most outstanding modern theories that surround the creation story some of which are evolution and the big bang theories. Ewa Wasilewska in the book Creation Stories of the Middle East says that the modern scientific reasoning does not give a hint of a supernatural being to be in existence but instead natural forces. This can be very well understood by studying the evolution and big bang theories which are scientific oriented and attribute their facts to natural forces that were in existence thousands of years ago. It is well understood that science holds the tenets which seek to present facts which explain their beliefs. It is therefore evident that the major differences between the modern day theories and the story of creation as put forth by the bible is the fact that they can be proven through scientific means even though no one knows whether they are true or not (Brown 76).
There are some other theories that have taken a totally different path that has not been taken before in regard to man and the super natural being, God. The nature of man is seen through a naturalistic way which views him as a monistic being who is purely physical and that he has no soul. Regardless of this notion, man remains to be a very unique and special creature of all of God’s creation. Man is also seen to be having a special destination as portrayed by his special affinity to God and the favors he has when he is compared with all the other animals. I tend to support this ideology because when man is looked at critically in regard to God and creation, he is indeed a superior creation to the rest of God’s creation. This is so because he has been given authority over everything under the sun. It is therefore important to note that this ideology ties to the Priestly and Yahwist stories because man seems to be the central figure (Brown 69).
The priestly and Yahwist creation stories might be differing in one way or another but they have their share of tenets which they have in common. The author of these stories has focused on the same issue but in a different way of presenting God and his relationship with man. Many Christians seem to have picked part of the two stories but the bottom line is that the two have been put together to explain a very important aspect of the story of creation. This notwithstanding, when the two are misread and misinterpreted, it is seen that Christianity lacks the moral authority to stand for the Godly authority that there is but promotes the abuse and also exploitation of nature. This therefore means that there are loopholes that the two give room to which seem to work against the belief in the biblical account of creation.
Works Cited
Broadt, Lawrence. Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction. New York: Paulist Press. 1984
Brown, William. The Ethos of the Cosmos: The Genesis of Moral Imagination in the Bible. Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans. 1999
"Creation Story - Yahwist and Priestly Account" StudyMode.com. 06 2012. <http://www.studymode.com/essays/Creation-Story-Yahwist-And-Priestly 1033944.html>.
Priestly code. (2009). Retrieved July 14th 2013, from Encyclopedia Britannica: www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/475994/Priestly-code.
Wasilewska, Ewa. Creation Stories of the Middle East. London: Jessica Kingsley. 2000.
