"There was yet to be any shrub" (Gen 2:5)

Into and Out of the Garden

⁵ There was yet to be any shrub on earth וְכֹ֣ל ׀ שִׂ֣יחַ הַשָּׂדֶ֗ה טֶ֚רֶם יִֽהְיֶ֣ה בָאָ֔רֶץ

Has our story moved backward in time without telling us? The Earth “brought forth greenery,” plants and trees, back in 1:12, on Day Three. But as we’ll see soon, bringing the creation story “down to earth” changes more than just our viewpoint. As John Day writes in From Creation to Babel, there is not much creation here except for the creation of the first man and the first woman. Perhaps, then, Version 2 of the creation story (as I’ve been calling it) is not a creation story at all.

That is one of the things that have made it possible for people to read both stories for all these centuries and not pay attention to the contradictions. Still, though I will point out some of the contradictions, that’s not the purpose of our close reading. Our purpose is to understand what each of the words mean, what the sentences mean, and then — if we can — to understand what the longer passage is saying.

When …