Hey, this is John at Bible Project, and welcome to the fourth episode in our series on Ancient Cosmology.

In this series, we looked at the creation stories of Babylonia, Sumeria, and Egypt.

We saw the ideas and images that all of these creation stories had in common.

And with that in mind, we looked at Genesis 1 and 2.

And we saw how the creation story in Genesis is in debate with these other ancient cosmologies.

God does not emerge from the chaos, nor does God need to battle the chaos.

The God of the Bible hovers over the dark of this, using it as a canvas to bring life and order simply with His Word.

In this next part of the conversation, we're going to look at the second creation story in Genesis.

The first narrative and the second narrative in Genesis aren't coordinated and juxtaposed in a nice linear sequence, in terms of the events that they describe.

They're actually describing the similar type of story, but from a different angle of perspective.

Now, when you get to Genesis 2, you might expect that the story of creation just continues.

The world has been made, it's been populated, but instead Genesis 2 begins again, this time with the creation of humanity from a different perspective.

Here, it's just one long bay. There's no time markers in Genesis 2, and the chaos is not an ocean water, but it's a desert.

People have noticed this for thousands of years. The humans come last in Genesis 1. Humans come first in Genesis 2.

So today on the show, while Genesis 1 begins with too much chaotic water that God needs to tame with His Word, Genesis 2 begins with a dry land and desperate need of water.

Thanks for joining us. Here we go.

Okay, we're talking about Genesis 1 and 2. We are creation stories. We spend a lot of time talking about aging cosmologies, and we look at Genesis 1 versus 1 and 2 in depth.

And how the pre-creation state is waters, and darkness covering the waters, and then God shows up hovering, and now the waters are full of potential.

That's right. So the same waters, basically, verse 2 of Genesis 1. The waters are first described with the Hebrew word Tahom, which is their terrifying life-preventing aspect.

Tahom is like when waters are deadly.

When they either prevent life or they destroy life, they're talked about as Tahom, and in Genesis 1 versus 2, it's when darkness is over the waters, the realm of darkness, and nothingness is over the waters, they're Tahom.

But then the next line says, but the spirit of God is on the face of the waters, and then they're called by a different Hebrew word, Hamaiam, which is the word used to describe waters in their neutral or positive life-giving context, rivers and streams and irrigation canals.

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