Rich wrote:Genesis 1 - 2:4 uses the name El normally translated as God. At 2:4 a second creation story begins. Its in a different order and God is referred to as Yahweh / Yahweh God or Jehovah depending on the translation. One doesn't have to be a great scholar to begin to be able to determine the four sources of the Pentatuech. Sometimes versions are interwoven like the Flood story. Two sources were recognised as early as the eighteenth century. in one source the name Yahweh is used from the beginning. In the other it is only used after it is revealed to Moses. This gave the J (sounds like a Y in German) source from Jehovah and the E source from El. J favours Judah, likes Aaron, dislikes Moses. E favours the northern tribes, like Moses and dislikes Aaron.
The 2 source was developed into the four source: J, E P (Priestly) D (Deuteronomy). Genesis begins with a P source, written hundreds of years after the J source. In P God is distant, in J God is anthropomorphised like the gods of Ancient Greece, Rome, the Norse or the Hindus.
People make speculations on things they don't understand and seem to be contradictions to them. Let me explain. The first creation narrative is an overall view of the six creation days plus the following day that was to be a memorial for God's creation in six days and an example for man to follow in getting one complete day of rest after six days of work.
The second narrative appears to me to be only giving details of making mankind and about a limited creation of plants and animals for the man to care after. First God planted in a field a garden that needed cultivating by man before he made the man and placed him in the garden. After making Adam, God made some animals needed for the garden and some domestic animals for Adam's care and use. Adam saw these animals being made by God and even gave them each names. Eve never saw God making anything, so she was easy to deceive by the serpent that was possessed by Satan the devil.
Obviously, Moses knew both the names El and Yahweh for God. El was an earlier name and in Exodus, Moses gives his account of learning the name (I AM) Yah for the God of his forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
God replied to Moses, "I Am Who I Am. Say this to the people of Israel: I Am has sent me to you."
God also said to Moses, "Say this to the people of Israel: Yahweh, the God of your ancestors--the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob--has sent me to you. This is my eternal name, my name to remember for all generations." (Exodus 3-14-15 New Living Translation)
Notice that Elohim (the plural) of El is used for God in the Hebrew indicating the God that we Christians refer to as the Trinity (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit).