At Slate, David Plotz decides to read the Bible and share the experience. (Here’s the background — What happens when an ignoramus reads the Good Book?)
A believer, Plotz has gotten the story from creation through Lot in the first two installments — Genesis, Chapters 1-7 and Chapters 8-19. One sample to whet your interest.
Creation Story, Take 2. This is confusing. Here is an entirely different Creation, in which God uses an entirely different method and carries it out in a different order. And second Creation has a very different view about men and women than first Creation. In Chapter 1, after God has made everything else, He makes man and woman together, “in His image.” Not in Chapter 2. Before he makes plants and animals, He forms man from dust and blows in his nose to vivify him. Nothing about “in His image” here. And no woman, either. Only later, after the plants and animals have been made, does God create woman, from Adam’s rib. In second Creation, the woman is made to be man’s “helper.” In Chapter 1 they are made equal. Why is Chapter 2 the Creation that conservatives have settled on, with woman as helpmeet? Why not first Creation?