Crime scene investigators (which we now know as “CSI”) acknowledge that if all the witnesses to an event report exactly the same information there is only one conclusion to draw: They are lying. Human individuality, the uniqueness of individual perceptions and eye-witness, the unrepeatability of each person’s own experience, makes it impossible for any group of individuals to see and report an event with the exact same language and coherence. If each rendition becomes a simply repetition — something is amiss.

The creation narratives found in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 should never be thought of as a scenario of “Genesis 1 vs. Genesis 2.” Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 do not offer some kind of contest to see whose world view wins. Instead, the biblical text is concerned to convey as much truth, to th…