There are many that recognize two different creation stories in the beginning of the Bible. The first includes Genesis Chapter 1 and continues through Chapter 2 verses 1-3. The second account is given in Chapter 2:4-25. However, I believe there is a third account given in Genesis Chapter 5:1-4. It is very brief, simply saying that “In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind in the day they were created. And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.”
This account makes no mention of the fall of Adam, nor does it say anything about Cain or Abel. It basically states that Adam was created in the likeness of God, and that Seth was born to Adam in his likeness who was in the likeness of God. I suppose this means that Seth was also in the likeness God. Some say that we are all sinners because of Adam. I would say that we are all human as Adam was, but we all contain the seed of God as well.
The Deuterocanonical book of Ecclesiasticus, otherwise known as Sirach, Chapter 49:16 says this about Adam:“Shem and Seth were honored among men, but above every living creature is Adam.” From this viewpoint Adam seems to be well respected and honored. It makes one wonder about the modern day Christian view of Adam and these differing accounts of creation. If we start from the possible third account of creation, as mentioned, beginning with Genesis Chapter 5, all seems to be well until Chapter 6 when the sons of God start choosing wives from pagan cultures.
I have not really studied too much on this, but the debate goes something like this: One side believes that the Genesis beginnings are a collection of writings written by different authors at different times. The writers are referred to as J,E,P,and D. This is because J calls God Jehovah while E calls God Elohim. P stands for Priestly Code and D stands for an unknown Deuteronomic writer. However, the other side says that the story of creation is basically one continuous writing. I tend to agree with the former on this. It seems to be pieces rather than one fluid composition.
I found these posts interesting. Keep posting 
Here is a short essay I wrote on creation a few weeks ago:
Creation
If all that has been written about the creation of all that is observable and all the stories that have amassed about the creation of our home planet and it’s place in the universe were in one place there would be little room for much else in any one of the grand library’s of the world. I simply want to address the Biblical record on this issue and not deal with fables or any other stories from whatever source. Moreover I would like to call on known scientific facts such as they are unbiased from the beliefs and opinions of scientists some of whom are just as liable as any to call fiction fact if it serves their purpose, philosophy or argument.
Such is the pervasiveness of science these days that anyone who keeps their ear to the ground cannot but be amazed at the shifting sands of theory, fact and fiction that surrounds us. How is anyone to keep up?
In the spheres of theoretical physics, astronomical measurement and the like, these shifting sands have been all to evident over the passed hundred years. Steady State, Big Bang, Background Radiation, Relativity, Quarks and Dark Energy. The mind spins!
I hark back to the times of Copernicus and Galileo who lived through the tumultuous times of the new enlightenment, religious persecution and the like. Observation trumps the apparently obvious every time – who wound up with egg on face? Any members of the Flat Earth Society are welcome to leave the room! One wonders how many folks with currently held tenacious beliefs are headed the same way? e.g. Carl Sagan famous some years ago as a science and space guru was a long term defender of the Steady State view of the Cosmos. That means the universe is seen as a perpetual motion machine with no beginning and no end. This view fitted well with Sagan’s atheistic beliefs at that time. Few scientists would currently hold this view in the face of newer discoveries though this does not equate necessarily with fewer people of science having atheistic beliefs at this time.
What you ask has any of this to do with the Bible?I I believe that the Bible is a fundamentally reliable a reliable document which has the ability to enable the truth of science to be understood and even to give us helpful insights in how and where to look with respect to scientific enquiry. However, the Bible is a story book first and foremost. It is in fact our very own complete and unexpurgated story book!
The first story is the story of creation. But wait! Genesis the first book in the Bible contains something rather odd. There are apparently two creation stories not just one. Chapter 1 verse 1 through to Chapter 2 verse 3 is the first part and the second part starts from Chapter 2 verse 4 and leads where? Well, I would like to submit for your valued consideration that it leads through the Old and New Testaments right to to the last page of the whole Bible. That is a very short story followed by a very long, involved and even convoluted story. It makes R R Tolkins Lord of the Rings look like a very simple tail by comparison.
I like to take simple approaches where possible so I will start with the shorter bit. Furthermore I will make a few observations and reduce the detail because well, look it’s only 34 verses and you can read it all yourself in a couple of minuets.
Points to note:
God made everything
God said let there be light
God gave it order
God got down to detail
God seemed to have brought life to the Earth within what appears as a cloud (high humidity?)
God later caused the sky to become visible (Sun moon and stars can be seen. Clouds reduce
God made living creatures
God made Man and Woman (actually plural?) in his own image
God bestowed authority to man
God set it all in motion as a complete sustainable ecology
God looked at it all at the end of six days and was pleased and declared it all very good
God rested on the seventh day – that’s it all done!
Now lets bring some science to bear on this and see where it leads us. The first thing I notice is that it took days – time (chronos) I think that we are familiar with that concept. That is the dimension we live and breathe in every day, a dimension called time. Does God live in time? Well by my observation of other scripture it does appear so. The great apostle Paul reminded his readers that in Him (God) we live and move and have our being. Acts 17 vs 28. Moving on to point 2. God said “let there be light”. My mother was a great one for quotes and she would say “God said let there be light and there was light and you could see forever!” At this point I would crave your indulgence a little as I want to bring in a short amplification to the creation narrative which comes at the beginning of Johns Gospel in the New Testament. The reason I want to do this is that it does shed some light on well – light! John’s reason for starting his gospel that way appears to be a desire to counter to the growing notion promoted by some people that Jesus is not divine. Such a view renders the whole Gospel of Christ invalid that is why John’s defends Jesus deity . John kicks off by saying that: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made, without him was nothing made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. In a nut shell Jesus is the light according to the Bible. So lets look at what we know about light.
Back in the sixties when I was doing physics in college we had to contend with the wave and corpuscle theories of light because of the different ways light manifested its self in in our lab experiments. However even back then the work on relativity by Albert Einstein had been available for over half a century. Who can forget E=MC2 and the atomic menace which caused us all to shudder back in those days. We have learnt so much since as work has proceeded on astronomical measurements and the ability to see above our atmosphere with ever better space telescopes of all sorts. With the discovery of the Big Bang through a happy accident in the sixties where background radiation was first observed it all changed and steady state was replaced with a beginning. The age of the Universe is now reckoned at over 14 billion years. Now here is a twist. According to Einstein and now well proven the observation of the passage of light over time is dependant on the location of the observer. So thus 14 billion years is the age of the Universe observed from our location, Earth. Also proven is a fact that the speed of light in a vacuum is a fixed value (186,000 miles per second). Thus our sun is about 8 light minuets from Earth. Perhaps less well known is the time dilation effect of the speed of light so that it is understood that a body (space ship) travelling at some even small proportion of light speed will experience a contraction in time for the crew compared to say the Earth from which it was launched and to which it returned. In fact if one were able to achieve the impossible (sorry Capt. Kirk) and travel at the speed of light the crew would arrived as they departed by their perception while elapsed time at their departure point would tend toward infinity. This means that light does not experience time. The light (waves or corpuscles) which arrive at your eye from the farthest reaches space are as fresh as the moment they started on the journey to your retina 14 billion years ago. My point is that if God is light as the scriptures say and the Word (logos) is also light then as well as being in the Universe, God inhabits the “forever now” of eternity as well. Getting our minds around Eternity is well neigh impossible because we are finite beings, adapted to time space and mass. Most contend that we are spirit and well as mind but while we can measure mind activity “spirit “ is an immeasurable concept which the Bible attributes to God breathing into each person. In fact it is light in the sense that we read above where the Logos (Word) that is Jesus is the light of men. Some years ago a Professor at MIT in the States wrote a book in which he attempted work out what lapsed time has passed at the site of the Big Bang. So 14 billion years observed from earth equals how much lapsed time at the site of the genesis of creation? The Professors name is Gerald Schroeder. Its about 25 years since he wrote Genesis and the Big Bang. Gerald is also a Hebrew scholar and these days teaches Bible in Israel. While I have no way of checking his work, being totally unqualified, he is very well qualified and he came up with the age of the universe from its point of inception - God’s eye view if you will! It Sounds crazy but due to time dilation and the effects of relativity Schroeder calculated that a period of nearly six (24hr type) days had elapsed from creation until now at origin – the so called big bang. If true this changes the possibilities of interpretation of the first chapter in the Bible radically.
One way of looking at this is to think of the opening chapter and the next 3 verses as a sort of film trailer which sets out the whole of everything in precise and accurate terms from Big Bang to God Rests. God only rests when it is completed and he is totally pleased and says it is very good. The rest of the Bible from A to Z is about Man (Adam) and Gods relationship with him. Thus we are still in the period of Creation – It is not yet finished, it is not yet very good, but never fear with God all things are possible as Jesus said. So how far into the sixth day are we? Schroeder said literally seconds to midnight. This can take some getting ones mind around. This essay is about all of everything written for the average person and to remind us that what we were taught may continually need revision – who really believes in a flat earth any more?
To round this section off I want to point out a few scriptures which may help my readers reach a reasonable conclusion from what I have said so far. Does the Bible say God has finished his work with Creation and Man as many seem to assume?
Jesus said to them “my Father is always at his work to this very day I too, am working
John 5 vs 17
There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men 1Cor 12 vs 6
We know that God works for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. Rom 8 vs 28
For it is God who works in you to will and to work according to his good purpose.
Phil 2 vs 13
My food said Jesus “is to do the work of him who sent me and to finish his work”.
John 4 vs 34
It does not sound as though God is resting yet does it? Creation is not yet finished! Do you believe that when God does reach completion that Creation will be perfect and very good? I do because that is what God declared in the first chapter of the Bible.