The Two Creation Accounts and the Fall – Extended Merism

There is a well-known literary device in Hebrew called a merism. A merism expresses two extremes in order to signify the whole range between them. When Christ calls Himself Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, He is not limiting Himself to those endpoints but claiming everything they encompass.

In my study of Isaiah, I began to notice that this meristic logic often operates beyond the phrase or verse level. Frequently, a text presents two bounded domains, and then follows them with a third unit that does not introduce a new idea, but enacts what the first two already defined.

The third unit is not a summary. It is not a synthesis. It is the first lived traversal of the space the merism establishes.

When a meristic pair is followed by such a realizing unit, I refer to the pattern as an Extended Merism. When this occurs across chapters or major literary blocks, I refer to it as an Extended Architectural Merism.

This framework clarifies a question that has generated an extraordinary amount of unnecessary speculation: why do we have two creation accounts?

Rather than multiplying theories, we can observe the structure.

This pattern is present in Genesis, but it is far clearer in the Book of Moses. The Book of Abraham employs a different meristic axis, but preserves the same underlying logic.

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Characterizing the Meristic Poles in Moses

Moses 2 — Cosmic / Teleological Creation

Governing domain: purpose, order, and universal scope

Spiritual Creation

Moses 2 presents creation at its maximum scale.

• Creation occurs by divine decree
  Repeated formula: “And I, God, said …”
  Creation is accomplished through speech, not contact.

• Value is declared from above
  Refrain: “I, God, saw that it was good”
  Evaluation precedes human presence or participation.

• Time itself is structured
  Days, sequences, and divisions organize reality.

• Humanity appears as a category, not as persons
  No names, no dialogue, no location.

• Creation is explicitly teleological
  Moses 2 explains why creation exists before showing how humans live in it.

This is creation viewed from the standpoint of cosmic purpose.

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Moses 3 — Local / Covenantal Formation

Governing domain: relation, agency, and lived space

Physical Creation

Moses 3 presents creation at its minimum scale.

• Creation occurs by formation
  God forms, plants, and places.
  Tactile verbs replace decree.

• Humanity appears as persons
  Adam and Eve are named, addressed, commanded, and responsive.

• Space replaces time as the organizing principle
  Garden, rivers, trees, orientation.

• Moral structure becomes explicit
  Commandments appear.
  Agency becomes meaningful.

• Covenant language dominates
  “Not good that man should be alone”, “Multiply and Replenish the Earth”
  Relationship precedes law enforcement.

This is creation viewed from the standpoint of inhabited life.

Moses 2	Moses 3
Universal	Particular
Speech	Touch
Time	Place
Purpose	Relationship
Humanity as type	Humanity as persons
Evaluation by God	Moral choice by humans
Teleology	Agency

Each chapter is complete in its own domain, but incomplete alone.

• Moses 2 does not explain how humans choose.

• Moses 3 does not explain why the universe exists.

Together, they define the entire human world.

This is an architectural merism. Each chapter is incomplete alone, but complete together.

Remove Moses 2:

• Moses 3 becomes a local myth with no cosmic purpose

Remove Moses 3:

• Moses 2 becomes an abstract cosmology with no moral subject

Every later development—Fall, redemption, covenant—requires both

Moses 4 & 5 only make sense with Moses 2 & 3. They are part of the same literary structure and they strategically share language from the previous sections. Moses 2 and Moses 3 are the two parts of the Merism, and Moses 4 & 5 is the Realization.

Moses 4–5 as Realization

Moses 4–5 is not a third creation account. It is the realization of the world Moses 2–3 defined.

The text signals this by reusing the language of the meristic poles under pressure.

Shared language (illustrative, not exhaustive)

And I, God, saw everything that I had made, and, behold, all things which I had made were very good; 2:31
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, 4:12

And I, the Lord God, formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life 3:7
cursed shall be the ground for thy sake…By the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, until thou shalt return unto the ground—for thou shalt surely die 4:23,25

And I, the Lord God, took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden, to dress it, and to keep it. 3:15
Thorns also, and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. By the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, 4:24-5

There are others involving agency, life/death and voice.

 

 

1. The structure tells us what kind of story Moses 4–5 is

Once Moses 2–3 are recognized as meristic bounds, Moses 4–5 cannot be read as:

• a derailment

• a tragic accident

• a mere explanation of evil

• or a parenthetical “fall story”

Instead, Moses 4–5 becomes:

The first necessary traversal of the world Moses 2–3 already defined.

Consequence

The Fall is not a violation of creation’s purpose but the first moment creation is actually inhabited as a moral world.

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2. It explains why Moses insists on agency before the Fall

This is often noted, but rarely explained structurally.

In Moses 3:

• Agency is introduced

• Opposition is named

• Command is given

If Moses 4–5 were merely a failure narrative, this sequencing would be strange.

But if Moses 4–5 is the realization of the meristic span, then agency must appear before the traversal.

Consequence

Agency is not a response to the Fall.
It is a precondition for the world Moses 2–3 defines.

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3. It reframes “good” as a dynamic category, not a static verdict

You already noticed the shared lexeme good. Here’s the deeper implication.

• In Moses 2, good is declared from above

• In Moses 4, good becomes something humans must now evaluate from within

The structure moves:

from divine evaluation ? human discernment

Consequence

“Good” is not revoked by the Fall.
It is relocated—from cosmic decree to lived judgment.

This means Moses 4–5 is not about the loss of goodness, but about the burden of judging for ourselves.

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4. It explains why labor is transformed, not abolished

Without this framework, labor after the Fall looks like pure punishment.

But structurally:

• Moses 3 defines labor as vocation

• Moses 4–5 transforms labor into toil without removing it

• Likewise, Eve is not being punished by bearing children, but living the fulfillment of what was introduced in Moses 2-3.

That only makes sense if Moses 4–5 is life within the same world, not a different one.

Consequence

Work and children are not the curse; friction is.
Creation’s purpose remains intact, but now resisted, now difficult.

That is a structural claim about reality, not just ethics.

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5. It explains why God remains present after the Fall

If Moses 4 were a rupture narrative, we would expect divine withdrawal.

Instead:

• God speaks

• God clothes

• God instructs

• God covenants

Structurally, this is unavoidable.

Consequence

Exile is not abandonment; it is relocation within the same meristic world.

The God of Moses 2–3 must still be present in Moses 4–5, or the structure collapses.

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6. It reframes Satan’s role in Moses 4

This is subtle but important.

Satan does not introduce a new domain.
He operates inside the meristic span:

• knowledge

• evaluation

• desire

• agency

Consequence

Evil is not a rival creation.
It is parasitic on the same categories creation already requires.

That’s a metaphysical claim embedded in structure.

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7. It tells us what Moses thinks mortal life is

Pull all of this together, and Moses 2–5 is saying something very specific:

Mortal life is not the collapse of Eden.
It is Eden under conditions where both poles of creation are simultaneously real.

• Cosmic purpose still holds

• Covenantal intimacy still holds

• But neither can be inhabited naïvely

Consequence

Mortality is not Plan B.
It is Plan A, Phase 2.

And this is not merely LDS theology—it is the only reading that respects the compositional logic of the text.