English

Genesis 1, due to the multiplicity of themes and ideas, is the denser chapter in the Bible and it is also the most influential story in the history of human literature, having shaped the world view of our global modern society.

Genesis 1 introduces the novel and original idea of time as a linear sequence: differently from all other creation stories, with its first three words ‘In the Beginning’establishes a beginning point in time that is to be followed by a causal and linear succession of events.

Creation (or the “filling” of the world) has a narrative that develops trough a definite and limited time of six days. Differently for many other creation accounts, time is not circular but linear, as in a chronicle of subsequent events.

It introduces also the three most fundamental differences that constitute the peculiarity of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic worldview:

1. God, the creator, is different, a separated individual entity, from the universe that he had created;
2. the whole of creation is created singularly in different times and all creatures are therefore not only different from the creator but indeed also different from each other;
3. “good” is the concept inset at the very act of the creation and it is arguably different from its opposite (‘[...] and God saw that the light was good.’) 1.

• 1. The Bible NRSV, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995, Genesis, 1.4