by Karen Pusey

Created on: May 09, 2009   Last Updated: May 11, 2009

The story starts in chaos.The Hebrew words tohu-va-bohu translated variously as "formlessvoid", "Vaste waste", " formless and empty", " form and void", or paraphrased as " a shapelss chaotic mass", "barren,empty, with no form of life" or "formless and desolate" are almost onomatopoeic in their force.

None of these translations however, captures the feeling of utter chaos, the total mess that the writer envisaged the state of things to be before creation. His splendid beginning, "In the beginning God..", leads us on to believe that this great Being will somehow sort out things as they are ad produce order and light, so that development will take place in the void, so that ultimately beings will have a home. Our writer is no scientist, no reciter of facts. He is a poet. His saga continues until the first half of verse 4 in chapter 2. After him, comes the storyteller and his tale focusses on one small part of creation, the garden of Eden

But we must look at the splendid poem which gives us the total picture, the backcloth to the drama that will unfold; the story of humanity, its ups and downs, successes and failures, joys and sorrows. It will end in the last chapter of Revelation with humankind redeemed, glorified,worshipping God, living in the new Jerusalem.

God's breath or Spirit sweeps over the chaos and God begins his great work by dividing light from darkness and so making day and night. This is the first day of crehvmation. The poet composes a refrain , which he uses for the six days of creation. His other line proclaims each part of the creation good and in this his theology marks him off from others in the ancient world who saw the things of creatin as gods in themselves. As Harvey Cox puts it, "The Hebrew view of creation.... separates nature from God and distinguishes man from nature" (The Secular City: London: Pelican 1968,36) Nothong we see is divine in itself, it is made by the one God..

The climax comes in v.26 when God creates man and woman. Using the device of Hebrew paralleliism, the poet speaks of this creation in two ways, using two Hebrew words to describe them. He says they were made in the image (tselem) and likeness (demuth) of God. The stronger one is the first one, used again twice in v.27. This is translated i the Septuagint as "Eikon". Scot McKnight has picked up this idea in his writings. In "Embracing Grace" (London: SPCK 2005,) He rightly complains of the overuse of the phrase "image of God" and chooses to use "Eikon" instead.

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