Brief Thoughts and Interpretations of The Creation Story in The Bible

“God commanded ‘Let there be light’ — and there was light” (Genesis 1:3).  And God created creatures of every kind and created human beings, and told them to “be fruitful and multiply”.  And God found it to be very good. 

Genesis teaches that creation is good and that our world was not a random accident but has a design and purpose, and that human beings — being in God’s image — have choices and free will, and are to shape and preserve the world.  Some have interpreted the creation story as instructing humans to make a beginning in the right direction, as God did.  If humans are the masters of the world God created and are made in God’s image, then they must create as God did, and so the Genesis story teaches initiative, creation, good beginnings, and preservation.  Because opportunities for creation come again and again to human beings, we are reminded of what it is to be God-like again and again, and we are instructed to create and not destroy.

Furthermore, Genesis teaches us to care for creation.  Some commentators on the creation story remarked that God placed the stars and planets in their exact places to support life on earth, and that the self-contained system of conditions for life on the earth are fragile and must be cared for.  Others remarked that the world was created for man’s enjoyment, and man must care for it — to be God-like — to hand it down to future generations of men. 

The creation story indicates that God had created other worlds, but they had not been satisfactory until God created our world, and this would be the last world created.  If this one were destroyed by man, there would not be others.  That does put man in a special place as caretaker of the one world where there is human habitation.  Furthermore, God created creatures that serve man in various ways — some as food, some as beasts of burden, others as companions.  The creation story teaches that they too were put here by God, and man should act as God would toward them.  All creatures, including man, were instructed to be fruitful and multiply, and thus continue creation.

Before God actually created, God must have had the idea of creation, and some commentators have suggested that man creates with ideas and with actuality.  Therefore, man is charged with having ideas of good, of improving the world, and then going about and trying to bring that goodness into the world.  Furthermore, because God tried many worlds before creating this one, the Bible indicates that is OK to try, and fail, provided that you try again, and you try to bring about goodness in your creations.