Genesis 1, or the first chapter of the first book in the Bible, has now for two millennia been a chief sticking point between science and religion. That chapter will indeed remain a source of endless embarrassment for the believer as long as it is taken for a sort of scientific cosmology, inviting thereby the baneful specter of concordism. It is shown in this booklet that Genesis 1 was not meant to be such a cosmology, but a parable with a most important moral: In Genesis 1 the Creator himself is set up as a role model for observing the sabbath after his greatest work, which is the creation of all. Once seen in this light, details, which in Genesis 1 relate to the particulars of the Hebrew world picture, will not call for a comparison with the ever vaster scientific knowledge about the unfolding of the universe.

By Fr. Stanley L. Jaki

ISBN 978-1-892548-05-4  •  32 pages  •  softcover