Bible & Christianity › Creation & the patriarchs
Creation of the world (Genesis 1–2)
In the beginning (Genesis 1–2)· Event· Bible story & events
Faith & scriptureHeld by believers on faith and scripture; history can neither confirm nor rule it out.
Genesis opens with God creating the heavens, the earth, all life and humanity, and calling it all 'good'.
See it on the Bible & Christianity map →What it is
Genesis 1 tells how God creates by speaking ('Let there be light') over six days, then rests on the seventh, the root of the Sabbath. Humans are made 'in the image of God' (Genesis 1:27). Genesis 2 gives a second, closer-up account: God forms Adam from dust and plants a garden in Eden. Jews and Christians read these chapters in many ways, from literal history to theological poetry.
Why it matters
It sets the Bible's basic claims: one God made everything, the world is good, and every person carries God's image and dignity.
Faith and history
Faith, not testable history. Many scholars read Genesis 1 as answering Babylonian myths like the Enuma Elish. Archbishop Ussher's 1650 count of biblical genealogies gave 4004 BC; science dates the universe to about 13.8 billion years.
Questions and debates
How to read the 'days' divides believers: young-earth creationists read six literal days; the Catholic Church and most mainline Protestants see no conflict with evolution (see Darwin).
Inside this (3)
Connections (2)
▸Creation of the world (Genesis 1–2) was marred, Genesis says, by Adam and Eve and the FallFaith & scripture
The connection
Genesis 1 ends with everything 'very good' (1:31). Genesis 2 zooms in on the first couple in Eden, and Genesis 3 tells how their disobedience brings shame, pain and death into God's good creation. The story moves from harmony to brokenness within three chapters.
When and where
Genesis 1–3, set in the Garden of Eden, which Genesis 2:14 places near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
How do we know?
A literary link within Genesis. Scholars note Genesis 1 and Genesis 2–3 come from different sources, joined by an editor, likely in the 6th–5th centuries BC.
Questions and debates
Whether the two creation accounts conflict (are plants made before humans, or after?) or complement each other is discussed by scholars and believers alike.
▸Darwin's evolution and the faith debate challenged literal readings of Creation of the world (Genesis 1–2)Historical record
The connection
Darwin's theory implied that life, humans included, developed over millions of years from common ancestors, not in six days a few thousand years ago (Archbishop Ussher's chronology put creation in 4004 BC). Readers who took Genesis 1–2 as literal history faced a direct conflict; others read Genesis as theology about who creates and why.
When and where
England from 1859, after the Origin of Species; the clash peaked in America with the 1925 Scopes trial in Dayton, Tennessee.
Historical evidence
Sermons, reviews and church statements responding to Darwin survive in large numbers, along with Darwin's own letters on religion and the Scopes trial transcript.
Questions and debates
Whether science and Genesis truly conflict depends on how Genesis is read; Augustine already doubted literal days. Gallup found 37% of Americans still held recent human creation in 2024.