ABSTRACT
In the nineteen fifties Nic Ridderbos, professor in Old Testament studies at the Free University in Amsterdam, showed plausibly how the message of Genesis 1 had been cast in a strict literary scheme. The Genesis narrative is a carefully constructed literary proclamation that all things derive from the hand of God and are therefore meaningful and ‘very good.’ The Genesis narrative therefore proclaims that all things derive their ultimate meaning from the fact that they come from the hand of God. Since Darwin the theory of evolution has proved to be exceptionally fruitful in explaining the origin and development of the variety of species in the natural world. Furthermore it has also proved to be very fruitful as a basis for the technical control of developments in nature, as has for example been shown in the development of various techniques in genetics.
