ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a systematic survey of the scientific theories on cosmogony by all the Greek natural philosophers from Thales to Aristotle and Zeno. Having laid out all the relevant Greek data, the chapter then compares the “first creation account” of Genesis 1 to see if it conforms to the Greek literary genre of scientific cosmogony. It is shown that the biblical creation account addresses the same basic questions as scientific cosmogonies, proposes many of the same physical mechanisms featured in Greek cosmogonies, and is phrased in a similar parsimonious manner that sets apart scientific cosmogonies from Ancient Near Eastern and Greek creation myths. Genesis 1, however, also incorporates narrative story elements with theological content in a fashion found only in Plato's Timaeus. It follows that the first creation account of Genesis 1, like the cosmogony in the first half of Plato's Timaeus, is of a hybrid scientific-theological-mythical variety previously known only from Plato.
