ABSTRACT
This chapter undertakes a verse-by-verse exposition of the First Creation Account in Genesis 1 against the background of Greek natural science and Plato's Timaeus. Gen 1:1 is compared with the scientific prologue of Timaeus. The primordial chaos of Gen 1:2 closely corresponds to the chaotic pre-existing material world in Timaeus before God'ss arrival. The stratification of the elements and the role of the divine wind played in the primordial chaos are shown to reflect added influence from Zeno, the founder of Stoicism. The scientific substratum of the biblical cosmogony in the six days of creation is shown to be consistently compatible with the scientific explanations of the Greek natural philosophers and the first half of Plato's Timaeus in particular. The theological super-stratum in which the biblical authors emphasized the divine guidance or steering of the physical ordering of the universe and God's divine purpose at every stage of this ordering process is also shown to be in line with the tenets of Plato's theology, sometimes directly drawing on Plato's Timaeus.
