Genesis I, 6-25

6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.

14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

I won't belabor the internal oddities -- for example, we have evening and morning before the sun and moon are in the sky; the cosmological misconceptions -- there is no firmament of heaven, though I suppose the ancient Hebrews thought there must be one, with water above it, because the firmament occasionally sprung a leak and down came the rain; nor the faulty chronology -- terrestrial vegetation before marine life, and for that matter before the sun and the moon.

We already know that this story is purely imaginary, since they had no information about these matters. So the interesting question is why they imagined it in this particular way. The function of the lights in the sky, aside from giving light, is to mark the seasons and the years. Unlike many, if not most ancient people's, the Hebrews don't make a big deal out of the sun. It has no special powers, it isn't awesome, there is no personality or minor God behind it, it's just an artifact of the creator God. The same for the ocean, the earth, the animals and plants. All are mundane. Only God is powerful.

At the same time, the cosmos is not somehow a manifestation of God, or permeated by his personality. It's something that he made, which is apart from him. We don't even know exactly where he lives, from what perspective he regards this creation, or how he reaches into it to mold its components or affect events, but clearly he is somewhere outside of the whole thing, looking upon it, and evaluating it. Evidently he's up in the sky somewhere, beyond the stars. Fortunately, he likes what he made, or perhaps he would have trashed it and started over.

You hardly need to hear it from me that this is very different from the God or Gods of other ancient peoples who we know about. Other people saw specific deities associated with the major (and often minor) constituents of nature, such as sun Gods and sea Gods, or spirits animating the individual rocks and trees and rivers; or a pervasive divine force in all of nature. Within the first few sentences of the Pentateuch, the unique conception of what was eventually to become the dominant spiritual orientation of not only the Middle East, but also European culture, is already apparent. As we go on, we will see how the consequences of this metaphysic unfold for the Hebrews, and ultimately for us.