Much controversy surrounds the opening chapters of Genesis. They are “ ‘front-loaded’ with all manner of vital topics,” says C. John Collins, “such as God’s work of creating the world and mankind; what it means to be human; why our present experience is so different from what we find in Genesis 2; how we come to know God and to be sure of his love.”

Collins employs a literary-theological method informed by contemporary discourse analysis in order to read passages as coherent wholes. He shows how later biblical and intertestamental writers have used Genesis 1–4, and reflects on how these chapters shape a Christian worldview today.