In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
There you have it, right there in the first verse. All you need to know, really. The rest—the remaining 1590 pages in the Bible I happen to be looking at—is gloss.
Alright, I exaggerate. Actually, you need a bit more. You need the whole first chapter, and in particular the declaration that “God created man in his own image.” You also need the second and third chapters, telling in narrative form how death and corruption came into the world—what many Christians call “the Fall.” And to complete the picture, you need one more really essential thing, for which I might pick the first chapter of John’s Gospel. Other Christians would no doubt make a different selection (maybe the deservedly ubiquitous John 3:16), and Jews would choose some other passage conveying a parallel message—a message about how God has provided a way out of the predicament of death and corruption.
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