In the beginning was formless life. Instead of creating the universe, God finds himself in a position to give it some order. He does not bring it about ex nihilo, out of nothing, a world external to his divine being. Rather, he images ex anihilo, out of the abysmal and chaotic rubble with which he was entrusted, a cosmos, an organised and articulated form, mainly through a series of divisions, distinctions and definitions. This process, as described in the first chapter  of Genesis, is surprisingly akin to what contemporary biologists aptly call ontogenesis, the organism's development through cell division.

... although the Hebrew God encompasses or monopolizes the entirety of nature, he is not equivalent to it. Instead of being the life of the sun or the sea, he now functions as the life of the whole world: he is how the world is; the fact that it exists is beyond him. 

The anguished earth is [...] described as a devastated battlefield: 'unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep' (1:2).

The simplistic assumption that God is beyond the world as if looking at it from a distance, stems from misunderstanding the idea that he is the life of the world. Life in this context has nothing to do with vitalism or animism. Life is not some nebulous force but simply the way the world is. 

Even god does not seem able to change and certainly not to remake the world in its entirety. The way it was established during the first week remains intact. Instead, God chooses to cultivate his own perfect-yet-limited garden and forsake the unmanageable wasteland that has spread all around.  The bitter truth that lies beyond the gate of Eden is set aside so he can focus on the fantastic truths that grow within.

Life is not a physical, psychological, or spiritual phenomenon that can be either gained or lost. It is more like a relation: something is the life of something else. For example, God is the life of the world, and the world is the life of humanity.

The prolonged entanglement of the human race with this world - what is retrospectively called the Anthropocene - is more profound, consequential, and ancient than any other loyalty or devotion. Being on earth takes precedence over other types of belonging or identity - familial, national, ideological, spiritual, cultural, geographical, historical - all of which easily obfuscate humanity's primary terrestial fidelity (something only the Gnostics dared to contest). This breach between human beings and the word is as old as their bond. Yet it appears that those who entered the garden of Genesis and left unharmed were also able to eat from the tree of life and live for the world.

According to Baruch Spinoza, eternity is 'existence itself', insofar as it follows from the definition of God. Now recall what happens to the God of Genesis when he is considered not as a character in a mythology, but as a concept in a theology: he becomes the life of the world. rather than indefinitely prolong an individual's existence, Genesis aspires to address humanity's true limitation, which has nothing to do with its short lifespan and everything to do with its strained relationship with the world. One can thus see why Spinoza thinks that death should be feared least of all things. to see things from the perspective of eternity is to be, above all, a being in the world. This world life is what the different characters that inhabit 1-11 before the advent of civilization epitomize.

A real state of exception is the exact opposite of a chaotic or anarchic situation.A state of law and order is always exceptional, even when it pretends to be the prevalent rule. The garden of Eden [...], along with Noah's Ark [...] are perfect examples of such exceptional zones. these are small pockets of calm surrounded by an overwhelmingly hopeless desolation. the rare life cultivated within is shielded from the majority of nature without. 

Humans retreat into a kingdom within a kingdom, where violence can be at least partially, locally, and temporarily suspended. as concrete as such safe spaces can be, they are not designed to spread and expand successfully across the world. A shining example tends to end up as oppressive darkness since its limited applicability is ignored. Survivors of shipwrecks search for lifeboats that over time become the new battleships. 

David Kishik, Book of Shem