It all begins with the beginning - Genesis. The first verse is probably the most well-known of the whole Bible: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Or, as translated here, "At the dawn of time God created the entire expansive universe." That verse lays the groundwork for what's to follow: the incredulous story of a loving God creating a wondrous world that becomes marred and broken by one of his own creations - mankind - and what he does about it. The vast bulk of the scriptures, from Genesis 4 to the end of Revelation, contain the surprising details of just how this loving God goes about repairing the damage and restoring the original harmony between himself and the created order, especially mankind. Genesis carries that story through God's calling forth and establishing a patriarchal line through Abraham - the channel through whom he would establish a covenant relationship with a particular people to go about his remedial work to rescue all he had so skillfully formed in the first place.
