The creation stories Israel's ancient neighbours told were all about how their gods organised our world to support life day after day, month after month, year after year.
Culturally, this was the only way to tell a creation story.
An ancient Israelite couldn't have conceptualised anything else. And even if they could have, they were not interested in telling a material narrative because a solitary material event from the distant past held little bearing on their everyday lives. Instead, ancient people were thankful for the rising of the sun, the consistency of seasons, and the irrigation of farmland by rain or river.
They told origin stories about why the world functions like it does because they wanted their communities and their neighbours to know it was their god that not only made these things happen but continues to make them happen.
The descriptions in [Genesis 1] focus on what happens all the time, not just on what happened on one initial occasion. Day and night alternate continuously, plants always sprout, the sun always shines, creatures always teem. When we recognise this, we may be inclined to title the account "God and World Order." Such a label would give a new identity to the text and give us a different view of what it is describing.
— John H. Walton,
The Lost World of Adam and Eve, p.41
Below, I go day-by-day through Genesis 1, highlighting how each day tells a functional story rather than a material one.
