Cosmic temple and Garden – first creation versus new creation

This article draws on several strands of recent Evangelical Biblical Theology and Old Testament Studies – compositional analysis of the Pentateuch, the typology of Adam to Israel, and the cosmic temple imagery of the creation story – to suggest that the overarching gospel themes of “old creation” versus “new creation” are explicit even in the first two chapters of Genesis. I argue that the creation narrative is intended to represent an uncompleted spiritual environment for an existing human race, which the garden of Eden was intended to perfect, through Adam, by means of divine covenant.