Let There Be Life : A Scientific and Poetic Retelling of the Genesis Creation Story

In keeping with the fast march of science, the story of Creation in the book of Genesis has come to signify an archaic view of origins without relevance or meaning to modern society. Now understood to be a Bronze Age myth, its verses bear no resemblance to the sequence of Evolution which the sciences show us. But the triumph of science stole something deeper than archaic meaning: it robbed us of wonder and of that sweep of majestic vision represented in Genesis.

If Genesis Chapter One - the Creation story - were rewritten for our time, what would it say? How would a contemporary account present the still-unfolding tale of cosmic change and of life's evolution on our planet?

Science writer and film producer Robert Fripp brings the Creation story up to date in Let There Be Life, sixty-two verses written in the style of the King James Bible, but influenced by our present knowledge of evolutionary process. Each verse, or group of verses, is followed by an essay in modern English. Let There Be Life is not an attempt to reach a compromise between the literal interpretation of Genesis' Creation on the one hand, and evolutionary theory on the other. It is the fascinating attempt, in allegorical form, to combine the spirit and the sense of Genesis with the conventional wisdom of current scientific thought.

Born in Portsmouth, England, Robert Fripp was eight when he won a choral scholarship to Salisbury Cathedral School. The five years he spent in the choir of Salisbury Cathedral gave him a profound respect for the language and cadences of the King James Bible. He went on to study natural sciences, taking a degree in earth sciences from the University of Bristol. Moving to Canada, Fripp produced agricultural and current affairs television programs for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, becoming the series producer of CBC's flagship current affairs series, the fifth estate. Leaving CBC in 1990, Fripp created, edited and wrote a magazine for IBM on high performance computing in scientific research, and also set up a company producing documentary films. He and his wife Carol live in Toronto.