Thus one modern scientist confronts the problem with which the Torah itself begins. Rashi explains the entire book of Genesis and the beginning of the book of Exodus as justification of God s right to give away both the land of Israel and the laws threaded through the rest of the Torah. But the beginning of our story does more. It presents the group-selection problem that God tries to solve through choosing human beings to receive those laws. The very first parashah of the Torah makes it clear that God never intended to have to choose anyone.
Creation is good and the first humans are very good.
They are set in the Garden of Eden, to tend it, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. The entire human race appears to start out united, children of the same parents. After the first Shabbat, God returns to find the humans changed, conscious of death, of moral choice, of having done wrong. Rather than kill them, God gives them new, harsh instructions for a difficult life of conscious decisions. Human history begins with exile and precedes to violent competition.