John Davies was the Anglican Chaplain at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg when he was asked to lead a series of Bible studies at the annual conference of the Anglican Students Federation of South Africa in 1964. What he said then pas later published in pamphlet form under the imprint of the Doormat of Godot, and distributed more widely than among the students who first heard it. A few years later it was expanded into a full-length book.
The first three chapters of Genesis can be approached in several different ways. Davies notes that we come to this material as Christian, and when the text says "In the beginning God..." it is not a God whose chief characteristic is to be in the beginning, but Christians believe that the God who was in the beginning is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is God, Father Son and Holy Spirit." Even for those who first compiled the various stories into the form in which we now know them did not think of God as merely being in the beginning. The God who is in the beginning was for Jews the God who had led their ancestors out of Egypt in the Exodus.
So Davies treats the first three chapters of Genesis as multilayered, and at every level poses the question of what does it mean to us now. What do these chapters tell us about the world, about us and our place it in, and about God's purpose for it.