The Language of Creation: Cosmic Symbolism in Genesis by Matthieu Pageau

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This book is widely acknowledged as the modern ur-text for understanding the basic patterns of creation. It is a book that makes more sense after re-reading and reflection, because so much of the symbolic worldview that it articulates is inductive and intuitively grasped, rather than deductive and rationally provable—and so much of it is also at 90 degrees to our way of thinking. The first time you read it, there will be many statements and claims that just seem like (at best) fanciful assertions or unwarranted leaps. Spend time ruminating on it, however, and you will find that these insights become far less fanciful and unwarranted—eventually, you begin to grasp how the pieces fit together, and a whole structure begins to emerge. The book is masterfully organized, and each chapter is only about a page, making it much easier to grasp the individual chunks and start making sense of them.

Matthieu’s brother Jonathan also has a website full of material dedicated to understanding symbolism: https://thesymbolicworld.com.

One caveat: the Pageau brothers are Eastern Orthodox. They are thus friendly to the Christian tradition, but do not articulate the gospel well, and are less worthy of attention when they stray into more theological and exegetical discussions.