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I first came across Henri Blocher when seeking a larger framework for addressing the question of the effects of evil in day-to-day living. I found Evil and the Cross: An Analytical Look at the Problem of Pain a powerful piece for directing my consideration of the topic. Since then, In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis has regularly been brought to my attention as a helpful piece for interpreting the opening chapters of the Genesis. Questions posed by a friend, pushed me to pick it up and delve into it. I have to admit that it was hard to put down. For your consideration, I'm posting a series of insightful quotes over the course of the next several days. Here's the first (p.96-7):

"It is not good that the man should be alone" (Gn 2:18). The remark amazes us. It is the only negative assessment in the creation narrative, and it is emphatically negative. By this divine reason of the creation of the woman, Scripture could not underline better the degree to which solitude contradicts the calling of humanity. From the very beginning, the human being is a Mitsein, a being-with; human life attains its full realization only in community. No man is an island, and everyone must discover himself to be his neighbour's neighbour. At the final completion of the operations of the grace of God, the multitude in the City of God multiplies the victory of the first couple over human solitude (Rev 21-22). In the final paradise, as in the first, mankind will for ever be no longer alone.

Community does not abolish personal individuality, which is more sharply marked in the Bible than in any other ancient culture. Or rather, the Bible is its very foundation. Just as the most natural mirror we have is the eye that beholds us, so it is our encounter with another which allows our inner life to become aware of itself . . . The individual finds himself only beyond himself, in salutation.

Dare we point out that, as with mankind, so it is with God, whose image he is? The oneness of the LORD is not loneliness, which he deliberates with himself, with his Spirit . . . if we cannot find exegetical grounds for explaining 'the image of God' by the phrase 'male and female,' our thoughts should turn to the undoubted analogy between the non-solitude of God and the communal structure of humanity" . . . more to come

Taken from pp.96-7 of In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis by Henri Blocher.