Commenting on the Priestly creation account (Gen 1:1-2:3a) and the total absence of creation ex nihilo therein, one scholar wrote that:
To be sure, God summons light into existence, the only instance that comes close to creation ex nihilo (1:3). (William P. Brown, The Ethos of the Cosmos: The Genesis of Moral Imagination in the Bible [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1999], 40)
But even then adds the following footnote showing the paucity of meaningful evidence for creation ex nihilo as well as noting the theological uneasiness many have at the biblical theology of creation ex materia:
See also 1:7, 16, 27. Overall, however, the Priestly cosmogony does not exemplify a doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, “creation out of nothing.” Syntactically, the first verse of Genesis is a dependent clause (“When God began to create the heavens and the earth . . .”) rather than a complete sentence (i.e., “God created the heavens and the earth.”) Indeed, the notion of creatio ex nihilo did not clearly emerge as a doctrine until the second century CE (G. May, Creatio ex Nihilo: The Doctrine of “Creation out of Nothing” in Early Christian Thought [tr. A.S. Worrall; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1994], 35-38, 62-84). The vigor and intensity with which both modern and ancient commentators have argued opposing positions betrays the fact that more than simply syntactical precision is at stake; deeply conflicting theological convictions underlie the various ways in which God is viewed in relation to the cosmos. For the Priestly author, however, the preexistence of chaos in no way intrudes on or limits God’s transcendent character, but rather underlines the divine role as the creative orderer of the cosmos. Whereas God is comfortable with preexistent “chaos” in the Priestly cosmogony, many modern interpreters are not. (Ibid., 40 n. 8)
For more, see:
Blake T. Ostler, Out of Nothing: A History of Creation ex Nihilo in Early Christian Thought
