In the biblical account, creation was arguably not ex nihilo but used the primordial waters (תהוֹם) as material.
W. G. Lambert, "Creation in the Bible and the Ancient Near East," in A Reconsideration of Hermann Gunkel's Chaoskampf Hypothesis, ed. JoAnn Scurlock and Richard H. Beal (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2013), 51
