Saturday, March 26, 2022

The Jerome Biblical Commentary (2022) vs. Creatio Ex Nihilo (Creation out of Nothing)

  

The very first word of Genesis, bərē’šît, literally “in beginning of,” is not a prepositional phrase, “in the beginning,” as often rendered. It starts a “when-clause” (a temporal clause), “when at first God created the heavens and the earth.” Such “when-clause,” followed by “then clauses” (here probably in v. 3), are known in other major literary works outside the Bible, including other creation accounts (cf. “when-clause” in 2:4a; for the syntax, see Jer 7:22 and Hos 1:2). Verse 1 tells the time of creation, a divine process that does not commence until verse 3. The waters in verse 2 are already present at the beginning of God’s creation. Thus, contrary to popular belief, Genesis 1 does not narrate the absolute beginning of everything. . . . Verse 2 describes the universe’s condition at the time of creation. Three sentences resemble poetic lines, with their words corresponding generally in meaning and often in word order, grammatical forms, and sounds (often called “poetical parallelism”). Verse 2 envisions the primordial pre-creation universe as a space filled with water. Creation in Genesis is not creation from nothing but a process beginning with water, initially not beneficial for human life but turned into an element that is. The “mighty wind” may be translated also “the spirit (or life-breath) of God” (cf. Gen 8:1), evoking the divine role in what unfolds. The abyss and waters are the cosmic waters that the deity is said to defeat. In other biblical texts, the waters are anthropomorphized as enemies (Pss 74:13 and 104:6-7). In this traditional model, creation emerges out of the divine conflict against cosmic waters. Genesis 1 takes the model further in verse 3. Rather than God rebuking the waters or battling the waters, God in verse 3 speaks, and creation begins. An audience familiar with the traditional model of creation is shown by Genesis 1 that God is the power beyond all or that any power needing only to speak for creation to appear (cf. Pss 33:6-7). (Mark S. Smith, “Genesis,” in The Jerome Biblical Commentary for the Twenty-First Century, ed. John J. Collins, Gina Hens-Piazza, Barbara Reid, and Donald Senior [3d ed.; London: T&T Clark, 2022], 205)

 

38:4-11. The first topic raised by God is creation: “Where were you when I founded the earth?” The questions incidentally give an account of how the process of creation was understood. The world was built on pedestals, sunk in the primeval waters, and was measured out as a building would be. On the foundation of the earth, compare Psalms 104:5. One of the major tasks of the creator was to set limits of the sea. The Sea was personified as a deity in Canaanite myth, but here it is viewed as a natural phenomenon. The drama of setting a limit to the sea is recounted in Psalm 104:6-9. It is apparent that that God did not create the world out of nothing. The sea was primeval, and existed before God set about constructing the world. The work of creation entailed clearing out a space for earthly life and securing it. This account of creation complements the brief and allusive account in chapter 26. There we were told that God stretched Zaphon, the mythical mountain, over the void and suspended the earth over nothing at all. Chapter 26 alludes to a struggle with the Sea and the sea monster Rahab, a dragon that fled before God and was pierced. This kind of account of creation is also alluded to in passages in the Book of Isaiah. Isaiah 27:1 refers to the fleeing serpent as Leviathan, and identifies it as “the dragon that is in the sea.” Isaiah 51:9 says that the Lord crushed Rahab and pierced the dragon, and dried up to the waters of the great deep. (the prophet assimilates the crossing of the Sea in Exodus to the conquest of the Sea in creation.) it is evident that these passages presuppose an account of creation that is very different from the orderly process described in Genesis 1, and more in line with Canaanite mythic traditions. Job shares with Genesis, however, the insistence that creation is good. When God laid the foundation of the earth, the morning stars sang out and all the sons of God shouted with joy. (John J. Collins and Rebecca Raphael, “Job,” in ibid., 659)

 

As part of an argument for God’s unlimited power, the clause “fashioned the universe from formless matter” (11:17) suggests that the author did not read Genesis 1 as an account of creation ex nihilo (from nothing). He takes from Genesis 1 the doctrine that all of creation is good and loved by God (11:24; cf. 1:14). God’s mercy extends even to Israel’s enemies. (Karina martin Hogan, “Wisdom of Solomon,” in ibid., 765)