The text doesn’t teach creation ex nihilo. You are reading it in.
God is the creator. This is not just from Genesis. The Creator, by definition creates ex niho, otherwise the term in inaccurate. (As opposed to a creator, small c, who works with a medium.)
I am sorry, but all claims about what Evolution did or did not achieve (without God) are impossible to prove. It is ultimately a matter of belief not fact.
Richard
By definition from our modern philosophical perspective. Not so with the Genesis 1 which does not share that worldview.
I do not care what you or anyone else has decided Genesis 1 meant. It does not change what God is, or what He has done.And I am equally certain what the intent of Genesis 1 was and what it would have been understood as meaning.
In the beginning God created the Heavens and the earth.
Richard
Which is probably why translators continue to use "In the beginning: despite the fact that the vowel pointings in the Hebrew strongly suggest it’s more like “When God began”. while the latter rendition does not exclude ex nihilo, the former pretty much requires it.
The “t’hom”, “the deep”, includes the concept of waters. Every creation myth back then treated the waters as the primodial material that just existed. This was also true of light, and it’s an interesting question why when the writer explicitly portrays light as a mere creature of YHWH-Elohim he did not do the same for the waters.
It’s worth noting that “the heavens” in Hebrew actually contains the root for “water(s)”, so an argument could be made that verse 1 indicates that God created the waters. If a concept or two is brought in from ancient near eastern thought, verse 1 could be rendered: “… God created the chaos fluids and solid material”, where “solid material” is understood to be chaotic itself. This is true whether one chooses “In the beginning” or “When God began” (I’ll note that the latter phrase is the best that English can do to get the temporal idea involved clear, but that it loses something in the structure).
Of course that is stated later, but given the above it is not unreasonable to see it in Genesis 1:1.
It’s intriguing that Second Temple Judaism never mentions ex nihilo, yet with consistency asserts that all that is was made by God. That this seems strange possibly indicates that they had rather different thought processes and categories.
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Not really – it’s obviously just another attempt to force ancient texts to conform to present intellectual categories rather than grapple with the text itself and possibly gain insight into what the ancient writer was thinking.
Excellent point!
There’s a philosophical failure in modern thought that makes the relationship between Creator and created binary: some ancient thinkers would have had no trouble with saying that a process is operating on its own yet is being determined by God.
= - = + = - = † = - = + = - =
It doesn’t not teach it, either, which is what makes the verse so annoying.
Or intriguing, if you like to follow dusty bunny trails of scholarship.
Which can be a term that means “everything there is”, which may be the strongest argument for ex nihilo. On the other hand, depending on how old the core of the text is, the phrase may not have meant that originally; in ancient near eastern context it may have just indicated the inhabited realms, one of ‘elohim’, divine beings, and one of ‘adamot’, physical beings. I think the text goes back before Moses, so I see a strong chance that the latter above is the case.
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- The Tapestry of Creation: Jon Levenson on Creation and Omnipotence. John Hilber | February 21, 2018
- Levenson argues three main theses: (1) an emphasis on creation ex nihilo has masked the important theme of God’s ongoing mastery over creation by giving a false sense of finality to his creative work; (2) inattention to the temple theme in Genesis 1 has led to the neglect of the role of humanity in the maintenance of order; and (3) the link between creation and history, expressed through the biblical covenants, merits more emphasis."
- The favorite Greek “scientist” of an acquaintance was Thales, precisely because Thales is reported by Aristotle to have: ‘… declared that the earth rests on water’." Aristotle defined wisdom as knowledge of certain principles and causes (Metaph. 982 a2-3). He commenced his investigation of the wisdom of the philosophers who preceded him, with Thales, the first philosopher, and described Thales as the founder of natural philosophy (Metaph. 983 b21-22). He recorded: ‘Thales says that it is water’. ‘it’ is the nature, the archê, the originating principle. For Thales, this nature was a single material substance, water. Despite the more advanced terminology which Aristotle and Plato had created, Aristotle recorded the doctrines of Thales in terms which were available to Thales in the sixth century B.C.E., Aristotle made a definite statement, and presented it with confidence." [Source: Thales of Miletus (c. 620 B.C.E.—c. 546 B.C.E.)]
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That’s a great insight. I’ve noted the connection between the clockwork creation idea and a disconnect from caring about the world, but never made the link with ex nihilo.
I recall mention of Thales in Greek readings but we never read those writing of Aristotle. I’m pondering possible links between Thales’ thought and the ancient near eastern understanding of a universe filled with water – I suspect that Thales’ view was a bit more positive than the ANE version; I’ll have to do some reading to test that. He couldn’t have been unfamiliar with the ANE concept, but I wonder how much he drew on it.
To me this elevates form over function. All of the other days list what happens, then declare and evening and a morning. Day one is quite the same.
As it was aimed at the illiterate form is paramount. It is designed to be said and remembered. So, yes, form takes precedence over precise meaning. Form is the function.
Richard
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So you are certain Genesis 1 agrees with whatever you believe? Yet elsewhere in here you claim to be informed by scripture. Seems circular to me.
Much of the text in Genesis 1 is consistent with creation ex nihilo but it certainly doesn’t teach it in toto. Something quite obvious to anyone evaluating the first few verses on their own terms and not simply seeking confirmation bias.
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It’s not about what I believe . It is about the intent.
Whether ex nihilo is stated or implied, it is still there.
Richard
Your argument converts illiterates into experts on literary form.
I don’t think so. It makes the writers experts on literary form, or at least, on the audiance they are aiming at.
Richard
Maybe. With reference to the ancient near eastern context of the literature I could argue it either way – and not just me; the amount of literature written that argues one side or the other is substantial. I go with a principle learned from a lecturer in text archaeology, which is concerned with items that have writing of some sort from pictograms on pottery to inscriptions on buildings to actual writing on tablets or whatever: if both sides can be argued well enough that neither side is clearly dominant, we need to dig farther (not a pun for an archaeologist) and obtain more information.
At the moment I lean heavily towards the view that by “the heavens and the earth” what the writer meant was the two inhabited realms, in which case Genesis 1:1 isn’t indicating creatio ex nihilo. The second verse doesn’t change this because we don’t know if the writer conceived of the “t’hom” (teh-HOME), “the deep”, as inhabited, though I could make a good argument that it wasn’t since the residents of the deep in all the ancient near east were destructive forces/entities of chaos and in Genesis we don’t get evil entities until chapter 3. If the deep is indeed viewed as uninhabited, verse 1:2 most likely stands against ex nihilo because the deep is then outside the two realms of “the heavens” and “the earth”.
This BTW is what to me makes archaeology fun: a new find can resolve some issue, can overturn a previous explanation, or radically change how something is understood (I thought about pursuing a grad degree in archaeology but decided I probably lack the patience to spend day after day slowly uncovering artifacts that most likely won’t change our understanding of anything).
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And Richard is correct in doing so: recognizing the genre of an account was essential for understanding what was being said. Sometimes genre was indicated by format, e.g. rhythmic chant clearly said, “This is poetry”, and use of “begat” tended to indicate genealogy. Other times the genre wasn’t revealed until the end, e.g. the opening Creation story as temple inauguration; that genre wasn’t established until YHWH-Elohim is reported to “rest”. For a New Testament example, the phrase “a certain man” in the opening of a bit of speech almost always indicated the speaker was using parable (this isn’t purely NT; the prophets use it as well [while also employing other forms]).
I think you are delving beyond the writer’s intent. IOW you are overthinking,
If we are going to be pedantic/scientific, you cannot create darkness. Darkness is basically th e absence of anthing, which amounts to nothing, or a void.
Seaparating light from dark is also scientifically dubious especially as we know that night is only when the earth is facing away from the sun. The moon is not always present at night, and can be seen often in the daylight so it cannot be “ruling”. You end up with the TNG “masks” episode where day and nght are personified.
IOW there is too much mythology invlved int eh first creation narrative to try and disect the meaning of “the deep”. The deep is simply a large body of water with no land in it. Probably bottomless. It amounts to the same as lhe dark being the abscence of light: the deep being the absence of land mass.
Basically, as soon as you try and rationalise the imagery into modern understanding you are leaving the intended meaning. The narrative stands as a complete poem that places God as creator of all, including those things other cultures had identified as separate beings.or even gods in their own right.
Richard
By delving into the terms used and their context, I am seeking to understand the writer’s intent! What was meant by particular terms a writer chose reveals meaning and thus intent.
Don’t go the YEC route and try to make Genesis talk science.
In the context when that was written, sure it could: when the moon is full, it dominates the night, and even when it is less than full it’s still the most obvious feature in the night sky. That it also spends time in the daylight sky is irrelevant.
No – the point being made is seen in that the sun and the moon aren’t even named. It’s the harshest slam against Egyptian deities in the whole polemic; not only are they set out as creations of YHWH-Elohim, they are described solely by their function – not gods at all, just tools.
In its ancient near eastern context, “the deep” is an enemy of order, the source and repository of chaos which threatens destruction. It’s the term used in Exodus of the two sides of the divided sea, supplying the imagery that God is preserving Israel against everything right down to the raw chaos of “the waters”.
There are a few instances where the deep might be just “a large body of water with no land in it”, but IIRC none of them start it that way but rather it gets that way because a god or gods calmed it (thus demonstrating their mastery over chaos). That calming theme can be found in the Psalms and then in the Gospels where Jesus calms the sea and commands it. And the chaos theme appears also in Revelation where beasts arise from the sea and ultimately God does away with it altogether.
Or boundless. Ancient Jewish theology/mythology held that “the deep” was initially all there was – we would say it filled the universe – and had no surface until God “divided the waters” into above and below.
But that’s exactly what you’re doing with your scientific comments and saying the deep was just a body of water!
That’s funny. A literal translation is the epitome of laziness and not grappling with the meaning of the text. The epistemic translation is applied to the literal translation and does not force anything on the ancient text as it remains unchanged. You do not need to be concerned. The strict literal translation will always have support from YEC and atheists alike. The descendants of those ancient Hebrew people have always grappled with the text of the Torah. It is a tradition found in the Mishnah and Talmud that continues to this day. For me, that Jewish tradition takes precedence over a rigid literary dogma.