Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Edgar Foster <questioning1 AT yahoo.com>]

---Ian Hutchesson  wrote:

>To help get at the meaning of Gen1:1-2, here is what later second
temple Jewish thinkers understood from creation as found in Wisdom of
Solomon 11:17a:

>For your all-powerful hand,
>which created the world out of
>formless matter,

While this verse may represent one viewpoint, the apocryphal account
found in 2 Maccabees 7:28 plainly delineates a creation out of nothing:

"I beg you, child, to look at the heavens and the earth and see all
that is in them; then you will know that God did not make them out of
existing things; and in the same way the human race came into
existence."

While the aforementioned writer rightly eschews any thought of dualism
in relation to God's creative activities, he seems to go too far in
positing a creation out of nothing vis-a-vis humanity. Nevertheless,
this passage clearly and explicitly says that God made the heavens and
earth _ex nihilo_. This observation is in harmony with a similar
proclamation found in the Christian document _The Shepherd of Hermas_.
If God's absolute transcendence is to be maintained, it would seem
that He could not have created the world from preexisting "formless
matter" (ala Plato). Nevertheless, there are also problems with
putting forth a view that asserts God created the cosmos _ex nihilo_.

For one thing, Genesis does not explicitly teach a doctrine of
_creatio ex nihilo_. There are maybe implications of this teaching at
best. Gordon J. Wenham writes that BaRa "is not a term exclusively
reserved for creation out of nothing" (Cf. Isa. 43:15). Wenham also
invokes the words of W.H. Schmidt who rejects the notion that BaRa
denotes creatio ex nihilo. To the contrary, Schmidt says that BaRa
prserves the idea of "God's effortless, totally free and unbound
creating, his sovereignty. It is never mentioned what God created out
of" (Qtd. in Wenham 1:15). Wenham concludes that the author's meaning
is uncertain at best in Gen. 1:1.

As alluded to by Ian, I think that the operative term in this account
is DaVaR. It seems that this term helps us to decide whether or not
creation out of nothing is a valid way of viewing the Gen. 1 account.
Later Christian thinkers interpreted the Gen. 1 story as the Divine
creation out of an absolute vacuum (Cf. Athanasius). I cannot concur
with that idea based on Gen. 1 or the OT in its entirety. While Gen.
1:1 seems to totally reject any notions of dualism, it also militates
against any notion that God created all things _ex nihilo_.

One way to get past the seemingly insurmountable problems of dualism,
pantheism, or ex nihilo is to consider the observations of past
thinkers. According to Philo of Alexandria, before God brought forth
anything in the cosmos, Ideas of the cosmos were present in the Divine
"mind." Augustine also theorized that the Platonic Forms resided in
the Divine mind prior to God's creation of the KOSMOS. The consequence
of this view is that just as a human artist's thoughts precede his
literal creation, God's thoughts also preceded His creation.
Furthermore, God created all things through His Word. IMHO, this means
more than God just speaking things into existence. It appears to
denote the fact that God brought forth all things (TA PANTA) through
His dynamic, ever-flowing ENERGEIA. That is, God produced TA PANTA via
His active Sacred Spirit (Gen. 1:2). 

Therefore, my conclusion is that Gen. 1:1 neither affirms a strict
creation out of "nothing" nor a creation out of formless matter. The
world is a result of God's Omnipotent resources: it results from the
formation of Ideas in the Divine intellect which the Divine will
selects and consequently brings to fruition (D. Scotus).

Edgar Foster
Classics Major
Lenoir-Rhyne College
Hickroy, NC
   



_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com