Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

NPL wrote:
>       [Niels Peter Lemche]  Well, Genesis 1 OK  [Niels Peter Lemche]  but
> not a creation from nothing, that's Christian dictrine, not the content of
> the Hebrew chapter one. The primary thing God creates is light, otherwise
> creation of the basic elements is done by separating, havdil, light  [Niels
> Peter Lemche]  from darkness, the dry land from the ocean, the upper ocean
> from the lower ocean.

After 1:1, sure this is the case.  However, Genesis 1 begins with a 
bare statement that God created x and y.  The havdil statements 
come after this initial creation, which is most logically assumed to 
be ex nihilo since there's nothing mentioned or even implied out of 
which these things are created.  It seems to me that Ken's 
contrast between the Akkadian stories wherein the world is created 
from divine seed etc. and the Genesis account wherein no pre-
existing substance is mentioned, stands.


Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth;
give me an undivided heart that I may fear your name.
                                   Psalm 86:11