A reconsideration of the doctrine of creation from nothing, arguing that it emerges from the early Christian reading of Genesis 1 within the two-testament literary-canonical context of Scripture.
CHAPTER 1:
INTRODUCTION: RECONSIDERING GENESIS 1 AND CREATION EX NIHILO
1. The Questions
2. A Brief Overview
3. A Note on Sources
CHAPTER 2:
INTERPRETIVE CATEGORIES AND THE ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN CONTEXT
1. Introduction
1.1 Comparative Studies and Creation Ex Nihilo
1.2 Methodological Issues in Comparative Studies
1.3 Comparative Reading of Genesis 1
1.4 ‘Myth’
2. Canaanite Material
2.1 Summary
2.2 Key Text?
3. Egyptian Material
3.1 Summary
3.2 Key Text: The Memphite Theology
4. Mesopotamian Material
4.1 Summary
4.2 Key Text: Enuma Elish
5. Questions
5.1 Is Genesis 1 a ‘recension’ of Enuma elish of any other ANE Text?
5.2 What preceded creation in ANE creation accounts?
5.3 How was creation understood in the ANE?
5.4 Is the act of creation limited or conditioned by the ‘material’?
5.5 How was the world pictured in the ANE?
6. Conclusion: ANE and Post-Biblical Categories
CHAPTER 3:
‘LOVE SOUGHT IS GOOD, BUT GIVEN UNSOUGHT IS BETTER’
1. Introduction
1.1 A Sketch
1.2 What Does a Doctrine Do?
1.3 A Terminological Clarification: Creatio Ex Nihilo
1.4 A Threefold Organization
2. God Creates from Nothing
2.1 Trinity and Creation
2.2 Transcendence and Presence
2.3 The Act of Creation
3. The World is Created from Nothing
3.1 Contingence
3.2 Dependence
3.3 Goodness
3.4 Conclusion
Excursus: Does Creation Ex Nihilo Involve Historical Truth Claims
4. Living as Creatures Created from Nothing
4.1 Dual Agency
4.2 The Self-Involving Force of Creation Ex Nihilo
4.3 The Problem of Sin and Evil
5. Conclusion: On the Possible Failure of Creation Ex Nihilo
CHAPTER 4:
BIBLICAL PRESSURE AND EX NIHILO HERMENEUTICS
1. Introduction: The Sudden Emergence of Creation Ex Nihilo
2. The Emergence of Creation Ex Nihilo in Early Christian Thought
2.1 Background in Jewish, Christian, and Hellenistic
2.1.1 Early Jewish Sources
2.1.2 Early Christian Sources
2.1.3 Hellenistic Philosophy
2.2 Second Century Attempts to Formulate a Doctrine of Creation
2.2.1 Gnostic Approaches to the Doctrine of Creation
2.2.2 The Emergence of the Church Doctrine of Creation Ex Nihilo
2.3 Evaluation of May’s Argument
3. Biblical Pressure
3.1 Exegesis
3.1.1 Luke 18:27
3.1.2 Romans 4:17
3.2 Implications
3.3 Restating the Question
CHAPTER 5:
THE DEBATED SYNTAX OF GENESIS 1:1-3
1. Introduction
2. ‘When God Set About to Create…’
2.1 Speiser’s Argument
2.1.1 Grammatical Analysis
2.1.2 The Argument from Parallels
2.1.3 Argument from the Logic of Genesis 1
2.2. Testing Speiser’s Proposal
2.2.1 Scrutinizing the Grammatical Analysis
2.2.2 Reexamining the Purported Parallels
2.2.3 Discovering the Logic of Genesis 1
2.2.4 Conclusion
3. ‘In the Beginning When God Created…’
3.1 Holmstedt’s Argument
3.1.1 Possible Options
3.1.2 The ‘Construct-Relative’ Option
3.2 Testing Holmstedt’s Proposal
3.2.1 Homstedt’s Assumptions
3.2.2 Holmstedt’s Evidence
3.2.3 Larger Issues, Mostly Conceptual
3.3 Conclusion
4. ‘In the Beginning, God Created the Heavens and the Earth’
4.1 The Use of the Definite Article with r’šyt
4.2 The Absolute Use of r’šyt
4.3 The Use of the Qatal Form at the Beginning of Narrative Units
4.4 A Structural Argument for Reading Genesis 1:1 as an Independent Clause
4.5 Conclusion
5. Support from the Versions
5.1 Masoretic Text
5.2 Targums
5.3 Septuagint
5.4 Hexapla
5.5 Syriac Versions
5.6 Conclusion and Prospectus
6. Conclusion
Table 1
Table 2
Table 3
CHAPTER 6:
THE NARRATIVE FUNCTION OF GENESIS 1:1
1. Jon Levenson and the Persistence of Evil
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Levenson’s Motivations in Writing
1.3 Rejecting Creation Ex Nihilo
1.4 Creation as Mastery
1.5 Levenson’s Reading of Genesis 1
1.6 The Relationship between Genesis 1 and Other Creation Texts
1.7 An Existential Construal of the Doctrine of Creation
1.8 Levenson’s Argument in a Different Key
2. An Evaluation of Jon Levenson’s Theology of Creation
2.1 The Need for Clarification
2.1.1 Clarifying Terms
2.1.2 Clarifying Texts
2.1.3 Explicating Enuma elish
2.2 A Difficult Picture of God
2.2.1 What Kind of Lord is God?
2.2.2 Does God Become Actualized in Creation?
2.2.3 Is it Problematic if Violence is Intrinsic to Creation?
2.3 The Ethics of Reading Genesis 1
2.4 Could Genesis 1:2 Describe Morally Neutral Given Material
2.5 Conclusion
3. Genesis 1:1 as Heading to the Narrative
3.1 An Exposition of Gunkel’s Interpretation of Genesis 1:1-2
3.2 An Evaluation of Gunkel’s Interpretation of Genesis 1:1-2
3.3 Reformulating Gunkel’s Interpretation within a Canonical Approach
4. Genesis 1:1 as the First Act of Creation
4.1 Two Senses of šmym
4.2 Bipartite and Tripartite Cosmological Formulae
4.3 Genesis 1:1 as the First Step in Creation
5. Further Questions
5.1 How Should We Picture the Cosmology of Genesis 1?
5.2 How Should We Conceive of God’s Transcendence and Presence in Genesis 1?
5.3 Why Does God Initially Create the Earth in an Uninhabitable State?
5.4 Conclusion
CHAPTER 7: IN CONCLUSION: A WAY FORWARD
1. Introduction
2. Creation Ex Nihilo as a Framework for Reading Genesis 1
3. John 1 and the Canonical Context of Genesis 1
4. Conclusion
BIBLIOGRAPHY
