In relation to the first verse of the Bible which says God made Heaven and earth and which many translate create, “It is not clear, from a purely linguistic point of view, that the Hebrew verb necessarily means to create out of nothing” page 11, Creation & Science, Has Science eliminated God? William E Carroll, CTS Explanations, London, 2011.
The Bible never speaks of God making anything out of nothing. Creating is making something out of nothing. Making means making something out of something. The creation from nothing doctrine comes from Greek philosophy. The Bible says that God made all things in six stages or days and rested on the seventh. If God is resting from creating that means he is not creating now. He is resting and he is not holding creation in existence. Modern Christianity says that God creates the universe anew all the time. Creation is an ongoing sustenance - it is continually empowering things to stay in existence. If he stopped creating the universe now it would go back into nothing. Clearly this God is not the God of the Bible who doesn't need to hold creation in existence. The Bible by implication rejects God as the answer to "Why is there something rather than nothing?"
Many biblical scholars argue that the 66 books of the Bible do not clearly or explicitly affirm creation ex nihilo (creation “out of nothing”) — at least not in the way later theology defined it:
1. Genesis 1:1–2 does not unambiguously describe creation from nothing
The Hebrew phrase “bereshit bara Elohim et hashamayim ve’et ha’aretz” can be read as “When God began to create…” rather than “In the beginning, God created…” — implying preexistent chaos or material (“the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the deep”).
The “deep” (tehom) and “waters” already exist when God begins ordering creation, suggesting preexistent matter rather than absolute nothingness.
2. Ancient Near Eastern context implies ordering, not absolute origination
The biblical creation account shares motifs with older Mesopotamian and Canaanite texts, where gods impose order on chaotic primordial waters.
The focus in Genesis and other texts is often functional (giving shape, purpose, and order), not material (bringing things into being from nothing).
3. Other biblical creation passages assume preexisting materials
Genesis 2:7 – God forms man from the dust of the ground, implying existing material.
Psalm 104:5–9 – Describes God setting boundaries for waters, not bringing them into existence.
Job 38 – God’s speech assumes the presence of earth, sea, and cloud materials He organizes.
Proverbs 8:22–31 – Wisdom speaks of being present when God arranged creation, not of creation from nothing.
4. The Hebrew verb bara (create) does not mean “create from nothing”
Bara often means to shape, fashion, or appoint rather than to bring into existence out of nothing (cf. Isaiah 65:18, Psalm 51:10).
The text focuses on God’s sovereignty and power, not on the metaphysical question of matter’s origin.
5. Early Jewish writings reflect creation from chaos, not nothingness
2 Enoch, Jubilees, and Wisdom of Solomon describe God creating by organizing or commanding preexistent substances.
Only later Jewish and Christian writings (2 Maccabees 7:28; early Church Fathers) begin explicitly teaching ex nihilo creation.
6. The New Testament also does not state ex nihilo clearly
John 1:3 – “All things came into being through Him” can mean God is the source of all order and life, but does not specify the absence of prior matter.
Hebrews 11:3 – “What is seen was not made out of things that are visible” could mean unseen materials or divine command, not necessarily “nothing.”
The NT emphasizes divine agency and purpose, not the mechanism of material origination.
7. The doctrine of creation ex nihilo develops later
The concept became prominent in 2nd-century Christian apologetics (e.g., Theophilus of Antioch, c. 180 CE) to contrast Christian belief with Greek eternal-matter cosmologies.
Thus, ex nihilo is a later theological inference, not an explicit biblical assertion.
THE APOCRYPHA
The Apocrypha do not clearly teach creation ex nihilo, but one late passage — 2 Maccabees 7:28 — comes closest to expressing that idea but even then it only reports what a person said. It does not comment on if it agrees with her. She also did had no authority to say it. Earlier and other texts in the Apocrypha still reflect the older biblical idea of creation from preexistent matter (chaos, water, or unformed substance) through divine ordering.
1. Wisdom of Solomon (1st century BCE)
Wisdom 11:17: “For your all-powerful hand, which created the world out of formless matter (ex amorphou hylēs).”
This is an explicit statement that God created the world from preexisting, unformed matter — not from nothing.
The Greek phrase amorphos hylē (“formless matter”) comes directly from Greek philosophical vocabulary, indicating influence from Platonic cosmology.
→ Affirms creation from preexistent matter, not ex nihilo.
2. 2 Maccabees 7:28
Mother to her son: “I beg you, my child, to look at the heaven and the earth and see everything that is in them, and recognize that God did not make them out of things that existed (ouk ex ontōn epoiesen auta ho Theos).”
This is the clearest ancient Jewish statement of creation ex nihilo.
However, even here scholars debate the Greek phrase ouk ex ontōn — it can mean “not from existing things” (implying ex nihilo) or simply “not from visible things.”
Nevertheless, by context, most interpreters see this as an early expression of the ex nihilo idea.
→ Affirms (arguably first explicit affirmation) of creation ex nihilo.
3. Sirach / Ecclesiasticus (early 2nd century BCE)
Sirach 18:1: “He who lives forever created all things together; the Lord alone will be declared righteous.”
The verse emphasizes God’s sovereignty and total authorship, but not the mechanism.
No indication of creation from nothing — rather, a hymn of praise for divine order and wisdom.
→ Affirms divine creation, but not explicitly ex nihilo.
4. Baruch (late 2nd century BCE)
Baruch 3:32–35: God “found out all the way of knowledge and gave it to Jacob.”
Baruch reflects Wisdom-tradition language about God’s ordering creation through wisdom.
No language of nothingness or material origin — creation is through wisdom and command.
→ Affirms creation as divine ordering, not ex nihilo.
5. Additions to Esther, Tobit, Judith, 1 Esdras
These books contain prayers and reflections on God’s power as Creator, but none discuss how creation occurred (no mention of “nothing” or “formless matter”).
→ Theological creation theme only, no cosmological detail.
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