J.R. Ritman Library - Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica

There are two creation stories in Genesis which did not originate at the same time and which differ significantly on a number of points. Genesis begins with the story in which God creates the earth in six days, after which the second, much shorter and presumably older story follows. In this story, the earth is not yet covered with plants and trees for 'Jehova God had not sent rain on the earth'. The creation of man, too, is described again and as with the plants, the second description is much more concrete: Adam is made of dust and he becomes a living soul because God 'blew into his nostrils the breath of life'.

The creation story continues with man being placed in Paradise, the creation of Eve and finally the Fall. In the Judaeo-Christian creation legend man's disobedience has consequences for all of mankind. It disrupts the harmony existing between God and man.
The 'condition' of the earth prior to the creation is not clearly defined at the beginning of Genesis: 'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters'. It does not provide an explicit indication that God created the heavens and the earth out of 'nothing'. The earth is described as 'a formless void' and order is brought to a primal chaos, including the primeval darkness. The idea of 'creatio ex nihilo' familiar in the West was a philosophical statement expressing the Christian view of creation which was developed in the second century CE. It evolved through the acceptance and rejection of elements of other religious and philosophical ideas, especially in confrontation with Gnosticism, Marcionism, and Platonism. A first indication that the world was created out of nothing can be found in the apocryphal 2 Maccabees, which was used by the Church Fathers to corroborate the idea of a 'creatio ex nihilo'. Amongst the adherents of this idea were Irenaeus, Tertullian and Augustine, who came to the conclusion that this was the foundation for the belief that there was one God and also that he was the sole creator: the Pantokrator.