This activity focuses on different ways of presenting quotations, evidence and examples. There is a short introduction to the nature of shari’a. The task is to select relevant quotes, references and examples from the list and rewrite the idea with those additions included. Beware that not all the quotes or examples are necessarily relevant or required. Click on show suggested response to see a possible answer. Compare with your own answer and consider whether you feel the differences are significant.
Choose quotes and examples from the panel on the right to add to your writing by clicking on them.
THE IDEA: The creation of the world
It is a basic and traditional Jewish belief that God is the creator of the universe. The Book of Genesis begins with the Hebrew word ‘Bereshit’, which has been understood as meaning ‘In the beginning’. According to Genesis 1:1 ‘In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth’ and the centrality of this belief is such that it has influenced the liturgy of the synagogue in many ways. A cosmogony is a theory about the origin of the universe, and Epstein indicates that the Bible’s cosmogony rests on two stories at the beginning of Genesis. The Torah opens with the first creation story in Genesis 1:1–2:4: The second story is found in Genesis 2:4–24 in which God forms humans from the dust of the earth. In later times, creation from nothing came to be called creation ‘ex nihilo’. Cohn-Sherbok informs us that much speculation about the nature of the creative process is to be found in rabbinic literature, with Genesis Rabbah providing numerous examples of debates and conjecture on the matter. Analysis of Genesis 1:1 appears to present the reader with two different ways of interpreting the act of creation. On the one hand, the text suggests an act that constitutes the first instant of time, and on the other, an act in which God shapes the world from a pre-existent and formless matter. This understanding of the verse thus proposes creation ‘de novo’ (creation from pre-existing matter). The world was already a formless void, lying in readiness for God to say something and to breathe life into it.
Creation ends the unity of the reality that existed before the cosmos. After creation, there is a non-God part of reality. (Epstein)
According to Midrash Konen (2:24), God drew three drops of water and three drops of fire from the celestial Torah, and from them made the world.
In Rashi’s words: ‘The Spirit of God was hovering on the face of the waters, and Scripture had not yet disclosed when the creation of the waters took place … consequently you must learn from this that the creation of the waters preceded that of the earth.'
Said R. Nehemiah: They were like those who gatherings, when each appears in its own time. R. Berekiah observed in confirmation of this view … and the earth brought forth implies something which is already stored in it. (Gen._R._12:4)
Rashi’s translation of Genesis 1:1 reads as: ‘In the beginning of God’s creation of the heavens and the earth, the earth was unformed and void, darkness was on the face of the deep, and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.’
‘In the beginning of God’s creation of the heavens and the earth, the earth was unformed and void, darkness was on the face of the deep, and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters. God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.’
For example: In the synagogue hymn that comes before the reading from the Psalms, God is depicted as the creator of everything: ‘Blessed be He who spoke, and the world existed; Blessed be He; Blessed be He who was the Master of the world in the beginning.’
For example, the idea of the world as a pattern in the mind of God is expressed in relation to the belief that God looked into the Torah and created the world. Here the Torah is conceived of as a type of architectural blueprint for the creation of the world.
And a further proof that the heavens and the earth were not the first thing created is that the heavens were created from fire and water, from which it follows that fire and water were in existence before the heavens.
Epstein notes that there are pre-existing elements in the world; God didn’t create the cosmos out of nothing but from the chaos of earth and water.
It is a basic and traditional Jewish belief that God is the creator of the universe. The Book of Genesis begins with the Hebrew word ‘Bereshit’, which has been understood as meaning ‘In the beginning’. ‘Creation ends the unity of the reality that existed before the cosmos. After creation, there is a non-God part of reality. (Epstein) According to Genesis 1:1 ‘In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth’ and the centrality of this belief is such that it has influenced the liturgy of the synagogue in many ways. For example: In the synagogue hymn that comes before the reading from the Psalms, God is depicted as the creator of everything: ‘Blessed be He who spoke, and the world existed; Blessed be He; Blessed be He who was the Master of the world in the beginning.’
A cosmogony is a theory about the origin of the universe, and Epstein indicates that the Bible’s cosmogony rests on two stories at the beginning of Genesis. The Torah opens with the first creation story in Genesis 1:1–2:4: ‘In the beginning of God’s creation of the heavens and the earth, the earth was unformed and void, darkness was on the face of the deep, and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters. God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.’ The second story is found in Genesis 2:4–24 in which God forms humans from the dust of the earth. Epstein notes that there are pre-existing elements in the world; God didn’t create the cosmos out of nothing but from the chaos of earth and water. ‘Said R. Nehemiah: They were like those who gatherings, when each appears in its own time. R. Berekiah observed in confirmation of this view … and the earth brought forth implies something which is already stored in it.’ (Gen._R._12:4) In later times, creation from nothing came to be called creation ‘ex nihilo’.
Cohn-Sherbok informs us that much speculation about the nature of the creative process is to be found in rabbinic literature, with Genesis Rabbah providing numerous examples of debates and conjecture on the matter. For example, the idea of the world as a pattern in the mind of God is expressed in relation to the belief that God looked into the Torah and created the world. Here the Torah is conceived of as a type of architectural blueprint for the creation of the world. According to Midrash Konen (2:24), God drew three drops of water and three drops of fire from the celestial Torah, and from them made the world.
Analysis of Genesis 1:1 appears to present the reader with two different ways of interpreting the act of creation. On the one hand, the text suggests an act that constitutes the first instant of time, and on the other, an act in which God shapes the world from a pre-existent and formless matter. Rashi’s translation of Genesis 1:1 reads as: ‘In the beginning of God’s creation of the heavens and the earth, the earth was unformed and void, darkness was on the face of the deep, and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.’
This understanding of the verse thus proposes creation ‘de novo’ (creation from pre-existing matter). The world was already a formless void, lying in readiness for God to say something and to breathe life into it. In Rashi’s words: ‘The Spirit of God was hovering on the face of the waters, and Scripture had not yet disclosed when the creation of the waters took place … consequently you must learn from this that the creation of the waters preceded that of the earth. And a further proof that the heavens and the earth were not the first thing created is that the heavens were created from fire and water, from which it follows that fire and water were in existence before the heavens.’’