TRADITION VS SCHOLARSHIP
The answer
Disagree, though scholars differ. The New Oxford Annotated Bible, a study Bible, says the first verse more likely opens with "when": "When God began to create" (Genesis 1:1-2). In that reading, darkness, the deep and the waters are already there. This, it says, does not describe creation out of nothing. For that idea it points to 2 Maccabees 7:28: God "did not make them out of things that existed."
Why it’s interesting
Michael Coogan and Cynthia Chapman, two Bible scholars, call creation out of nothing "a later theological notion." They also say the familiar wording, "In the beginning God created," was shaped by John 1:1: "In the beginning was the Word."
Genuinely debated
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