How did God form the world?

Answer 1

Since the early centuries of the Common Era, tradition has held that Genesis 1:1 says "In the beginning God created heaven and earth." But as long ago as the eleventh century CE, the influential Jewish scholar, Rashi, said that Genesis 1:1 should be read, "When God began to create" or "In the beginning of God's creation ". E.A. Speiser (Genesis in the Anchor Bible series) goes further and translates the sentence as: "When God set about to create heaven and earth - the world being a formless waste, with darkness over the seas... God said, 'Let there be light.' And there was light." Although Rashi and Speiser may have believed that God created the earth itself, neither could find anything in the text that says so. Genesis 1:1 to 2:4a ( up to first sentence of 2:4) says there was a pre-existing watery chaos. The ocean was already present and a wind moved across the surface. The seas rested on the dry land, which appeared on day 3 when God gathered the waters together.

Both creation stories in Genesis tell us that God created living things, but that the earth was already there. In the first creation story (Genesis 1:1-2:4a), God simply spoke things into existence. In the second story (2:4b-25), God could not make living things out of nothing, but made Adam and then the animals out of moist earth, then made Eve out of Adam's rib.

For more information, please visit: http://christianity.answers.com/theology/the-story-of-creation

Answer 2

God created the universe, and this Earth, out of nothing at all (Exodus 20:11, Isaiah 40:28; Maimonides' "Guide," 2:30; Targum and Nachmanides on Gen. 1:1; Rashi commentary, Gen.1:14). There was no primordial matter, or even time or space. The exact details of how God formed the Earth are not given, though the Jewish tradition does supply a few partial descriptions (such as in the Talmud, Yoma 54b). It is considered wrong to delve too deeply into this matter (Talmud, Hagigah 11b).

See also:

http://religion.answers.com/controversy/is-there-evidence-against-evolution

http://judaism.answers.com/jewish-philosophy/can-you-prove-that-god-exists

http://religion.answers.com/theory/debunking-the-jepd-documentary-hypothesis

http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=6&article=1131(a Christian author)