The later emergence in Judaism of the interpretation of creation as a creation out of nothing rather than merely the bestowal of order on a prior state of chaos is a consistent development of this theology. It suggests that: ‘Wherever and whatever God creates is without any preconditions. There is no external necessity which occasions his creativity, and no inner compulsion which could determine it. Nor is there any primordial matter whose potentiality is pre-given to his creative activity, and which