the raw material came from, the answer would certainly be “from God, of course.” But that is not the story’s preoccupation. It is more interested in the miraculous transformation from empty waste to formed cosmos. When this creation drama was read in the exile, this would be really good news to the people in the audience. Their own life had turned into empty waste. It was enveloped in darkness. They had fallen over the edge of the abyss. The light had gone out in their lives as a community. The events