Who has a creation story about God creating the universe out of nothing?

Answer 1

The Israelites, and others who accept the narrative in Genesis (Christians and Muslims). Although the Torah, in the Creation as in other topics deliberately employs brevity and ellipsis (see the Talmud, Hagigah 11b), Jewish tradition is that God created the universe out of nothing (Exodus 20:11, Isaiah 40:28; Maimonides' "Guide," 2:30; Nachmanides on Gen. 1:1). This is one of the meanings of Genesis 1:1 (Targum, Gen.1:1; and Rashi commentary, Gen.1:14), though the verse has further meaning as well (Rashi, Gen.1:1).

Note:

According to tradition, there is only one Genesis creation-narrative, with ch.2 serving as an expansion of the brevity of ch.1, not a separate set of events (Rashi commentary, Gen.2:8).The same literary devices which the Torah employs to enrich its text, have been seized upon by "Bible-critics" in their ongoing attempts to undermine it. The Jewish sages, based on ancient tradition, identified many of these devices, which include:

recapping earlier brief passages to elucidate,

employing different names of God to signify His various attributes,

using apparent changes or redundancies to allude to additional unstated details,

speaking in the vernacular that was current during each era,

and many more. While Judaism has always seen the Torah as an intricate tapestry that nonetheless had one Divine source, some modern authors such as Wellhausen (the father of modern Biblical-criticism, 1844-1918) have suggested artificially chopping up the narrative and attributing it to various authors, despite the Torah's explicit statement as to its provenance (Exodus 24:12, Deuteronomy 31:24). This need not concern believers, since his claims have been debunked one by one, as Archaeology and other disciplines have demonstrated the integrity of the Torah. No fragments have ever been found that would support his Documentary Hypothesis, which remains nothing more than an arbitrary claim, whose falsehood has been pointed out:

Refuting the JEPD Documentary Hypothesis

The creation-narrative in Genesis (a Christian author)

The authorship of the Hebrew Bible

Answer 2

According to Hebrew scholars, neither creation story in the Old Testament Book of Genesis really says that God created the earth out of nothing, as in both cases it was pre-existing, although the first creation account says he did simply speak the stars, sun and moon into existence. Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy (Jesus and the Goddess) describe how some of the early Christian Gnostics believed the universe to have been created out of nothing, although strictly speaking not by God himself. Some of the Greek philosophers thought that the universe was created out of nothing by Consciousness.

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

Answer 3

Whether the Torah states it explicitly or not, Jewish tradition is that God created the universe from nothing.