Creation

Creation in the UPDV is the opening framework of the canon and a recurring claim that the prophets, the wisdom literature, and the New Testament all return to. The Genesis account narrates how it happened; later texts press the same point — that Yahweh, the maker of the heavens and the earth, is the ground for trust, worship, and ethical obligation.

Beginning

The first sentence states the act: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen 1:1). The next verse describes the unformed material: "And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters" (Gen 1:2).

The six days

The narrative proceeds through a sequence of speech-acts, each producing a structured division. Light and darkness are separated and named on day one: "And [the Speech of] God said, Let there be light: and there was light" (Gen 1:3); "And [the Speech of] God divided the light from the darkness. And [the Speech of] God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night" (Gen 1:4-5).

Day two divides the waters above from the waters below by a firmament: "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters... And [the Speech of] God called the firmament Heaven" (Gen 1:6, 8). Day three gathers the lower waters into seas and exposes the dry land — "And [the Speech of] God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters he called Seas" (Gen 1:10) — and then populates the land with vegetation: "Let the earth put forth grass, herbs yielding seed, [and] fruit-trees bearing fruit after their kind" (Gen 1:11).

Day four installs the lights in the firmament: "Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years" (Gen 1:14); "the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night and the stars" (Gen 1:16). Day five fills sea and air: "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living souls, and let birds fly above the earth" (Gen 1:20); "And [the Speech of] God created the great sea-monsters, and every living soul that moves" (Gen 1:21). Day six fills the land: "Let the earth bring forth living souls after their kind, cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after their kind" (Gen 1:24).

The making of humanity

The sixth day climaxes with the creation of humanity in the divine image and the granting of dominion: "And [the Speech of] God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth" (Gen 1:26). The creation is then carried out in a paired form: "And [the Speech of] God created the man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them" (Gen 1:27). Both are blessed, charged to fill and subdue the earth, and given vegetation for food (Gen 1:28-29). The day closes with a divine verdict on the whole project: "And God saw everything that he had made, and, look, it was very good" (Gen 1:31).

The second account zooms in on the man and his garden. After the heavens and earth are "finished, and all the host of them" (Gen 2:1), the focus narrows: "And Yahweh God formed the man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living soul" (Gen 2:7). The man is placed in Eden — "And [the Speech of] Yahweh God planted a garden eastward, in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed" (Gen 2:8) — and given a commission: "to dress it and to keep it" (Gen 2:15). The forming of the woman from the man's side completes the human pair: "and the rib, which Yahweh God had taken from the man, he made a woman, and brought her to the man" (Gen 2:22). Their relation is described as one of original mutuality and unashamed nakedness: "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she will be called a woman, because she was taken out of a man" (Gen 2:23); "And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed" (Gen 2:25).

The pairing also founds marriage: "Therefore will a man leave his father and his mother, and will stick to his wife: and they will be one flesh" (Gen 2:24).

The seventh day

The making concludes with rest and consecration: "And on the seventh day [the Speech of] God finished his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And [the Speech of] God blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it" (Gen 2:2-3). The Decalogue grounds Sabbath observance in this same six-and-one rhythm: "for in six days [the Speech of] Yahweh made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day: therefore Yahweh blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it" (Ex 20:11).

Creation by speech

The account presents creation as effected by speech — God says, and it is. Hebrews glosses the same observation: "By faith we understand that the ages have been prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen has not been made out of things which appear" (Heb 11:3). The Psalter gives the formulation directly: "By the word of Yahweh were the heavens made, And all the host of them by the breath of his mouth" (Ps 33:6). Sirach restates it: "He who lives for ever created all things together" (Sir 18:1); and: "Yahweh has made everything, And to the godly he has given wisdom" (Sir 43:33).

The breath and Spirit of God

The Spirit's part in the making appears at the start — "the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters" (Gen 1:2) — and recurs in the Psalter and Job. The Psalm of providence ties continued life to the Spirit: "You send forth your Spirit, they are created; And you renew the face of the ground" (Ps 104:30). Job names both the Spirit and the breath: "The Spirit of God has made me, And the breath of the Almighty gives me life" (Job 33:4); and again: "By his Spirit the heavens are garnished; His hand has pierced the swift serpent" (Job 26:13).

Creator of the natural universe

The poetic and prophetic books press the universal scope of the act. Nehemiah's prayer rehearses the entirety: "You are Yahweh, even you alone; you have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all things that are on it, the seas and all that is in them, and you preserve them all" (Neh 9:6). Job describes the cosmography: "He stretches out the north over empty space, And hangs the earth on nothing" (Job 26:7), and asks, "Who doesn't know in all these, That the hand of Yahweh has wrought this" (Job 12:9).

The Psalter celebrates Yahweh's claim on the sea and the dry land: "For he has founded it on the seas, And established it on the floods" (Ps 24:2); "The sea is his, and he made it; And his hands formed the dry land" (Ps 95:5); "Of old did you lay the foundation of the earth; And the heavens are the work of your hands" (Ps 102:25); "Who laid the foundations of the earth, That it should not be moved forever" (Ps 104:5).

Isaiah turns the doctrine into the basis for trust under empire: "Haven't you known? Haven't you heard? The everlasting God, Yahweh, the Creator of the ends of the earth, does not faint, neither is weary; there is no searching of his understanding" (Isa 40:28). And again, in first-person divine speech: "I [by my Speech] have made the earth, and created man on it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens; and all their host I have commanded" (Isa 45:12); "Yes, [my Speech] has laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand has spread out the heavens" (Isa 48:13). The exiles' fear is rebuked from the same point: "you have forgotten Yahweh your Maker, who stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth" (Isa 51:13).

Creator of humanity

The making of humanity becomes its own line in the canon. Deuteronomy presses the singularity of the event: "Ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and from the one end of heaven to the other, whether there has been [any such thing] as this great thing is, or has been heard like it?" (Deu 4:32). Genesis 5 restates the pattern of Genesis 1: "male and female he created them, and blessed them, and called their name Man, in the day when they were created" (Gen 5:2).

The dignity of the made human is named in the Psalter: "For you have made him but a little lower than God, And crown him with glory and majesty" (Ps 8:5); and again: "Know⁺ that Yahweh, he is God: It is he who has made us, and we are his; We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture" (Ps 100:3). Sirach formulates the same dignity: "As was fitting for them, he clothed them with strength; And in his image he made them" (Sir 17:3); and the human's earthward end: "God created man out of the earth, And returned him into it again" (Sir 17:1).

The doctrine grounds an ethical claim. Malachi argues against treachery within the covenant community by appeal to common origin: "Don't we all have one father? Has not one God created us? Why do we betray every man against his brother, profaning the covenant of our fathers?" (Mal 2:10). Sirach grounds filial duty in the same place: "For he who despises his father acts proudly, And he who curses his mother provokes his Creator" (Sir 3:16).

The order set in the works

Sirach gathers the providence side: "When God created his works from the beginning, Concerning their life he assigned them portions. He set in order his works forever, And their rule from generation to generation. They do not hunger, neither are they weak, And they do not cease from their works" (Sir 16:26-27); "With every living soul he covered the face of it; And into it is their return" (Sir 16:30); and on the rainbow: "Behold the rainbow, and bless the Maker of it; It is exceedingly majestic in its glory" (Sir 43:11). Wisdom herself is figured as an early-created participant: "He created me from the beginning, before the world; And I will never fail" (Sir 24:9); "Then the Creator of all things gave me a commandment, And he who created me fixed my dwelling place" (Sir 24:8). And the doxological response: "For all these things bless your Maker, Who satisfies you with his goodness" (Sir 32:13); "For great is Yahweh who made it, And his word causes his mighty one to shine" (Sir 43:5).

Creator and the diognetian frame

The Epistle to Diognetus presses the same point against idolatry. The maker stands in radical contrast to the things made: "For he who made the heaven and the earth and all things in them, and supplies us all with whatever we need, himself needs none of those things — the very things he supplies to the ones who think they are giving to him" (Gr 3:4). The classification of "things created by God for the use of men" is appealed to in the same letter (Gr 4:2). The Creator's own act is described in expansive terms: "But he himself — truly the Almighty, the Creator of all, and the invisible God — he himself from heaven implanted among men and firmly fixed in their hearts the truth and the holy and incomprehensible word... by whom he created the heavens, by whom he shut the sea within its own bounds, whose mysteries all the elements faithfully keep, from whom the sun has received the measures of its daily course to keep, whom the moon obeys when he bids her shine by night, whom the stars obey, following the moon in her course; by whom all things have been ordered and circumscribed and made subject" (Gr 7:2). The same letter turns the doctrine on the question of speaking creatures: "But, indeed, if any one of these words were acceptable, each one of the other creatures might likewise announce itself as God" (Gr 8:3); and on the disposition of the maker toward what he has made: "For God, the Master and builder of all things, he who made all things and set them in order, was not only loving toward man, but also long-suffering" (Gr 8:7); "For God loved men, for whom he made the world, to whom he subjected all things in the earth, to whom he gave reason, to whom mind, whom alone he permitted to look upward to himself, whom he formed in his own image" (Gr 10:2).