Tohu wa-bohu

Tohu wa-bohu (Biblical Hebrew: תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ ṯōhū wā-ḇōhū) is a Biblical Hebrew phrase found in the Genesis creation narrative (Genesis 1:2) that describes the condition of the earth (ארץ) immediately before the creation of light in Genesis 1:3. Numerous interpretations of this phrase are made by various theological sources. The King James Version translation of the phrase is "without form, and void", corresponding to Septuagint ἀόρατος καὶ ἀκατασκεύαστος, "unseen and unformed". וְהָאָ֗רֶץ הָיְתָ֥ה תֹ֙הוּ֙ וָבֹ֔הוּ וְחֹ֖שֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵ֣י תְהֹ֑ום וְר֣וּחַ אֱלֹהִ֔ים מְרַחֶ֖פֶת עַל־פְּנֵ֥י הַמָּֽיִם Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters. The words tohu and bohu also occur in parallel in , which the King James Version translates with the words "confusion" and "emptiness". The two Hebrew words are properly segolates, spelled tohuw and bohuw. Hebrew tohuw translates to "wasteness, that which is laid waste, desert; emptiness, vanity; nothing". Tohuw is frequently used in the Book of Isaiah in the sense of "vanity", but bohuw occurs nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible (outside of Genesis 1:2, the passage in Isaiah 34:11 mentioned above, and in Jeremiah 4:23, which is a reference to Genesis 1:2), its use alongside tohu being mere paronomasia, and is given the equivalent translation of "emptiness, voidness". In the early rabbinical period, the verse was a point of contention regarding the question of creatio ex nihilo. In Genesis Rabbah 1:14, Rabbi Akiva refutes gnostic and other heretical views that matter existed primordially and that God alone did not create the world. In Genesis Rabbah 2:2, rabbis Abbahu and Judah b. Simon give analogies in which tohu wa-bohu means "bewildered and astonished" (mentally formless and void), referring to the Earth's confusion after, having been created simultaneously with the Heavens in Genesis 1:1, it now immediately plays an inferior role. Abraham bar Hiyya (12th century) was the first to interpret the tohu and bohu of Gen.