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''Ex nihilo'' is a Latin phrase meaning "out of nothing". It often appears in conjunction with the concept of creation, as in ''creatio ex nihilo'', meaning "creation out of nothing"—chiefly in philosophical or theological contexts, but also occurs in other fields. In theology, the common phrase ''creatio ex nihilo'' ("creation out of nothing"), contrasts with ''creatio ex materia'' (creation out of some pre-existent, eternal matter) and with ''creatio ex deo'' (creation out of the being of God). The phrase ''ex nihilo'' also appears in the classical philosophical formulation ''ex nihilo nihil fit'', which means "Out of nothing comes nothing". ''Ex nihilo'' when used outside of religious or metaphysical contexts, also refers to something coming from nothing. For example, in a conversation, one might raise a topic ''"ex nihilo"'' if it bears no relation to the previous topic of discussion. ==History of ''creatio ex nihilo''== Ancient Near Eastern mythologies and classical creation myths in Greek mythology envisioned the creation of the world as resulting from the actions of a god or gods upon already-existing primeval matter, known as ''chaos''. An early conflation of Greek philosophy with the narratives in the Hebrew Bible came from Philo of Alexandria (d. AD 50), writing in the context of Hellenistic Judaism. Philo equated the Hebrew creator-deity Yahweh with Aristotle's ''primum movens'' (First Cause)〔 Plato Laws Book X, Public Domain-Project Gutenberg. "ATHENIAN: Then I suppose that I must repeat the singular argument of those who manufacture the soul according to their own impious notions; they affirm that which is the first cause of the generation and destruction of all things, to be not first, but last, and that which is last to be first, and hence they have fallen into error about the true nature of the Gods… Then we must say that self-motion being the origin of all motions, and the first which arises among things at rest as well as among things in motion, is the eldest and mightiest principle of change, and that which is changed by another and yet moves other is second."〕 in an attempt to prove that the Jews had held monotheistic views even before the Greeks. However, this was still within the context of creation from pre-existing materials (i.e. "moving" or "changing" a material substratum.) The classical tradition of creation from chaos first came under question in Hellenistic philosophy (on ''a priori'' grounds), which developed the idea that the primum movens must have created the world out of nothing. Theologians debate whether the Bible itself teaches creation ''ex nihilo''. Traditional interpreters〔 Collins, C. John, ''Genesis 1-4: A Linguistic, Literary, and Theological Commentary'' (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2006), 50ff. 〕 argue on grammatical and syntactical grounds that this is the meaning of Genesis 1:1, which is commonly rendered: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." They further find support for this view in New Testament passages like Hebrews 11:3—"By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible"—and Revelation 4:11—"For you () created all things, and by your will they existed and were created." However, other interpreters〔 〕 understand creation ''ex nihilo'' as a 2nd-century theological development. According to this view, church fathers opposed notions appearing in pre-Christian creation myths and in Gnosticism—notions of creation by a demiurge out of a primordial state of matter (known in religious studies as ''chaos'' after the Greek term used by Hesiod in his ''Theogony'').〔 〕 Jewish thinkers took up the idea,〔 〕 which became important to Judaism, to ongoing strands in the Christian tradition, and—as a corollary—to Islam. The first sentence of the Greek version of Genesis in the Septuagint starts with the words: ἐν ἀρχῇ ἐποίησεν, translatable as "in the beginning he made." A verse of 2 Maccabees (a book written in Koine Greek in the same sphere of Hellenized Judaism of Alexandria, but predating Philo by about a century) expresses the following: "I beseech thee, my son, look upon the heaven and the earth, and all that is therein, and consider that God made them of things that were not; and so was mankind made likewise." (2 Maccabees 7:28, KJV) While those who believe in ''ex nihilo'' point to God creating "things that were not", those who reject creation out of nothing point out that the context mentions the creation of man, who was "made from the dust" and not from absolutely "nothing". Many ancient texts tend to have similar issues, and those on each side tend to interpret the text according to their understanding. Max Weber summarizes a sociological view of the overall development and corollaries of the theological idea:
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