with (ἀήρ air); WR 36.1; Tan. B. I. 10 and 15; PRE 18; Shemuel 5, 55–56; Mishle 60; Tosefta Keritot (end); Mekilta (beginning). In most of the passages just quoted mention is made of two more views in addition to the one given in the text. According to one, the heaven preceded the earth (so Philo), while according to the second, the earth preceded the heaven. Joel, Blicke, I, 112, remarks that in these speculations we have an echo of the Greek theories appertaining to cosmogony. Recognitiones, I, 27, agrees with the later Rabbis that heaven and earth were created simultaneously. Comp. Konen 24, where the old view is still retained. Although created simultaneously, nevertheless the heavens were created by God’s right hand, and the earth by His left; PRE 18; Zohar II, 18b, 65b; comp. Luria, PRE, ad loc. At the very beginning God created the world to come, which He, however, hid, so that not even the angels could see it, then He fashioned this world; Alphabetot 97; comp. Isa. 64.4.
18 PRE 3. But in the older sources (BR 3.4; PK 21, 145b; WR 31.7; ShR 15.22 and 50.1; Tan. B. I. 6, and II, 123; Tan. Wa-Yakhel 6; Tehillim 27,221, and 104,440) it is the light emanating from God’s splendor, that was the beginning of all creation. The view that snow was the primeval component of the earth is mentioned only in PRE and in the sources dependent on it (comp. Luria, ad loc.), whereas ShR 13.1 maintains that the world was created of the earth found under God’s throne; comp, however, BR1.6 and parallel passages, where it is proved by Job 37.7 that the earth was created of snow. Zohar III, 34b, however, is directly dependent on ShR, loc, cit. As to the account of the creation in Konen 24–25, comp. Excursus I. It may also be remarked that the statement in ShR 15.22, according to which the light emanated from fire (of a heavenly kind) occurs very likely already in 4 Ezra 6.40, where lumen aliquid luminis is based on the faulty reading אור מאור instead of אור מאש. It is however possible that 4 Ezra wishes to say the same as many of the Midrashim just quoted, according to which the primordial light was made of God’s splendor, in Hebrew “light from light.” Philo expresses this view in words similar to those of the Haggadah; comp. Freudenthal, Hellenistische Studien, 71; Weinstein, Genesis der Agada, 41. See also the following note.
19 BR 3.6, 11.2, 12.6, and 42.3; Hagigah 12a (only this passage and BHM VI, 59, give a detailed but rather obscure description of Tohu and Bohu comp. Joel, Blicke, I, 142); PR 5, 20a, and 46, 187a; EZ 21, 94; Tehillim, 97, 422. Comp, further ER 3, 14 and
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