It would perhaps be best to use terminology such as “precosmic” condition (with the earlier Greek understanding that “cosmos” implies order). The precosmic condition was not lacking in that which was material; it was lacking in order and differentiation. Thus the accounts regularly begin with a precosmic, unordered, nonfunctional world.17 Creation then takes place by giving things order, function, and purpose, which is synonymous with giving them existence.
