By John Sanidopoulos
A question that should seem obvious is in fact an often asked question among skeptics. Reading Genesis 1:1, they read that God created "the heavens and the earth", but there seems to be no mention of water, though water suddenly appears in the narrative.
However, the rest of Genesis 1:1 clearly states "The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep." "The deep" referenced here is water, so when God created the earth, it was without dry land or shape, but full of darkness and water. That is the original earth. Dry land does not appear until Day 3 of Creation. Also, the Hebrew word for "heavens" in Gen. 1:1 is "Sha-mayim", which literally means "the upper waters". So in the beginning, we have God creating the upper waters and the lower waters, and later in Gen. 1:9 God separates the two allowing dry land to appear.
Water here represents a sort of chaos, which may be why in Revelation 21:1 it says: "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea." There is no such chaos in the New Heaven and Earth.
It should also be pointed out that Genesis is not the only book in the Bible with a Creation narrative. In fact, there are more than a few dozen Creation narratives in the Bible that could shed further light on this question.
For example, Colossions 1:16 says: "For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him." We can safely assume that "water" is included among the "all things" mentioned here.
Proverbs 8:22 also says: "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old." Solomon is talking about here that God had human beings on His mind before the creation of the world. Among "His works of old", Solomon says in verse 24 that God created the waters.
Perhaps the clearest Scriptural Creation narrative that reveals God created water is found in Psalm 104:5-9, which elaborates on Genesis 1:9:
"He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved. You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. But at your rebuke the waters fled, at the sound of your thunder they took to flight; they flowed over the mountains, they went down into the valleys, to the place you assigned for them. You set a boundary they cannot cross; never again will they cover the earth."
Having looked more deeply into Genesis 1 and seen that the Bible contains more than one Creation narrative, I believe it becomes clear that God did indeed create water.