"Bara" vs. "Asah" in Genesis 1
Let's examine a few things about the Hebrew words "bara" and "asah,' which are used in Genesis chapter 1. First, there's no basis for saying that bara ONLY means an instantaneous, out-of-nothing, supernatural creative action, or that asah ONLY means a slow, out-of-existing-material, natural process of making (under God’s providence, of course). The context of is overwhelmingly in favor of interpreting both bara and asah in Genesis 1 as virtually instantaneous acts. Whether God created something out of nothing or created something from material that He had just made, the force of the words in context is that both kinds of activities were instantaneous and supernatural after God spoke “Let there be . . . .” Regarding "bara" and "asah", Gen. 2:4 uses both bara and asah to refer to the origin of the heavens and the earth. Gen. 5:1 and Isa. 43:7 do the same with respect to the origin of man. In other cases, one verse says that God created (bara) something and a different verse says God made (asah) that same thing. Psa. 104:24 says God made (asah) sea creatures (referred to in 104:25) but that Gen. 1:21 and Ps. 104:30 (referring back to 104:25) say that God created (bara) sea creatures. And Psa. 148:5 and Isa. 40:26 say that God created (bara) the stars, but Gen. 1:16 says God made (asah) them. Similarly, Gen. 1:26 says God made (asah) man in the image of God, and 1:27 says he created (bara) man in the image of God. Clearly, bara (create) and asah (make) are used interchangeably in the Bible in reference to the creation of the following: the sun, moon, stars, sea creatures, trees, rivers, man, heavens, and earth. |
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Bara and Asah are used interchangably in Scripture
So, making a strong distinction between bara and asah in Genesis 1–2 is as unjustified as making a distinction between “create” and “make” in English. It is true that in Scripture only God is the subject of the verb bara; men make (asah) things, but only God creates (bara). But God also makes (asah) things. The verbs alone cannot tell us how God created and how long He took to create. I doubt that God would have allowed His word to only be understood by Hebrew linguists who split hairs and make fine, unjustified distinctions between words, which totally change the meaning of the entire passage. As I stated elsewhere, we should remember that the original readers of Genesis (which was probably *compiled* by Moses) were not scientists or Hebrew scholars. Rather, they were former slaves - mostly uneducated and illiterate and on their way to the Promised Land. The fathers were commanded to teach their children (Deuteronomy 6:1–7), so the Hebrew language in Genesis 1 must have been very clear and easy to understand to the common people, even to children. They weren't required to dissect the language with tweezers in order to understand what God wanted them to know. Lastly, Ex. 20:8-11 verifies with crystal clarity what the church has always taught about the first chapter of Genesis: "Just as I created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, you, too, work six days and rest on the seventh." Only someone practicing eisegesis and trying to wedge evolution into the Bible would deny the plain meaning of this passage and of Genesis chaper 1. |
