Page 12 - ADAM IN GENESIS

activity of God. Some have suggested that the terms bara(create), asa (make), and yatsar
(fashion) are interchangeable and thus have no theological or deeper exegetical
significance. I believe the fact that every one of the 43 occurrences in the Qal speak of
God's special creative activity clearly suggests the opposite. This word has extreme
theological and exegetical significance. According to TWOT bara denotes the concept of
initiating something new. It is used four times in Genesis 1-2 in referring to the heavens
and the earth (1:1) , the nephesh chayah or living creatures in the air and sea (1:21), man
and woman in God's own image (1:27) and in the closing summary of 2:3.
In contrast, the term asa is generally translated as to do or to make and is used over 2500
times. In the Creation accounts TWOT suggests that asa is used where there is no
concern in conveying the message that God brought about something new but simply that
God fashioned an object from material already in existence. Thus there becomes even
greater exegetical significance in the writers word choice of bara in 1:1. The fact that
LXX translates both words as poieo is irrelevant as the Greek word for God's special act
of creating (ktisis) did not attain that meaning until New Testament times.
Therefore, we have God creating or bringing something new into existence, namely the
heavens and the earth. In the Hebrew we read eth hashamayim weth haarets. The word
for heavens (shamayim) is always in dual form suggesting plurality (only the KJV
translates it as the singular heaven). It is used 417 times in the OT. The word also has a
more local meaning of sky (as in the NCV) and thus has been part of the debate of
extents, local vs. global. Again we need to be honest and say that our Israelite listener
would have had no comprehension of a spherical earth that is 24,901 miles in
circumference. Likewise he would have no ability or reason to comprehend a universe
that is over 93 billion light years across. There is a bit of contextual evidence that can
help us out. Later in verse 6, God makes the expanse (Heb. raqiya) and calls it shamayim
(heaven). Again in verse 20, He creates the winged birds to fly in reqiya hashamayim
(the expanse of heaven). From these additional verses we may reasonably conclude that
the heavens of verse 1 are global in extent (i.e. the entire universe) and the heavens in the
rest of the account are local and refer to the sky. One may object and say that the sun and
moon are placed in the expanse in verse 14 which we know is above the sky. But that
then becomes a perspective issue where the writer is not trying to convey a scientific fact
as we know it today but simply calling it as he sees it. Our Israelite listener would tell us
plainly that the sun and moon have been placed in the sky. He would have no real idea
that they are in space 93 million and 238 thousand miles away respectively. We will deal
more with the perspective issue in verse 2.
If the heavens in verse 1 have been debated, the earth has been even more so. This
becomes more of an issue when discussing the Flood in chapters 6-8, but it is also an
issue in Genesis 1. The earth (Heb. erets) can also have both a global and local meaning
just as we encountered with heavens. Does it refer to the globe, or just a piece of land
around the observer? Moses seems to be making the same point he did with heavens
because there is a direct parallel with earth. In verse 10, God calls the dry land (Heb.
yabbasa) earth (Heb. erets). Again in verse 24, God makes living creatures such as cattle
and creeping things from the erets. We know that cattle arent thriving on every part of the
globe; only on land. Therefore, just as He started with a global picture of the heavens and
narrowed it down to a more local extent in the sky later on, He now does for the earth.
Genesis 1:1 portrays a global earth and from verse 10 throughout the account, He uses it