Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Liz Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>]

Dear Bill,
You may be confusing something else. The word bar(a is usually translated
create, and I think is only used with God as the subject. The word yCr
(yatsar)
is usually translated to form, and can have both humans and God as subject.
This being the case, some people suppose that bara always implies
creatio ex nihilo, but that is not correct.

Best,
Liz

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bill Ross [mailto:wross AT farmerstel.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 29, 2000 10:46 PM
> To: Biblical Hebrew
> Subject: RE: Gen 1:1 "When God began to create"?
>
>
> <Liz>
> The Hebrew Bible does not have creatio ex nihilo.
>
> <Bill>
> I heard that beree'shiyt had an intrinsic meaning of "create" whereas the
> subsequent word was "formed". Is this true? As you may have seen
> in my other
> post, I think some of the wording lends toward reading this
> record to be of
> a renewal, but the meaning of beree'shiyt seemed to militate against that.
>
> Bill Ross
>
>
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