> Pattle Pun wrote:
>
> > I looked up the word CREATE, "bara" in the concordance and it is used
> > interchangeably with MADE, "asah" in many occasions. The latter seem to
> > suggest forming something from preexisting matters. The creation work in
> > Genesis was Creation ex nihilo, as elegantly pointed out by St. Augustine.
>
> The creation of life in Gen.1 is _mediated_ - "Let the waters
> bring forth swarms of living creatures..." (v.20), & in the next verse
> this is described with the verb _bara_.
Creation ex nihilo is based on the independent sentence, as agreed upon by
most conservative Hebrew scholars of Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God
created heavens and earth", not from preexisting matters as Plato's
Timaeus.
------------------------------------- Dr. Pattle Pun
Professor of Biology
Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL 60187
eMail: Pattle.P.Pun@wheaton.edu
Phone: (630)752-5303
FAX: (630)752-5996