Consequences of Creationism

[Sinai]

It might also be noted that bara'--create out of nothing or create totally new--can only apply to God's divine creative activity (never of human activity) when God is creating something from nothing or is creating something that is totally new and which has never been before.

Really? Then we can view Joyce's work of having natural selection create a DNA enzyme as "bara"? A DNA enzyme has never been before. Cool.

Nice try--but I'm afraid not. As I mentioned in my earlier post, bara' "can only apply to God's divine creative activity (never of human activity) when God is creating something from nothing or is creating something that is totally new and which has never been before."

I would debate that commentary because God creates light, but the waters seem to have always been there. What is the Hebrew verb used for the creation of light?

The Hebrew verb used was not for the creation of light. Rather, God said (wayyo'mer) let there be light...and God separated (wayyavdel) between the light and between the darkness.

Incidentally, the "waters" may not have been there at all. The Hebrew hammayim most commonly is translated as water, which is the way the KJV translates it. However, it can also mean a chaotic mixture--and you will find that some of the most respected Jewish biblical scholars (writing 700-1200 years ago, which is well before modern scientific discoveries) believed that chaotic mixture was probably the better meaning of the term as it is used in the first eight verses of Genesis.