Affirming 6×24‑hour days, using asah to support Gen 1:1 as the creation event

Conversation
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Actually that does seem to be what you mean:

But it is not at all clear that that is true. Light certainly seems to be a major transition, to name just one. Moreover that usage doesn’t support your argument.

That certainly doesn’t seem to be the case. And indeed if aspects of the 6 day creation deserve bara then why not the whole thing? That’s my point and you didn’t answer it.

The author - who was not Moses - seems to do exactly that in Genesis 2:2-3.

But NOT in Genesis 2:2-3 which is part of the same narrative - which gives it more weight than Exodus.

No, that is not the question. The real question is “does the use of asah in Exodus 20:11 give us good reason to think that Genesis 1:1 describes a separate creative event” - and the answer is No. There is no need to “treat it as if he had used bara instead of asah”.

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i don’t think so. I think you decided that the arguments you made were so bad that you had to pretend that I was making essentially the same arguments.

Didn’t you?

It seems that you did. And what is more when you wrote:

You knew perfectly well that you were the one claiming that “the grammar collapses” unless your reading was accepted - and that I only denied your claim.

I rather think that goes beyond “talking past each other” - and it’s all on you.

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I appreciate the discussion. At this point I think we may simply have to agree to disagree.

For me, the dependent-clause reading still has greater explanatory power. It accounts for several features of the text that the alternative view struggles to explain.

First, in Book of Genesis 1:26–27 both asah and bara are used for the creation of humanity in immediate succession. If those verbs represent fundamentally different kinds of creative acts, it becomes difficult to explain why God says “Let us make (asah) man” and then the narrative immediately says God created (bara) man. The simplest explanation is that the verbs overlap in meaning.

Second, the pattern within Genesis 1 itself complicates a strict lexical distinction. Sea creatures and birds are described with bara (1:21), while land animals are described with asah (1:25). That distribution doesn’t obviously support the idea that one verb refers to an initial act of creation while the other refers to later forming or ordering.

Third, the dependent-clause translation aligns well with broader Ancient Near Eastern literary patterns, where texts often begin with a temporal clause describing the background conditions before the main narrative action begins. We also see a very similar sentence structure in Genesis 2:4–7.

Fourth, God’s creative speech begins only in verse 3. If verse 1 were describing the first creative act in the narrative sequence, it is somewhat curious that the familiar “And God said…” pattern does not begin until that point.

Taken together, these observations make the dependent-clause reading a coherent explanation of the passage, even if it cannot be proven decisively.

There is also an additional detail in Genesis 2. Humanity is created (bara) in Genesis 1:27, but in Genesis 2:7 the man is formed (yatsar) from the dust of the ground, and the woman is later built (banah) from the rib. If we insist on rigidly distinguishing these verbs, we would then have to argue that the creation of humanity in Genesis 1 is describing something different from the formation of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2. Traditionally, however, most readers have understood these passages to be describing the same event from different perspectives, which again suggests that the verbs are not functioning as strict technical categories.

For those reasons I still find the dependent-clause reading more persuasive, though I recognize that the text allows more than one possible interpretation.

All the best,

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It still follows both in English and Hebrew grammar. Read it carefully as Genesis 1:26–27 actually supports the distinction rather than undermining it.

In v. 26, “Let us make (asah) man…” is a deliberative cohortative—God is announcing His intention and the role humanity will have (“let them have dominion”). Hebrew regularly uses asah in planning or appointing contexts (e.g., Gen 11:3–4; 1 Kgs 12:31).

In v. 27, Moses switches to bara because this verse describes the actual creative act. Bara is never used in deliberative speech, so it would have been linguistically odd for v. 26 to use it.

So the passage maintains the distinction: asah for intention and functional assignment, bara for the creative act itself. This fits the broader pattern where Genesis 1:1 uses bara for the initial creation, and the six‑day forming/ordering work is described with asah.

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On what evidentiary basis do you reject the Documentary Hypothesis?

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you’re still attributing to me a claim I didn’t make. My point was specific: the grammar collapses on the view that nothing actually happens until v.3, because in that case v.2 has no event or state to be circumstantial to. That is not the same as saying the grammar collapses unless my entire reading is accepted. You keep broadening my statement beyond what I wrote.
So let’s stay with the two actual issues:

  1. On your reading, what event or state‑change does v.2 describe if v.1 is not an actual creative act? A waw‑disjunctive must anchor to something. What is it.
  2. Why must asah in Exodus 20:11 be taken in the narrow sense you prefer, when Moses himself uses asah in broader, comprehensive ways elsewhere (e.g., Deut 4:32; Neh 9:6)? If Moses can use asah to summarize the whole creative work, then your lexical restriction doesn’t hold.
    Those are the points I’m making—not the broader claims you’re assigning to me.
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I agree that Genesis 1:26 is deliberative speech (“Let us make…”), but that doesn’t explain the verb distinction. In Genesis 1, asah clearly describes completed creative acts, not just intentions, for example, God made (asah) the firmament (1:7) and the land animals (1:25). So it seems difficult to limit asah to planning or intentions.

Additionally, the narrative still shifts verbs between the announcement and the fulfillment of humanity’s creation: God says “Let us make (asah) man” (1:26), but the text immediately says “So God created (bara) man” (1:27). If the author intended a strict distinction, we would expect the same verb to be repeated. Combined with the broader pattern, bara for sea creatures and birds (1:21), asah for land animals (1:25), and both asah and bara for humanity, it seems more likely that the verbs overlap rather than marking two clearly separate stages of creation.

The problems are that asah clearly describes actual creation, not just intention. Hebrew grammar doesn’t require the verb switch (which we agree on). Bara appears inside the 6-day narrative (which we agree on), and the verb distribution isn’t consistent (which it seems we are still navigating in our discussion).

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Also, your explanation for asah has shifted during the discussion. Earlier it was described as referring to forming or shaping during the six-day work, but now it’s being explained as a deliberative intention in Genesis 1:26. The difficulty is that asah clearly describes completed acts elsewhere in the chapter, for example, God made (asah) the firmament (1:7) and the land animals (1:25). When we also see humanity described with both asah and bara (1:26–27), and different animals (birds and fish being bara but land animals being asah) described with different verbs, it suggests the verbs overlap rather than marking strictly separate stages.

At this point your model begins to look like it’s being adjusted to fit the data (switching definitions when you need to) rather than built outward from the data. And when a theory has to continually change its explanation to handle new examples, it often suggests that the underlying pattern isn’t reliable or legitimate.

People would likely interpret this model to be ad hoc, or picking and choosing which definition of asah to use as-needed (in ambiguous or debateable ways), while also having unclear examples of why God would bara sea creatures and birds but not land animals.

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That’s correct. We’ve seen a clear shift. Initially, it seemed the grammar mandated his view, but it gradually turned into a concession to grammatical ambiguity. He also acknowledged that the dependent-clause translation is a legitimate option, which runs contrary to his original model. He further conceded that bara and asah can appear in the same event, as with the creation of humanity in Genesis 1:26–27 (assuming flexibility in the definition of asah that the text itself doesn’t identify). His argument from the waw-disjunctive similarly turned into into one of ambiguity, acknowledging that it could also support the dependent-clause reading.

Additionally, at least personally, I’m still wondering why fish and birds are described with bara while land animals are asah.

There are just too many complications here. Eventually, it starts to feel as though the model is being read back into the text (eisegesis) shaped and molded to fit the evidence case by case (ad-hoc accomodation), rather than being built out of the text itself (exegesis). When a model has to continually adjust to handle new examples, it usually suggests that the underlying pattern may not actually be a pattern at all.

It’s just too subjective to hold beyond one of many tentative possibilities.

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Perhaps analogous to this discussion, in my work is not uncommon to encounter the problem of “over-fitting the data”, where there are more parameters to estimate than there are data to estimate them. At some point you end up with two more or more equally good ways to interpret the results, and no way to say if one is any better than the others. Worse, you start seeing associations simply by chance. In these cases you have to fall back to other sources, theory (and hopefully an a priori hypothesis), or Occam’s Razor.

That doesn’t mean that two equally good interpretations are a bad thing, just that there are limits to how much you can do with limited data.

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I don’t think that is true this time, either. Certainly you DO insist that the grammar demands that verse 1 be a separate event - which is what I was referring to. But it is certainly true that you have done exactly that to me - and far more obviously. As I have pointed out twice. But for some reason you seem happy to ignore that.

If someone knowledgeable on Hebrew grammar weighs in I will defer to them. However your claim doesn’t seem to be true, the disjunctive is a break indicating that verse 2 does not follow verse 1. That seems entirely appropriate for my reading. Indeed it is often used to indicate background information. It seems appropriate to me that it indicates the conditions at the beginning of the creative process before anything had happened.

I have no idea what you are talking about. What “narrow sense”? I’m suggesting that under your interpretations (not mine) there seems no good reason not to use bara in Exodus 20:11. is that what you mean?

It’s funny how you keep denying that you said the things you said. Perhaps you might like to think on why you do it,

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Indeed. From last experience with similar people I believe that he started with just Genesis 1:1 and Exodus 20:11 and jumped to the conclusion that Exodus 20:11 excluded the (assumed) initial ex-nihilo creation. Everything else is just excuses to try to explain away the contrary evidence - without much attempt at quality control.

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I suppose we are at an impasse. You have pressed the case for bara as exclusive to divine special creation of some sort. I do not find it convincing, not because I hold any particular reason to presume against your distinction, but based on your presentation I just do not find it exegetically and lexically justified. To quote the great scholar Inigo Montoya, I do not think that word means what you think it means. C’est tout.

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In hopes of keep this discussion from going off the rails, I’d like to note that people have been arguing over these interpretations for nearly 2000 years now, and it there were any one conclusive interpretation someone would have discovered it long ago. From my perspective this amounts to arguing over minutia, and the only real answer is to take a broad perspective rather than a narrower one. This may have the drawback of making everyone unhappy. :wink:

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Can anyone explain why this all matters, at least to anyone other than a scholar of ancient Hebrew?

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let me reset this because we’re circling the same points without addressing the actual issue I raised.

You keep responding as if I’m arguing for two creation events or for the superiority of bara. I’m not. My point is strictly linguistic:

Moses consistently uses asah when referring to the six‑day work as a whole, and bara for the initial act in 1:1. Exodus 20:11 follows that pattern. That’s the only claim on the table.

Everything else you’re pushing into the discussion is beside that point.

  • Appealing to Genesis 2:2–3 doesn’t overturn anything; it’s a standard Hebrew summary formula, not a lexical merger.

  • The fact that bara appears at a few points inside the six‑day narrative doesn’t change how Moses labels the whole six‑day work when he summarizes it.

  • And nothing in your replies explains why Exodus 20:11 avoids bara if Moses meant “God created everything in six days.”

You reframed the question as: “Does asah in Exodus 20:11 prove Genesis 1:1 is a separate event?”
But that’s not what I asked.

The question is why Moses consistently uses asah—not bara—when summarizing the six‑day work. If that distinction doesn’t matter, then the burden is simply to explain why Moses never uses bara in those summaries.

Until that’s addressed directly, we’re not actually engaging the point I raised.

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thanks for laying out your reasoning. I don’t think we’re far apart on the basic lexical overlap, but our conclusions diverge for a different reason than the ones you list.

I agree that bara, asah, yatsar, and banah overlap. My argument has never depended on treating them as rigid technical categories. The question I’m raising is narrower:

When the author summarizes the six‑day work as a whole, why does he consistently use asah rather than bara, even though bara was available and already used in 1:1?

That’s the pattern I’m trying to account for, and the dependent‑clause reading doesn’t really address it. A few quick clarifications:

  • The alternation of verbs in 1:26–27 doesn’t undermine the pattern; it simply shows that the verbs can overlap in a local context. My point concerns how the whole six‑day work is labeled in summary statements, not how individual acts are described.

  • Likewise, the distribution of bara in 1:21 and 1:27 doesn’t contradict the observation that asah dominates the day‑by‑day forming work and is the verb used in the summaries (Exod 20:11; 31:17).

  • Genesis 2:4–7 is a separate literary unit with its own style and structure. Its use of multiple verbs in a recap doesn’t erase the pattern in Genesis 1 or Exodus 20; summary formulas routinely compress distinctions.

Where we differ is simply this:You see the dependent‑clause reading as the best way to explain the data; I see the consistent use of asah in the summaries as the more decisive feature. I’m not arguing for a rigid lexical system or for mutually exclusive categories—only that the author’s verb choice in the summary statements is meaningful and deserves explanatory weight. Happy to leave it there if we’ve reached the point of interpretive preference, but I wanted to make sure the actual point I’m pressing was clear.

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I reject the Documentary Hypothesis because its core evidentiary pillars have not held up under modern linguistic, literary, or archaeological scrutiny: the stylistic and lexical criteria used to divide J/E/P/D have proven far too fluid to isolate distinct sources; the supposed contradictions and doublets dissolve once ancient Near Eastern narrative conventions like recapitulation and thematic structuring are taken seriously; the developmental model of Israelite religion that undergirds the DH is contradicted by covenantal and ritual evidence that aligns with second‑millennium patterns rather than late‑monarchic ones; and the hypothesis struggles to explain cross‑textual consistencies, such as the very verb‑usage patterns we’re discussing, that make far more sense under unified authorship than under a patchwork of redactors

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I’m not arguing that asah only refers to intentions or that the verbs never share similarities, but that they carry distinct semantic domains, and the author consistently uses them that way: bara for inaugurating or bringing something into existence, and asah for forming, fashioning, or assigning. The alternation in 1:26–27 doesn’t erase that distinction; it simply shows the verbs can appear near each other without being synonymous. What matters is that when the six‑day work is referenced as a unit, the author never calls it “six days of creating (bara),” even though that’s how most of us were taught, but always “six days of making (asah),” the same verb that dominates the forming/ordering sequence in 1:3–31. Moses had the verb to say “God created the heavens and the earth in six days,” yet he consistently chose asah, not bara, and that deliberate choice is the linguistic point I’m trying to keep in focus.

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I’m not (at least I don’t think so) shifting definitions; I’m distinguishing between semantic domain and grammatical function. Asah can express intention in a deliberative clause (1:26) and also describe completed acts (1:7, 1:25) because its domain is broad, forming, fashioning, preparing, appointing, but that doesn’t make it synonymous with bara, whose domain is inaugurating or bringing into existence. The fact that the verbs can appear near each other doesn’t erase their distinct ranges, and the real issue isn’t micro‑variation within individual verses but the macro‑pattern: when the six‑day work is referenced as a unit, the author never calls it “six days of creating (bara)” but always “six days of making (asah),” including in Exodus 20:11, where Moses had the verb bara available but did not use it. That consistent summary choice, not the local alternation in 1:26–27, is the linguistic point I’m pressing, and it doesn’t require redefining asah on the fly; it simply recognizes that verbs with overlapping usage can still have distinct narrative functions.