nothing in my view has “shifted”; you’re treating my acknowledgment of grammatical options as if it were a retreat, when all I’ve said from the beginning is that the grammar allows more than one structure, and that the real issue is lexical, not syntactic. Recognizing that bara and asah can appear in proximity is not a concession that they mean the same thing, any more than the coexistence of yatsar and banah erases their distinct domains. The question I’ve been pressing remains untouched: when the six‑day work is referenced as a whole, Moses 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),” including in Exodus 20:11, where bara was available but not used. Pointing to local verb alternations inside the narrative doesn’t explain that consistent summary choice, and the charge of ad hoc adjustment only sticks if the macro‑pattern is ignored rather than answered.
I get the over‑fitting concern, but what I’m pointing to isn’t a case of adding parameters to rescue a model, it’s a single, stable textual feature: whenever the six‑day work is referenced as a whole, the author consistently uses asah and never bara, even though bara was available and already used in 1:1. That’s not a pattern emerging from noise or chance associations; it’s the author’s own summary language. So while multiple interpretations may be grammatically viable, the verb choice in those summaries still needs explaining, and that’s the narrow linguistic question I’m trying to keep in view.
I’ve been careful to narrow my claims, and this is another place where you’re reading more into them than I’ve said. I don’t “insist the grammar demands” my view; I’ve repeatedly said the grammar allows multiple structures and that my argument is primarily lexical, not syntactic. A waw‑disjunctive can indeed introduce background, but even background clauses are anchored to some prior clause or state, my question was simply what concrete state you think v.2 is describing if v.1 is not an actual creative act. On Exodus 20:11, I’m not restricting asah to a “narrow sense”; my point is the opposite: asah is broad enough that Moses can use it comprehensively, yet when he chooses a verb to summarize the six‑day work, he consistently uses asah and never bara, even though bara was available and already used in 1:1. That’s the specific observation I’m making; the personal jabs about my motives don’t really move that question forward.
that’s an unfair characterization; I didn’t “start with a conclusion” and then hunt for excuses, I began with a simple textual observation that stands regardless of anyone’s model: whenever the six‑day work is referenced as a whole, the author consistently uses asah and never bara, even though bara was available and already used in 1:1. You may disagree with the significance of that pattern, but dismissing it as eisegesis doesn’t answer it, and attributing motives (“excuses,” “no quality control”) doesn’t move the discussion forward. If the pattern is illusory, the straightforward way to show that is to explain why the author repeatedly chooses asah, not bara, in the summary statements, rather than speculating about how I arrived at the question.
I’m not arguing that bara is “exclusive to divine special creation,” but Moses consistently uses it for inaugurating acts, most clearly in 1:1, and uses asah when summarizing the six‑day work as a whole, including in Exodus 20:11, where he could have said “created” but did not. You may not find that distinction compelling, and that’s fine, but it isn’t a misuse of the word; it’s simply taking the author’s own summary language seriously.
I hear you, and I agree that none of us is going to solve a two‑millennia‑old interpretive puzzle in a forum thread; my only aim has been to keep one narrow textual question on the table, not to claim a grand, conclusive model. I’m not trying to force a microscopic reading or over‑fit the data, just noting that Moses consistently uses asah when summarizing the six‑day work, never bara, even though bara was available and already used in 1:1. Whether one thinks that matters or not is fair game, but I’m not trying to turn it into more than it is.
for most people this doesn’t matter at all, but the reason it comes up in discussions like this is that many of us were taught, often in Sunday school, that “God created the heavens and the earth in six days,” yet that exact phrasing never appears in the text, and Moses never uses bara (“create”) to summarize the six‑day work; he always uses asah (“make,” “do,” “appoint”), including in Exodus 20:11 where bara was available but not chosen. So the interest isn’t in squeezing minutiae but in noticing that the traditional phrasing we grew up with doesn’t match the Hebrew wording, and that this difference has been part of the interpretive conversation for centuries. The question is simply whether the author’s consistent verb choice tells us anything about how he understood the relationship between the initial act in 1:1 and the six‑day sequence that follows.
A waw-disjunctive doesn’t necessarily have to anchor to a prior event; it can also introduce a circumstantial clause describing the state of affairs when the narrative begins. On the dependent-clause reading, Genesis 1:2 simply describes the condition of the earth at the time God began creating: the earth was formless and void, darkness was over the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. In that case, the clause isn’t describing the result of a prior creative act but the initial situation into which the six-day narrative begins in verse 3.
Thanks, but I don’t think you have answered my question. Again, why should anyone care about all this? What difference does it make whether we understand the text in your way or in another way? Is there some important point of theology? Something about the take-home message of Genesis 1?
I’m not sure that anyone will know for sure, the answer to your questions. But one possibility would be to consider Genesis 2:3, which summarizes the six days:
“God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all his work that God created (bara) and made (asah).”
Here bara and asah appear side by side as a summary of the entire creative week. This reflects the pattern within the narrative itself: both verbs are used throughout the six days (for example, humanity is both bara and asah, birds and fish are bara, land animals are asah, etc.). The verbs appear to overlap in their usage.
Sometimes Moses summarizes the six-day work using asah alone (for example in Exodus). But this does not exclude events described with bara, because asah is a very broad verb meaning “make” or “do.” As such, it naturally works as a summary term. And this is just a fact of the text, we know that bara is used within the 6 days.
This fits well with the dependent clause reading of Genesis 1:1, where the verse introduces the narrative rather than describing a separate or distinct creative act prior to the six days (or at their start). In this reading, Genesis 1:1 refers to the six-day creation account itself, with actions beginning in verse 3, rather than to an independent event.
An analogy might help: saying “In the beginning, when I made a pizza, the dough was shapeless” introduces the story of making the pizza rather than describing a separate event before the process began. And then I said “someone pass me the dough roller”, this is the first action of creation, verse 3.
The key point is that the author can summarize the entire creative week with a broad verb like asah and/or bara without implying that bara refers to a distinct or separate kind of act. It may simply function alongside asah as another way of describing God’s creative work during the six days.
Bara is also part of the six-day process and asah can summarize that process, so there’s no need to posit a separate “bara-only” creation.
Well, to be fair, that statement is still true despite not explicitly being a passage. God still bara/created the heavens and the earth, and it took 6 days. The text just doesn’t word it that way.
Part of the complication, in my opinion, is that people become confused by independent clause translations. Just my personal take. If everyone simply started with dependent clause translations from the start, there would be less confusion over the broader subject.
I respond to you as if you are arguing for Genesis 1:1 as a separate creation event because you are. That is what your “linguistic point” is supposed to show and that is why you’re arguing for it.
And yet it shows bara being used for the 6 day creative work.
Which again evades my point - why does the use of bara inside the six-day narrative not make it acceptable to use bara for the whole thing?. Moreover I don’t think that the two uses of asah in Exodus are really sufficient to establish a meaningful pattern. And again Genesis 2:2-3 is a counter example,
Since it seems clear that either could be used - the meanings are not so disjoint that either is ruled out - it seems that you don’t have a valid answer for that either.
Yes because that is what the discussion was really about and the original framing was invidious. Honest discussion required reframing the question.
Even if you have been narrowing your claims it doesn’t erase the claims you previously made - which is what seem to be claiming.
As I pointed out from the start I believe that it represents the state before creation.
I didn’t say that you were - you said that I was. And you refuse to explain what you meant.
You have two examples in Exodus and that’s it - and Genesis 2:2-3 appears to be a counter-example. It’s not much of a case especially when you don’t have a good answer yourself.
Genesis 1:1 may also be considered a counter example. Especially if Genesis 1:1 is a broad summary introduction.
“In the beginning when God created (bara) the heavens and the earth…” -NRSV
Or
“When God began to create (bara) the heavens and the earth…” -NJPS
That sounds like use of bara to summarize the 6 days to me.
your point about the waw‑disjunctive demanding an anchor is a real grammatical pressure point.
My reading is simple and personal: Gen 1:1 (bara) names the initial, functional creation of the cosmos; Gen 1:2 describes the condition of that creation as the narrative opens (a state: formless/void, darkness, Spirit hovering); Gen 1:3–31 (asah/yatsar) narrates a literal six‑day week of forming, ordering, and assigning functions. I find the circumstantial/waw reading of v.2 convincing enough to supply a state‑anchor for the six‑day sequence rather than requiring an extra creative episode.
I’m not claiming that parsing is the only grammatically possible one, the sequential reading is defensible and worth taking seriously. Verse 2 doesn’t collapse my view, but it does force us to be explicit about how we parse the waw and what we treat as the anchoring element (a state rather than a discrete prior event).
Do you regard v.2 as a decisive grammatical refutation of the circumstantial reading, or as a pressure point that can be met by treating the clause as a state‑anchor for the six‑day forming/appointing narrative?
On examining Exodus 20:11 and 31:17 there is a fairly obvious reason for choosing asah. Both verses are about the Sabbath observance and therefore asah which would also cover a wide range of human work seems more appropriate. The parallel between God;s work and human work is the point so choosing a word to suit that parallel seems the better choice.
The reason this matters is that how we read Genesis 1 determines what questions the text is actually answering. If Genesis 1:1 describes God’s act of creating the universe, and the six days describe God bringing order, purpose, and function to that already‑created world, then Genesis isn’t competing with science at all, it’s doing theology, not cosmology. That means we don’t have to force Scripture into modern scientific categories, and we don’t have to force science into biblical categories. The take‑home message becomes the one the text itself emphasizes: God is the sovereign Creator, He brings order out of chaos, He assigns purpose to creation, and He appoints humans as His image‑bearers. That’s why the distinction matters, it preserves both the integrity of Scripture and the legitimacy of scientific discovery without putting them in conflict. Trying to keep if short ans sweet
I agree Genesis 2:3 is a summary, but summaries don’t redefine the structure of the narrative. The six days begin in Genesis 1:3 with the repeated formula “And God said…,” which means Genesis 1:1–2 stands outside the six‑day sequence. Within the actual six‑day section (1:3–31), we already find both bara and asah—asah for forming and assigning, and bara at key theological moments like humanity and the sea creatures. So Genesis 2:3 can summarize the six‑day work using both verbs without pulling Genesis 1:1 into Day 1. Likewise, Exodus 20:11 uses asah as a broad summary verb, not as a technical description of the initial creation. The narrative still distinguishes God’s originating act in 1:1 from His six‑day work of forming and assigning in 1:3–31, and Genesis 2:3 simply gathers both aspects of God’s work into one closing statement.
I understand that many read Genesis 1:1 as a dependent clause, and I’m aware of that tradition, but even on that reading the narrative markers still keep 1:1–2 outside the six days. Every day begins with the formula “And God said…,” which first appears in 1:3, not 1:1, so the six‑day sequence is 1:3–31 regardless of whether 1:1 is translated independently or dependently. Within that six‑day section we already have both bara and asah, which is why Genesis 2:3 can summarize the week using both verbs without implying that the initial creation occurred during those days. Exodus 20:11 reinforces this by using asah, not bara, to summarize the six‑day work, which fits the forming and assigning activity of 1:3–31 rather than the originating act of 1:1. So the clause debate doesn’t actually resolve the question; the structure of the chapter itself distinguishes the initial creation from the later week of forming.
I’m not arguing for two creation events, and I’m not claiming bara is “superior”; I’m simply observing how the narrative itself distributes the verbs. Genesis 1:1 uses bara for the originating act, and the six‑day sequence begins in 1:3 with the repeated day‑marker “And God said…,” which places 1:1–2 outside the six days regardless of whether one reads 1:1 as an independent or dependent clause. Within the actual six‑day section (1:3–31) we already have both bara and asah, which is why Genesis 2:2–3 can summarize that section using both verbs without implying that the initial creation occurred during those days. That’s also why Exodus 20:11 uses asah, it’s summarizing the forming/ordering work of 1:3–31, not the originating act of 1:1. So the question isn’t whether bara ever appears inside the six days (it does), but whether the text itself treats the initial creation and the six‑day forming work as the same event. The structure of the chapter suggests it doesn’t.