Brother Blume, I read your response (both parts) and I noticed two things. One, you have asserted your position regarding the inferences that should be drawn from the various uses of bara and asah several times, but have not actually demonstrated your position is correct. There really hasn't been any new information brought forward in the way of proof that bara must mean created ex nihilo and asah must mean formed from pre-existing material(s). Two, you have made several erroneous statements, which I will address first, before dealing with once again with the issue of the Scriptural usage of bara and asah.
Erroneous statements that you made:
You cannot take matter with no DNA and no life and then make life out of it.
I certainly cannot, but God certainly can, if He so choose. We should not judge God by what is possible or impossible for us. Furthermore, I already pointed out that the "life" of man came directly from God (and thus came from a pre-existing material, if you will, namely God's life).
...you will never see ASA when referring to LIFE.
Job 10:11-12 KJV Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and hast fenced me with bones and sinews. (12) Thou hast
granted me
life and favour, and thy visitation hath preserved my spirit.
The word "granted" is asah. God asah'd life.
You make a logical fallacy by basing your conclusions on bara and asa upon English uses of created and made.
My uses of English make and create were an illustration. My understanding of bara and asah are not based upon the English create and make and how they are used, but I was showing that bara and asah are used in the same fashion as create and make are used in English. What I was demonstrating was the fact that bara and asah are used for the same thing, as English create and make can be used for the same thing. There was no fallacy involved, I brought in the English create and make as an illustration, not a premise.
Now, as to your statements concerning bara and asah, again, you simply restated your claims many times but have not actually demonstrated them. You have said bara refers to certain things, and asah refers to certain other things, but I have shown that bara and asah are used to refer to all the same things. You are reading your interpretations into the text, telling you how to understand this verse and that verse based on your interpretations of bara and asah. Thus for example, when you read God bara'd great whales etc you ASSUME that means the "life" created ex nihilo without reference to their physical existence, while you simultaneously ASSUME that God asah'd the whales and further you ASSUME that asah'ing the whales (which is not actually stated in the text) means God formed their physical bodies. Please note, it is obvious that God made physical creatures in the sea possessing life. But you are assuming and eisegeting things into the text based upon a faulty understanding of Scriptural usages of bara and asah. Your approach is BASED UPON the terms bara and asah, whereas the fact is Scripture uses BOTH terms to refer to the same actions, that of bringing things into existence.
So, I'm going to leave off discussing bara and asah since there hasn't been any new additional information regarding how they are used in Scripture. Please understand, I am not saying God did not bara something, nor am I saying God did not asah something. I AM saying that everything that was said to be bara'd, was also said to be asah'd, which was proven already.
So in conclusion, as I stated before, the use of the term bara and the term asah don't provide us with any information whatsoever about time scales or gaps between
Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. If there is such a gap, it will have be proven by something other than the presence of the term bara or asah or any supposed distinctions between the two.
Just so this point is clear, let us assume for the moment everything you believe about bara and asah is correct. It still would not prove or demonstrate or imply a long gap of time of millennia or millions or billions or thousands or hundreds of years between
Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. In verse 1 God bara'd the heaven and the earth.
That doesn't say anything about TIME, how long it took, or how long ago it was, or anything other than the fact that it happened. God could have bara'd the heaven and the earth and then .0000000000001 nanoseconds later began doing everything that is mentioned in 1:2b and the verses following. So again,
whether there is a large gap of time or not is not impacted by the usages of bara and asah.
Now, as for making the case for a large gap of time between 1:1 and 1:2, you said this:
Earth was put in ruination after verse 1.
Genesis 1:2 says "earth was void..."
"WAS" is translated from :
hayah {haw-yaw} v AV - was, come to pass, came, has been, were happened, become, pertained, to be, become, come to pass, exist, happen, fall out.
So, from the Hebrew HAYAH, we get the idea that the earth "became" void and without form. Or "was made" void and without form.
This necessitated a MAKING, or FORMING the material already created long before in renovation.
You have selected a possible definition based on how the word has been translated. but you have not shown that "became" or "was made" is the required and necessary definition in this instance. As I pointed out to Amanah, who referenced a similar translational claim from the website she quoted,
I have not found any translation into English from the Hebrew, Greek, or Latin bibles that supports this reading of "became" or "was made". (On a side note, if the correct translation is "was made" then that would actually imply that when God bara'd the heavens and the earth, and the earth "was made" void and without form, then God bara'd the earth void and without form - meaning He had not yet furnished it with it's contents such as living creatures nor shaped it by separating the waters from the dry land, etc.)
Can you supply any English Bible translation where reputable translators who are fluent in the Hebrew translated the verse as you have proposed it should be translated?
And furthermore, even assuming that your proposed translation is correct and all the translators of all English Bibles somehow missed this one, it STILL doesn't demonstrate anything whatsoever in regard to the length of time which passed between
Genesis 1:1 and 1:2! Let's assume your proposed correction to the translations of the Bible is correct. Let's assume that God created heaven and earth, and THEN something happened and it got all wrecked. That in itself provides ZERO data regarding how long it was between the creation of heaven and earth and the wrecking, or how long between the wrecking and the start of the "renovation". God could have created heaven and earth, and five days later it all got wrecked. And sat there in a wrecked state for 18 seconds. I'm not saying that's how it went down, I'm saying such a scenario is POSSIBLE with the data we have been presented with so far, and assuming your proposed correction to the translation is indeed correct.
And regardless of any of this, it STILL doesn't tell us how old the earth is. Prior to the separation of night from day, there were no evenings and mornings. The night could have sat there for 100,000,000,000 years before God said "Let there be light", or it could have sat there for .00000000000001 nanoseconds for all we know.
Please understand I am not asserting there is no gap of time between verse 1 and 2, or that there was not a catastrophic wrecking of things. Neither am I saying there was. What I
am saying is that so far there has been no real evidence presented that there was.
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