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Distinguishing Between "Make" and "Create" in Genesis 1

There are some professing Christians who insist on finding ways of adding long ages into the Bible, but they ignore the context. While the context is frequently the surrounding verses, it can also mean culture, languages, and more. We look now at make and create.

Credit: Freeimages / Fernanda Ferrari
Those owlhoots have attempted to bushwhack the plain meaning of Scripture by saying that they are different aspects of creation, and that make means using material that was already created. Their eisegesis becomes heinous when their alleged distinction is used to give them license to add millions of years. Some even try to shove evolution into the picture. It won't work, especially when the greater context includes the New Testament.
Many people who have written on Genesis 1 have attempted to make a very significant distinction between two Hebrew words found there: bara (בָּרָא, to create) and asah (עָשָׂה, to make or do). Theistic evolutionists (TEs) and old-earth creationists (OECs) both accept the millions of years advocated by the scientific establishment (although the OECs do not accept neo-Darwinian evolution while TEs do). They sometimes try to defend the acceptance of millions of years by saying that bara refers to supernatural creation ex nihilo (Latin for “out of nothing”) but that asah means to make out of pre-existing material and therefore allows for creation over a long period of time.

This article should prove helpful when encountering people who use these words for long ages. To read the rest (you may want to bookmark it), head on over to "Understanding Genesis 1 Hebrew: Create (bara) & Make (asah)".