Create, Make and Form of Genesis

In Genesis 1 we find 3 interesting Hebrew words.

Create= Bara

Make=   Asah

Form=   Yatsar

I do not see bara and asah and yatsar as having the same meaning. They are similar, but they are not the same.

Bara is mentioned the first time in reference to the first spiritual act in Genesis 1:1, God bara -everything-. From NoThing to everything. In my view for this to happen at the very beginning there needs to be a first spiritual act of self sacrifice, self closing. 
The second time of bara is for the soul of animals (starting in water life and evolving into land life and so it is not needed for mention with land animals, but understood) with God bara the great whales and every living thing in the waters. The third time for bara is for the spirit of humans with God bara male and female. 

Asah is mentioned for the non-living firmament, and non-living sun/moon/stars, but not for living plants. It is later also used for living land animals and humans, but not living water life. In my opinion asah is used for humans/hominids/apes because of their added intellect and land animals get asah because of their added emotions. (This is with exception to animals that were once on land and returned to the seas of course, like whales and dolphins). 

Plants don't get asah because they don't have any emotions or intellect and they don't get bara because they don't have a living soul or what I would call consciousness. 

The earth as it is gathered also does not get asah or bara, because this is not a spiritual act and everything is in relation to the Earth, not the Earth in relation to other things. 

Sun/Moon/Stars get asah because there is a relational relevance here to the Earth where humans evolved, but the star/sun/moon don't get bara because there is no spiritual aspect here.

The Firmament gets asah, because it too shares a relational relevance to the Earth, but it also does not have any spiritual aspect and so the writer refrains from using bara.

We can look at the differences between create and make in English to see this simply. A creator of a new design will create. I created a story. It is something original, no one else can do or have done and it is something new. 

However, I will make a house or make a book. This simply means using the processes familiar to everyone. Nails, wood, hammer and I can make my house. OR with paper, a type writer and binding material I can make my book.

If I create my own house design, then it is new and original and only I can do it and did it. 

I agree Bara is unique because it is something only God can do, but while I agree this is for significance I feel the significance is found in the spiritual side of things. It is significant because of its spiritual significance. 

Create is to create out of nothing, so it results in something new (When we go back to the origin of the word we see there is linkage to this meaning) 

Make is to create, but out of information we have already, so it results in a copy (A copy or a match. Match is also the linkage for the origins of this word)

But what is nothing? It doesn’t necessarily mean nothing as people traditionally think of nothing as in non existence of everything. Because when you think about it, that cannot exist. Why can’t it exist, because in the absence of all Things, we would still have the Spirit of God and that is something!

Further, current science shows us that nothing is never the non existence of everything, but a chaotic random bubbling of virtual particles. So in either sense non existence does not apply. There is always something, but that something doesn’t form anything yet. Nothing and everything are the same thing, just in different forms!

So, what is meant by nothing? No Thing, everything that we know did not exist, but there was God, but simply God is NoThing. 

So, Bara, in my view, is something created NEW, ORIGINAL, that did not exist before God. 

However, Make is not something new, not original…it copies. It uses information already in existence. 

This is how I see it. This also seemed to be the view of Rabbi Nachimandies. 

I also find it very interesting three verbs at once Bara and Asah and Yatsar are used for animals and humans. This is not the case for anything else in Genesis 1. Bara and Yatsar are only used for land animals. Asah and bara are used for water animals. Plants use only the Earth.

Why not for the plants, the lights, the earth, the waters? Because they don’t have a soul or spirit.  

BARA is not used for anything else other than water animals, humans and then in the first line of Genesis. For myself this is for the spiritual importance, but also as the first spiritual act.

This makes sense logically to me because before the Physical world existed, what existed? I would say the Spirit of God. So, if only the spirit existed, then how can anything else occupy its space?

Space has to be formed for the physical world to exist inside of it. So, the question becomes how?

For myself it is simple. The spirit must perform the first act of self sacrifice and close itself and in this closing a void is formed to allow for a space for the physical world. This void to me I would call literally nothing —but what I mean by nothing is not the non-existence of everything, because I don’t think true non-existence or absolute nothingness exists.

What it is, is Chaos———the chaos of all the natural energy. Not the spiritual energy. 

What I think is that this “nothingness” that was formed in fact is the bubbling chaotic mess of virtual particles which scientists have detected. Yes, nothingness doesn’t exist, but this in fact what nothingness is. 

What is essential to me in chapter 1, verse 1 is that we do NOT see God making or creating or even using His words to bring this CHAOS -TOHU- into existence. It already was. It just is in the very first line. WHY?

For myself it is clear, because it is the consequence of the first spiritual act. 

Everything goes from a lower energy state of random chaos into a higher energy state of non-random and ordered appearances. 

We also see the word evening also meaning Chaos in Hebrew. the Hebrew of ‘evening’ (VAYEHI EREV) and ‘morning’ (BOKER, BIKO- RET) can be understood as ‘chaos’ and ‘order’. Everything is going through a process of chaos first and then order. From invisibly into visibility. 

Bara is the spiritual act. BUT, in a sense it is nothingness too! Just not as you and most people think of it. When we say nothingness, and I think when God creates from nothingness, what that means is in fact from NO THINGS. Which means it is spiritual, it is unseen, it is not natural.

The other way to create is by using things, or information. So Nothingness in this sense, is a physical nothingness, thus spiritual. I see this in a similar way to Rabbi Ramban. However, he does not make the distinction between the NoThing of the Spiritual and the physical nothingness as essentially the natural energy of everything -just in its most broken down fundamental form. But to me this is very much what nothing is. All the natural energy broken down into its most simple form. 

So this to me is the major difference between Bara and Asah. To create is to create something new, original and with spiritual significance. It is to form from nothing, because the spirit is NO THING. However, when we start seeing things, the natural, the physical is when we see ASAH appear. This is because to make things, you need things/information.  (Look at Information Theory). 

Things are built from Simple to Complex. From Random to Non-Random. From Physical Nothing (which is a chaos of virtual particles) into Something. This is the process.  

When you run into No Thing, you also find the Spirit.

How I see it:

The way I see Genesis 1 is that yes it was a story written at a certain time from people interpreting their world around them, and likely during the time where waters from floods (ice caps melting and coastal waters) receded. They were explaining how their world came to be, from an OBSERVATIONAL point of view. 

But I think they not only looked at the Earth, but also looked into the sky. What they saw would have been “waters above” different from waters below. The sky above is blue and water -rain- falls from it. This, to me, shows the people could have easily have considered it “the waters above” and this is why it is mentioned in Day 2. 

When we look up into the sky and the sun descends, we then see space- darkness and stars or light— for myself this easily could have been what was referred to In Day 1.

So, for myself, it is very likely that the people were in fact contemplating the above- the darkness, the waters above them, and this became part of that “creation story” as they experienced the floods. 

However- The text is like a seed, and the people who wrote it planted the seed, but as time continued, that seed grew and as people gained in knowledge they can see the seed unfolding as well and harvest it. 

The ideas that differ from a concrete observational understanding are not new. They can be found not only with rabbis of 500 years ago, but within the Talmud itself from 1500 years ago. Orally much longer. This shows that well educated men who know their language, religion and culture well thought differently about it as well. Also- this shows that it is not modern science influencing these ideas. Many of these ideas existed prior to modern science.

Further, we have various interpretations from Rabbis, not just one. This is because the Hebrew words are not so absolute, they allow for diverse opinion and thought. 

Personally, I think the Genesis 1 was also inspired by the Spirit to reveal future truths as well as past truths, and so Hebrew is a good language to allow for this because of its ability to expand. 

However- I also feel spiritual truths are shared in other religions as well.