The entire silence of commentators regarding the doubtful meaning of "creation" is so surprising, that I have had the greatest difficulty in persuading myself that the explanation I propose is new. Yet certainly I have never come across it anywhere.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE GENESIS NARRATIVE CONSIDERED GENERALLY.
I.—THE FIRST PART OF THE NARRATIVE.
§ 1. Objections to the Received Interpretations.
Taking the narrative as it stands, we find it to consist of two parts. First, a general statement, of which no division of time is predicated, and which is unaccompanied by any detail. Second, there is an account seriatim of certain operations which are stated to have been severally performed one on each of six days.
As regards the first portion, we have no definite knowledge of scientific truth with which to compare the narrative. It is obviously necessary for some Divine teacher to tell us authoritatively that God originated and caused the material earth, and the systems of suns and stars which men on the earth's surface are able to discern in the "heavens."
We are consequently informed that in the beginning—there is no practical need for defining further—"God created the heavens and the earth." Here the question arises whether the Hebrew "bara," which is a general term, alludes to the first production of material, or to the moulding or fashioning of material already (in terms) assumed to exist. I think that the conclusion must be that the best authority is in favour of the idea of absolute origination of the whole;—the bringing the entire system into existence where previously there was a perfect blank. But even if the secondary meaning of "fashioned" or "forged" be allowed, we have still an intelligible rendering. For in that case the first origination of matter is tacitly assumed by the term itself, and the statement would be, that the matter of the future cosmos so existing, the Divine Artificer fashioned or moulded it into the orderly fabric it has come to be.