The word bara is translated as "created" in English, but the concept it embodied was not the same as the modern term: in the world of the ancient Near East, the gods demonstrated their power over the world not by creating matter but by fixing destinies, so that the essence of the bara which God performs in Genesis concerns bringing "heaven and earth" (a set phrase meaning "everything") into existence by organising and assigning roles and functions. The use of numbers in ancient texts was often numerological rather than factual – that is, the numbers were used because they held some symbolic value to the author. The number seven, denoting divine completion, permeates Genesis 1: verse 1:1 consists of seven words, verse 1:2 of fourteen, and 2:1–3 has 35 words (5×7); Elohim is mentioned 35 times, "heaven/firmament" and "earth" 21 times each, and the phrases "and it was so" and "God saw that it was good" occur 7 times each. The second seems to be the meaning intended by the original Priestly author: the verb bara is used only of God (people do not engage in bara), and it concerns the assignment of roles, as in the creation of the first people as "male and female" (i.e., it allocates them sexes): in other words, the power of God is being shown not by the creation of matter but by the fixing of destinies. The heavens and the earth is a set phrase meaning "everything", i.e., the cosmos. This was made up of three levels, the habitable earth in the middle, the heavens above, and an underworld below, all surrounded by a watery "ocean" of chaos as the Babylonian Tiamat. The Earth itself was a flat disc, surrounded by mountains or sea. Above it was the firmament, a transparent but solid dome resting on the mountains, allowing men to see the blue of the waters above, with "windows" to allow the rain to enter, and containing the Sun, Moon and stars. The waters extended below the Earth, which rested on pillars sunk in the waters, and in the underworld was Sheol, the abode of the dead. Second day Rāqîa , the word translated as firmament, is from rāqa', the verb used for the act of beating metal into thin plates. Created on the second day of creation and populated by luminaries on the fourth, it is a solid dome which separates the Earth below from the heavens and their waters above, as in Egyptian and Mesopotamian belief of the same time. In Genesis 1:17 the stars are set in the raqia '' '; in Babylonian myth the heavens were made of various precious stones (compare Exodus 24:10 where the elders of Israel see God on the sapphire floor of heaven), with the stars engraved in their surface.
The word bara is translated as "created" in English, but the concept it embodied was not the same as the modern term: in the world of the ancient Near East, the god over the world not by creating matter but by fixing destinies, so that the essence of the "heaven and earth" (a set phrase meaning "everything") into existence by organising and assigning roles and functions. The use of numbers in ancient texts was often numerological rather than factual – that is, the numbers were used because they held some symbolic value to the author. The number seven, denoting divine completion, permeates Genesis 1: verse 1:1 consists of seven words, verse 12, "heaven/firmament" and "earth" 21 times each, and the phrases "and it was so" and "God saw that it was good" occur 7 times each. The second seems to be the meaning intended by the original Priestly author: the verb bara is used only of God (people do not engage in bara), and it concerns the assignment of roles, as in the creation of the first people as "male and female" (i.e., it allocates them sexes): in other words, the power of God is being shown not by the creation of matter but by the fixing of destinies. The heavens and the earth is a set phrase meaning "everything", i.e., the cosmos. This was made up of three levels, the habitable earth in the middle, the heavens above, and an underworld below, all surrounded by a watery "ocean" of chaos as the Babylonian Tiamat. The Earth itself was a flat disc, surrounded by mountains or sea. Above it was the firmament, a transparent but solid dome resting on the mountains, allowing men to see the blue of the waters above, with "windows" to allow the rain to enter, and containing the Sun, Moon and stars. The waters extended below the Earth, which rested on pillars sunk in the waters, and in the underworld was Sheol, the abode of the dead. Second dayRāqîa , the word translated as firmament, is from rāqa', the verb used for the act of beating metal into thin plates. Created on the second day of creation and populated by luminaries on the fourth, it is a solid dome which separates the Earth below from the heavens and their waters above, as in Egyptian and Mesopotamian belief of the same time. In Genesis 1:17 the stars are set in the raqia '; in Babylonian myth the heavens were made of various precious stones (compare Exodus 24:10 where the elders of Israel see God on the sapphire floor of heaven), with the stars engraved in their surface.
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gods demonstrated their power
god
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bara which God performs in Genesis concerns bringing
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1:2 of fourteen, and 2:1–3 has 35 words (5×7); Elohim is mentioned 35 times,
12,
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day
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Rāqîa
dayRāqîa
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