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What is Create?
        CREATE'
        , Ps 61:10, CREA'TOR, Eccl 12:1, CREA'TION. Mark 10:6. The word "creation" sometimes denotes all living things, and at others the act of creation. To create is to cause anything to exist that never existed in any form or manner before. Gen 1:1; Col 1:16. It is to make without materials to make of. Thus, "God said, Let there be light, and there was light." Gen 1:3. The panorama of creation in the first two chapters of Genesis is the sublimest that can be found or conceived, and eminently worthy of God, and man as made in the image of God. Neither poetry nor science has been able, or will ever be able, to produce anything better. God must have revealed it to the writer in a retrospective vision. The Bible gives two accounts. Gen 1:1-2:3, and Gen 2:4-25. They supplement each other, and they differ as the names of God Elohim (used in the first) and Jehovah (used in the second) differ. The first refers to the creation of the whole universe, the second looks particularly to the creation of man and to the subsequent history of the fall and of redemption. The great object of the inspired writer in both was to show that God is the Author of all existence, that he made all things in beautiful order, and that he made them for his glory and for the use and dominion of man as the crowning work of his hands; that the God who created the universe is the same as the Jehovah of the history of the redemption of fallen man. The six days represent six indescribable divine works in six divine periods, ending in a divine rest. Gen 2:2-3. The first work was the creation of light -i.e. the diffused cosmic light; the second, the organization of the physical heavens and the separation of the firmament from the earth; the third, the formation of the earth and the division of sea and land, with the creation of vegetable life; the fourth, the creation of the sun -i.e. the concentrated solar light-and the planetary system; the fifth, the creation of lower animal life in water and air; the sixth, the creation of higher animals on land, and the creation of man in the image of God. On the seventh day God rested from his creative work and entered upon his activity as the Preserver of all things, blessing his creatures and instituting the weekly day of rest for the benefit of body and soul. The first three days represent the era of matter, the next three days the era of life; the seventh day introduces the period of history, or of the moral world as distinct from the physical. The six days of creation are not necessarily six literal days, but may be, and are probably, periods of indefinite length. The question is not what God could do (for one hour or one minute would suffice for his omnipotence), but in what manner he usually works. That the word "day" is often used in a wider sense is evident from such expressions as the "day of the wicked," the "day of grace," the "day of judgment." To God a thousand years are as one day. Ps 90:4; 2 Pet 3:8. The narrative itself indicates such a wider use of the word; for the sun, that luminary which determines the solar day, was not created before the fourth day, and the seventh day, which represents the period of divine rest or preservation, has no evening. Gen 2:4. For a profound scholarly handling of this matter see Tayler Lewis's, "Special Introduction to the First Chapter of Genesis," part ii. pp. 131-135, in Lange's Commentary on Genesis (and his Six Days of Creation). He says: "It is not any duration, but the phenomenon, the appearing itself, that is called day." The Bible and science, nature and revelation, being the products of one and the same God, cannot contradict each other; and various attempts have been made to harmonize the Mosaic cosmogony with modern geology and astronomy by able Christian scientists (such as Prof. Guyot, Principal Dawson, and others). But it should be kept in mind that the Bible does not intend to teach science, but religion and the way of salvation. The great truths taught by Moses in the first two chapters of Genesis are obvious and independent of all science, as Guyot says: "A personal God calling into existence by his free, almighty will, manifested by his word, executed by his Spirit, things which had no being; a Creator distinct from his creation; a universe, not eternal, but which had a beginning in time; a creation successive-the six days-and progressive-beginning with the lowest element, matter, continuing by the plant and animal life, terminating by man, made in God's image; thus marking the great steps through which God, in the course of ages, has gradually realized the vast organic plan of the cosmos we now behold in its completeness, and which he declared to be very good,-these are the fundamental spiritual truths which have enlightened men of all ages on the true relations of God to his creation and to man. To understand them fully, to be comforted by them, requires no astronomy or geology. To depart from them is to relapse into the cold, unintelligent fatalism of the old pantheistic religions and modern philosophies, or to fall from the uppper regions of light and love infinite into the dark abysses of an unavoidable scepticism." It is interesting to compare with the Mosaic cosmogony the old Assyrian tradition of the Creation, which has been brought to light by modern discovery. These Chaldaean or Assyrian legends of the Creation have been discovered in a mutilated form, written upon twelve tablets, and are printed by the late Mr. George Smith in his Chaldaean Account of Genesis (London, 1876). He thus translates the fragments which contain the first part of the story: "When above were not raised the heavens, and below on the earth a plant had not grown up; the abyss also had not broken up their boundaries: the chaos (or water) Tiamat (the sea) was the producing mother of the whole of them. Those waters at the beginning were ordained; but a tree had not grown, a flower had not unfolded. When the gods had not sprung up, any one of them; a plant had not grown, and order did not exist; were made also the great gods, the gods Lahmu and Lahamu they caused to come . . . and they grew . . . the gods Sar and Kisar were made ... a course of days and a long time passed" (pp. 62, 63). Compare Gen 1:1-2. The succeeding tablets are so broken that no connected story can be read from them until we come to the fifth, which gives an account of the fourth day of creation: "It was delightful, all that was fixed by the great gods. Stars, their appearance [in figures] of animals he arranged. To fix the year through the observation of their constellations, twelve months (or signs), of stars in three rows he arranged, from the day when the year commences unto the close. He marked the position of the wandering stars [planets] to shine in their courses, that they may not do injury, and may not trouble any one; the positions of the gods Bel and Hea he fixed with him. And he opened the great gates in the darkness shrouded-the fastenings were strong on the left and right. In its mass [i.e. the lower chaos] he made a boiling, the god Urn [the moon] he caused to rise out, the night he overshadowed, to fix it also for the light of the night, until the shining of the day, that the month might not be broken, and in its amount be regular. At the beginning of the month, at the rising of the night, his horns are breaking through to shine on the heaven. On the seventh day to a circle he begins to swell, and stretches toward the dawn further" (pp. 69-71). Comp. Gen 1:14-19. The seventh tablet is very imperfect, but the translation gives some interesting coincidences with Genesis: "When the gods in their assembly had created . . . were delightful the strong monsters . . . they caused to be living creatures . . . cattle of the field, beasts of the field, and creeping things of the field . . . they fixed for the living creatures . . . cattle and creeping things of the city they fixed . . . the assembly of the creeping things the whole which were created . . , which in the assembly of my family . . . and the god Ninsi-ku (the lord of noble face) caused to be two . . . the assembly of the creeping things he caused to go ... " (pp. 76,77). Comp. Gen 1:24-25. The tablets which relate the creation of man are unhappily so mutilated that the sense is totally uncertain, but the first fragment appears to give the speech of the Deity to the newly-created pair, and on the reverse a particular address to the woman. Then follow more tablets relating the Fall. Prof. Oppert read before the congress of Orientalists in Florence (1878) a translation of the Assyrian tablets relating to the Creation and the Fall, which differs greatly from the above-given translation of Mr. George Smith. The mutilated condition of the tablets, together with the uncertainty of many of the meanings, easily accounts for the differences. We give, by way of comparison, Prof. Oppert's translation of the tablet on which the fourth creative day is described: 1. "He distributed the stations of the great gods, seven in number, 2. And fixed the stars, the mansions of the seven lumari (i.e. fixed stars regulating the celestial movements). 3. He created the perpetual renewal of the year and divided it into thirty six decades. 4. For each of the twelve months he fixed three stars. 5. From the day of the beginning of the year until its close 6. He fixed the station of the god Nibiru that their circles (of days) might be perpetually renewed. 7. In order to prevent either shortening or interruption 8. The stations of Bel and Hea he fixed with it, 9. And he spread the three gates on the limbs of the angles. 10. He made a sigar on the right and on the left: 11. At the four exteriors he established staircases. 12. The moon was appointed to betray the night, 13. And he made it renew itself to hide the night and make day perpetual; 14. (Saying): 'Every month with daybreak accomplish thy circle. 15. In the beginning of the month the night will reign; 16. Thy horns will be invisible, for the heaven is renewed. 17. The seventh day thy disk will be filled up on the left, 18. But open in darkness will remain the half on the right. 19. (In the middle of the month) the sun will be on the horizon of the sky at thy rising. 20. (In splendor may thy form reign and make . . . 21. (Hence go back) and turn thyself toward the way of the sun. 22. (Then will change) the darkness: to the sun return, 23. . . . seek her ways . . . 24. (Rise and) set according to the eternal laws.'" The account of the Creation upon these tablets is manifestly confused. How different the account in Genesis, which bears throughout the impress of truth! The Bible contains the revealed order of events; the tablets have only the traditional, and in part purely fanciful, story to tell.


Bibliography Information
Schaff, Philip, Dr. "Biblical Definition for 'create' in Schaffs Bible Dictionary".
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