22 CONSISTENCY OF GEOLOGICAL 
evening or commencement of the first day of the 
Mosaic narrative.^ 
The second verse may describe the condition 
of the earth on the evening of this first day; (for in 
the Jewish mode of computation used by Moses, 
* I have much satisfaction in subjoining the following note 
by my friend, the Regius Professor of Hebrew in Oxford, as 
it enables me to advance the very important sanction of Hebrew 
criticism, in support of the interpretations, by which we may recon- 
cile the apparent difficulties arising from geological phenomena, 
with the literal interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis. — 
" Two opposite errors have, I think, been committed by critics, 
with regard to the meaning of the word bara, created ; the one, 
by those who asserted that it 7nust in itself signify " created out 
of nothing ;" the other, by those who endeavoured, by aid of 
etymology, to show that it must in itself signify " formation out 
of existing matter." In fact, neither is the case ; nor am I aware 
of any language in which there is a word signifying necessarily 
** created out of nothing;" as of course, on the other hand, no 
word when used of the agency of God would, in itself, imply the 
previous existence of matter. Thus the English word, create, by 
which bara is translated, expresses that the thing created received 
its existence from God, without in itself conveying whether God 
called that thing into existence out of nothing, or no ; for our 
very addition of the words " out of nothing," shows that the word 
creation has not, in itself, that force : nor indeed, when we speak 
of ourselves as creatures of God's hand, do we at all mean that 
we were physically formed out of nothing. In like manner, 
whether bara should be paraphrased by "created out of nothing " 
(as far as we can comprehend these words), or, " gave a new 
and distinct state of existence to a substance already existing," 
must depend upon the context, the circumstances, or what God 
has elsewhere revealed, not upon the mere force of the word. 
This is plain, from its use in Gen. i. 27, of the creation of man, 
who, as we are instructed, chap. ii. 7, was formed out of previ- 
ously existing matter, the ' dust of the ground.' The word bara 
