Use of the vocable ברא “to create”
is generally not considered an anthropomorphism because this vocable “is never
used in the Hebrew Old Testament with other than God as its subject”; so Bruce Vawter
(On Genesis: A New Reading [Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977], 39),
echoing the nearly unanimous voice of modern commentators. Gerhard von Rad (Genesis:
A Commentary [OTL; 2nd ed.; London: SCM, 1963], 47) goes so far as to claim
mistakenly, that ברא implies creatio ex nihilo. (Bernard
F. Batto, “The Divine Sovereign: The Image of God in the Priestly Creation
Account,” in Batto, In the Beginning: Essays on Creation Motifs in the
Ancient Near East and the Bible [Siphrut Literature and Theology of the
Hebrew Scriptures 9; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2013], 96 n. 1, emphasis added)
Further Reading
Blake T. Ostler, Out of Nothing: A History of Creation ex Nihilo in Early Christian