180 CREATE, Sylvester Hassell To create signifies to form out of nothing. Man can form things out of material God has already created; but only God can create. The Hebrew word translated created is Bara, and occurs 45 times in the Old Testament; its Greek equivalent, Ktizo, occurs 35 times in the New Testament. Bara is the strongest word in the Hebrew language to express making out of nothing (Gesenius’ Thesaurus), and it always conveys the idea of something new. The only subject of this verb in the Bible is God; he only can create. Four times in the Old Testament (Psa. 51:10, Isa. 5:17,18), and four times in the New Testament (Eph. 2:10, 4:24, 2 Cor. 5:17, Gal. 6:15), it denotes a spiritual creation, of which God is the author.
Bara occurs in three verses of the first chapter of Genesis (verses 1, 21, and 27), in speaking of the creation of the universe, of animal life, and of man. Everywhere else in that chapter God is said to have simply made or formed (asah or yatzar) from an already created material.” (Hassell’s History pg 35) (See also under EVOLUTION)