"Bara" Today

Philip G. Roets STL, SSL

"Bara" is the second word in Genesis of the Hebrew Old Testament. It is translated into Latin and then into English as "created." Then theologians, following the Council of Trent in 1563, defined this term as "producing from nothing." Hence the Bible is said to be in conflict with the scientific picture of evolution.

As a matter of linguistic fact, this word in Hebrew is a Lamedh-Aleph verb. This means that its third radical or consonant is the letter "aleph." That means that the word came into usage in the 2nd century B.C. It shows the influence of Aramaic which was the spoken language of the time.

The root word is "BAR" which means "son" in Aramaic. Therefore the word "bara" means to "beget a son." Hence the key notion of the whole picture of the origin of the universe and mankind, as the Bible presents it, is not an answer to the question "how" but an answer to the question "why." The purpose of the universe is to manifest the "Fatherhood" of God. God is the Father and therefore all mankind is to form the "Brotherhood of mankind." How this world came to be is up to science to find out by its ongoing investigations.

Then the whole Old Testament presents what is meant by "Son of God" or "Son of Yahweh." First of all, the phrase was to mean every human being. But human beings failed to accept the responsibility. Then the phrase was applied to the Chosen People, the race descendant from Abraham, through the patriarchs. Then, the Kingdom of the Chosen People was established in the 10th century B.C. The term was then applied to or reserved for the king. The king was the special Son of Yahweh as seen in David. However, the kings quickly took other paths and deserted their privileged position.

After the Exile, the Remnant of the Chosen People were to be the Son of Yahweh. However, they too turned to other gods and away from Yahweh. Finally, as the Old Testament draws to a close in the Book of Wisdom, we are told that the true Son of Yahweh, or Son of God, is the "Wise Person." That's the way the Old Testament ends: Only a truly wise person is a Son of God.

Jesus is born and begins his work of fulfillment. His Wisdom is seen at every turn. Following the lead of Daniel, he is called first the "SON OF MAN." This seems to have been Jesus' favorite designation of himself. In the final stages, John takes the name further. He points out that Jesus is truly the "Son of Yahweh." Jesus is the full manifestation of the creative word of Yahweh. He is the perfect manifestation of a person cooperating fully in the plan of Yahweh. He is the truly wise man, the Son of God.

When Jesus has fulfilled the plan of Yahweh with his resurrection, he gives or establishes the new creative "BREATH," the breath of the Second Adam, called the "HOLY SPIRIT." The Holy Spirit of the Second Adam is in contrast to the breath of the First Adam which was tainted by disobedience and rebellion. The "HOLY SPIRIT" is the spirit of sharing and working together that is to be the characteristic of all followers of Jesus to the end of time.

Followers of Jesus were not to form a separate society but were to be a society or "gathering" within the society in which they lived. They were to change the society around them by the manner in which they worked with and helped all whom they met. Hence the final picture is always, "Welcome, Blessed of my Father. For I was hungry and you shared your food. I was thirsty and you gave me cool water. I was in rags and you said 'Take my sweater.' I was sick and you took me to a doctor. I was in prison and you said, 'Let's go see a lawyer.' " Then come the most important words of the whole Bible: "As long as you did it to anyone else, you did it to me."

That is the "Holy Spirit" which is to bring the world to be the garden of delight that the Father envisioned from the beginning. That is the work of mankind: to establish the Brotherhood of Man in the Fatherhood of God.

This is what the word "BARA" means in the opening line of Genesis.

Our work is cut out for us in our daily lives — not in dogmas, catechisms, rituals, and church-buildings.