Creation (Hastings' Dictionary)

See Cosmogony, CRE-TtrRE. CREATURE is the somewhat loose rendering of nephesh (c;j), breathitig being, in On and Lv (once in Gn — l** — of sherez (\'~«f), swarming beinij, or, as it is there put, moving creature), and, in Ezk, of hai (T), living being (rendered, in each case, living creature). In NT, quite accurately, it represents Kriaim, and shares with creation the representation of KTlais. Neither /crdr/na nor ktIcis is ever emjiloyed by the LXX as a tr.

of nephesh, sherez, or hai, the favourite equivalents for these words respectively being f t^i), fpirerliy, and fwov. In Gn the verb bdra' (k-;5, 'create') is tr. solely by iroieiK: nTlftii' represents it first in Dt 4''''', and afterwards more usually than iroieTii ; while both stand for it, sometimes side by side, in Deutero-Isaiah {e.g. 45').

Since iroieri' is simply tomnke, while /criffivis (classically) to found (a city, a colony), and so to mnke from the begin- ning, originally, for the first time (not necessarily out of nothing), Krlieiv is especially fitted to express God's creative activity not only in the physical (Ec 12', Ro 1^), but also in the spiritual sphere (Col 3'".

For an OT premonition of the spiritual sense, see Ps bV, where create, KTl^av, and renew, iyKaivticiv, recall together the /taii'Tj ktI<tis, new creature, of 2 Co 5"). The use of the subst. kWcth exactly corresponds. In contradistinction to KTlafia, which points to the creative act completed and embodied, it denotes sometimes the creative act in process (Ro P"), at other times the thing created, regard being paid to the process of its production.

It is used ( 1 ) physically (a) of the whole creation (so invariably in OT and Apocr. ; in NT, Ro 8^), often with special reference to mankind as the creation (Mk 16", Col 1==) ; (6) of the individual creation, the creature (like the purely physical KTla/ia of the Apocr. and NT), Ro 8^ ; (2) spiritually, of the new creature (2 Co 5", Gal 6"), and the new creation (Ro 8^'^) in Christ Jesus, the original and originator of the new race, and the renovator of I nature as a whole. Cf.

the rabbinical expressions berlyah huddshah, 'new creation,' of a man con- verted to Judaism ; and hiddush ha'Olam, ' the new age ' (lit. newness of the age) to be ushered in by the Messiah ; also Isaiah's ' new heavens and new earth' (65"), the TroXiTvextffia, regeneration (Mt 19^), and the diroKaTiaraatt iravTuy, restitution of all things (Ac 3-').

The classical sense of KTi^eiv, to found, occurs only in 1 Es 4**, but is traceable in the meaning of ktIiii% in 1 P 2", xdo-j ipBpuirlyjj KTltrei, 'every institution, i.e. ordinance, of man.' J. Massie.