The scriptures clearly and specifically indicate create EX hUDATOS rather than EX NIHILO:

2Pe 3:5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth [dry land] standing out of the water [EX hUDATOS] and in the water:
2Pe 3:6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:

Psa 24:1 A Psalm of David. The earth [dry land] is the LORD’S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.
Psa 24:2 For he hath founded it **upon the seas**, and established it **upon the floods**.

Genesis 1 clearly begins with a pre-existent infinite chaotic abyss. Think “Thales.” It is philosophy (as someone pointed out) and dogma that dictate EX NIHILO.

So the flip side of this whole discussion relates to those who contend that BARA means “create” (as in, “out of nothing”) – which it doesn’t signify, and context protests against suggesting that it does. God BARAed Adm from the dirt, not EX NIHILO.

Gen 1:27 So God created [BARA] man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

How was man made? Well, ADM from dirt, and Eve from a bone.

While I can’t contribute much to the issue of BARA as “separate,” it is, IM[somewhat]HO, crystal clear that it does not suggest or support EX NIHILO “creation.”

Some have suggested that her reading was an attack on EX NIHILO. I don’t see the dichotomy, but if EX NIHILO and her reading are incompatible, and that is some part of the measure of the worth of her argument in anyone’s mind, then I think they need to give her another listen.

>>>…The verb bara, he created, being joined in the singular number with Elohim the plural noun, exemplifies the unity of the trinity….

Not according to the 4th gospel, because there, the one who was “with God” was his utterance, not Jesus and a ghost:

Gen 1:3 And **God said**, Let there be light: and there was light.

It is to that that John refers – to “Let there be light.”

And without this utterance was not anything made (that is, of the things that *were* made, because some things pre-existed):

Gen 1:6 And **God said**, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

Everything (that was made), was made through this utterance:

Joh 1:1 In the beginning [BERESHIT] was the Word ["utterance"], and the Word ["utterance"] was with God, and the Word ["utterance"] was [of the quality of] God[-utterance].
Joh 1:2 The same was in the beginning [Gen 1] with God.
Joh 1:3 All things were made by him [it (neuter) - utterance]; and without him [it] was not any thing made ***that was made***.

http://ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com/ancient_hebrew_poetry/2010/02/ellen-van-wolde-roundup.html

Indeed the words opening Genesis may be translated ‘God in the beginning created the substance of the heavens and the substance of the earth’,

That seems like an interpretation, not a translation, to me. (The often-cited connection to et, aleph to tav, and alpha and omega is interesting commentary, but I think it tells us what we can make the words mean, not what they meant.)