Fundamentally
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth Genesis 1:1 NASB
In the beginning – Did you realize that the very first word in the Hebrew Bible has been the subject of intense theological interpretation rather than translation? You might have noticed that something was amiss when the JPS translation (1985) reads, “When God began to create heaven and earth.” Many modern scholars treat the opening of Genesis as a dependent clause. This has sparked considerable pushback from conservative believers. Notice (carefully) the opening remarks of Dr. Joshua Wilson from answersingenesis.org:
The traditional translation of Genesis 1:1 is well known, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” It is called the traditional translation because it has been the dominant rendering of Genesis 1:1 since the Greek Septuagint, the first major translation of the Hebrew Bible (into Greek), produced by Jewish scholars in the third century BC. Does the traditional translation describe the absolute beginning of the universe? Does it communicate the idea that the heavens and the earth were created out of nothing? Throughout history, Jews and Christians have overwhelmingly said, “Yes!” However, a growing number of Hebrew scholars are now saying, “No!” For many of them, their reason for doing so is not based upon their interpretation of this verse, but their retranslation of it. Considering the historical weight of the traditional translation, what is the compelling evidence for this change? Did earlier translators misunderstand the Hebrew text? Have there been new developments in the understanding of Hebrew grammar that would cause modern scholars to reject what past scholars and translators affirmed?[1]
Did you catch the important assumptions in his statement? 1) the dominant rendering since the LXX, and 2) the weight of traditional translation. And the unwritten assumption, that if the traditional translation of Genesis 1:1 isn’t correct, then “the idea of an absolute beginning of the universe and a creation out of nothing” collapses. Apparently there’s a lot at stake in making sure “in the beginning” is a statement about God’s creation of everything.
Unfortunately, the rendition of the Septuagint isn’t where we need to look. In fact, the LXX makes lots of mistakes when it translates Hebrew words and phrases. Wilson’s claim that the Genesis text should be rendered in the traditional way because it has been so rendered since the LXX is historical fact but not linguistic evidence. As we recently saw with Isaiah 7:14, a mistake in the LXX is still a mistake. And 50,000 Frenchmen can be wrong. So tradition is no reason to hold on to a mistaken translation. The fact is that if traditional translators misunderstood the Hebrew text, then we need to correct it no matter what happens to the theology based on it. And that’s the real point here. The traditional translation supports a theological claim. That’s why believers so strongly advocate it. It’s the doctrine that’s in jeopardy. It has nothing to do with the actual Hebrew text.
William White’s comment in TWOT is the traditional scholar’s approach:
The most important use of rēʾšît in the ot occurs in Gen 1:1 where it is combined with the proclitic preposition b (q.v.). There has been a great deal of debate over this use of rēʾšît. Many commentators both ancient and modern have tried to read the phrase as “when-” rather than “in the beginning” as do several modern versions. The chief modern justification for this interpretation of the root is to relate it to the phrase “enūma eliš” which begins the Babylonian epic of creation. However there is no evidence to connect the two different terms, the one in Hebrew and the other in Babylonian (see White, W., “Enuma Elish,” in ZEPB, II, p. 314). The proper interpretation of rēʾšît can be deduced from the other occurrences and the witness of all ancient versions. The nt (Jn 1:1) translates the Hebrew and follows the LXX precisely in its reading of (Gen 1:1) the first phrase of the ot. The use of this root leaves no doubt that Gen 1:1 opens with the very first and initial act of the creation of the cosmos.[2]
Joel Hoffman makes an important point about the Hebrew grammar in this verse.
“ . . . the verb in Hebrew normally comes before the subject, . . . Putting something even before the verb in ancient Hebrew has the force of emphasizing it or contrasting it with something else, a process known as contrastive emphasis.”[3]
“The point is that Genesis 1:1 answers the question, ‘When?’ not ‘What?’ We know that from the order of the words in Hebrew. A phrase-level English translation should reflect that nuance.”[4]
Accordingly, b’rēʾšît puts the emphasis of the text on the time, not the content. You might think, “Well, this only underscores the traditional translation ‘In the beginning.’” But Hoffman’s comment does more than that. It means that creation isn’t the point of this verse. Even if it all began at some point, what began is not the emphasis here. And this is further complicated by the word, b’rēʾšît itself. rēʾšît is used to describe the best of a group, the chief among many or the first in a series. If b’rēʾšît acts to emphasize or compare, the question becomes, “Compared to what?” The answer must be found in the culture of the people addressed, not in much later theological development. So ask yourself, “If you were standing in the crowd of ex-slaves released from Egypt, and Moses told you b’rēʾšît bara elohim, what contrast would come to mind?” Egyptian cosmology. In Egyptian cosmology:
The creation of the universe took place over a long period of time when the gods lived on earth and established kingdoms based on the principles of justice. When the gods left the earth to reside in the sky world, the pharaohs inherited the right to rule. The First Gods: The Book of the Dead, dating to the Second Intermediate Period, describes how the world was created by Atum, the god of Heliopolis, the centre of the sun-god cult in Lower Egypt. In the beginning, the world appeared as an infinite expanse of dark and directionless waters, named Nun. Nun was personified as four pairs of male and female deities. Each couple represented one of four principles that characterized Nun: hiddenness or invisibility, infinite water, straying or lack of direction, and darkness or lack of light.[5]
b’rēʾšît stands in contrast to the Egyptian primal, eternal chaos. It is not about a point on the timeline when God got busy and created everything. It is about the difference between the Hebrew and Egyptian ideas of divine sovereignty. b’rēʾšît tells those ex-slaves that Pharaoh is not a descendant from Nun, that he doesn’t rule the universe and that he, like everything else on earth, wasn’t always there. Genesis 1:1 wasn’t written for the Christian world, especially for the post-Newtonian Christian world. It was written for ancient Egyptian-influenced slaves. Therefore, the emphasis is not on what God did but rather on when what God did is different from when Nun did what he did.
If you want to hold on to the doctrine, then by all means used the traditional, LXX-based translation. But if you want to know what the children of Israel heard in this verse, then you’ll need to think post-Egyptian.
Topical Index: creation, in the beginning, b’rēʾšît, Genesis 1:1
[1] https://answersingenesis.org/hermeneutics/have-we-misunderstood-genesis-11/
[2] White, W. (1999). 2097 רֹאשׁ. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 826). Chicago: Moody Press.
[3] Joel Hoffman, And God Said: How Translations Conceal the Bible’s Original Meaning, p. 81.
[4] Ibid.
[5] https://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/civil/egypt/egcr09e.html
