“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” is not the first verse of the Bible. The first verse of the Bible is בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ. But aren’t these the same except that one is in English and one is in Hebrew? Maybe, but here’s the point: the Bible was not written in English, and the English translation you see is only God’s Word insofar as it accurately represents what God spoke in Hebrew.
Look, I am not trying to be pedantic here. In fact, the meaning of the first word of the Bible and how best to understand the phrase is actually debated among scholars. The first phrase is normally translated as “In the beginning,” but this is translating one word in Hebrew: bereshit. If you know Hebrew, you will immediately notice that there is no equivalent to the word ‘the’ found in the Hebrew. In other words, all we have is “In beginning.” This begs the question: should the phrase be understood as “In the beginning” or “In a beginning” or something like “Initially” or “When God first created.” All of these options have been proposed by scholars, and in fact, the Jewish Publication Society’s 2006 version of this verse reads “When God began to create heaven and earth” implying that the phrase does not refer to the beginning of time, but just the beginning of God’s creative acts.
So who is right? That’s an important question, and we’ll get to it briefly, but I want to ask a deeper question: if you don’t know Hebrew, how can you engage in the conversation about what the Hebrew words mean? You really can’t. Sure, you can still read the Bible and understand it, but you can only understand what your English Bible is telling you the Hebrew Bible is saying. If the English version you happen to be reading is incorrect, then you will understand it as something other than what God intended.
This is why learning the original languages is so important. You can’t engage in the nuanced discussions about what God’s Word says if you do not know the languages God used to communicate in. Don’t misunderstand me. You can get the big picture, and you can still engage in theological discussions. But there is nuance that you will miss, and there are ways of reading the text, which might be correct, that you cannot access because the translation you are using does not allow for such a reading. So if you are wondering to yourself, “Should I start exploring the Old Testament in Hebrew,” my answer to you would be that if you want to engage with God’s Word on the deepest level possible, you need to learn the original languages of the Bible.
I said I would offer brief thoughts on the meaning of Genesis 1:1, so here are some. Let me begin by saying that the translators of the JPS Bible obviously know Hebrew. Learning to read the Bible in Hebrew will not magically solve all the translation and interpretation difficulties. However, it will allow you to engage in the debate, so you can decide for yourself who you think is correct.
I actually do think that most English translations get this correct and that the JPS version is not right. One of the main issues is the lack of the word ‘the’. Not all languages have the word ‘the’, but Hebrew does have something close in meaning, namely ha-. However, it is close in meaning but not identical, and there are plenty of contexts where you do not have –ha, but the best translation into English is still to supply the word the. For example, Proverbs 1:7 says ‘fearing God is the beginning of wisdom.’ Just like in Genesis 1:1, there is no article associated with reshit here in any way, but to say ‘fearing God is a beginning of wisdom’, suggesting that there are multiple beginnings of wisdom, cannot be correct in the context. The JPS translators also recognize this and translate reshit as ‘the beginning’ here. Moreover, if I wanted to say something like ‘In the beginning of God creating’ or ‘When God began to create’, I would use a different verb form in Hebrew, namely an infinitive. We actually find this in Genesis 2:4 which says בְּי֗וֹם עֲשׂ֛וֹת יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהִ֖ים אֶ֥רֶץ וְשָׁמָֽיִם ‘on the day of the Lord God’s making of earth and heaven.’ The verb ‘making’ is in the infinitive here, whereas the verb ‘create’ in Genesis 1:1 is in a different verb form that is not normally used in subordinate temporal clauses in the same way. All of this suggests that ‘When God began to create…’ would be expressed differently in Hebrew, and bereshit can still mean ‘in the beginning’ even without the article. In my opinion, the typical English translation of ‘In the beginning’ where ‘the’ is supplied is probably correct.
The debate about Genesis 1:1 will certainly go on. If you want to be a part of it, you can learn Hebrew, so you can start to explore the Old Testament for yourself in the original language God spoke in.
