Genesis 1:1


Genesis 1:1 is the first verse of the first chapter of the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles and the opening of the Genesis creation narrative.

Text

The Hebrew is as follows:
  1. Bereshit : "In the beginning |In the beginning of ". Be is a prepositional prefix, resh is a noun, "head". As a result, this forms part of a genitive phrase, leading to a linguistic and exegetical translation of this word being 'In the beginning of...'.
  2. bara : " created/creating". The word is in the masculine singular form, so that "he" is implied; this verb is used only for the God of Israel. It always concern the bringing into existence of a functionality, through organisation and the assignment of roles and function, almost never the creation ex-nihilo of new material.
  3. Elohim : the generic word for God, whether the God of Israel or the gods of other nations; it is used throughout Genesis 1, and contrasts with the phrase YHWH Elohim, "God YHWH", introduced in Genesis 2.
  4. et : a particle used in front of the direct object of a verb, in this case "the heavens" and "the earth", indicating that these are what is being "created".
  5. Hashamayim ve'et ha'aretz : "the heavens and the earth"; this is a merism, a figure of speech indicating the two stand not for "heaven" and "earth" individually but "everything"; the entire cosmos.
The Greek is as follows:
  • Vocalized: ΕΝ ἀρχῇ ἐποίησεν ὁ Θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν.
  • Transliterated: EN archí epoíisen o Theós tón ouranón kaí tín gín.
The Latin is as follows:
It can be translated into English in at least three ways:
  1. As a statement that the cosmos had an absolute beginning.
  2. As a statement describing the world's condition when God began creating.
  3. Taking all of Genesis 1:2 as background information.

Analysis

Genesis 1:1 forms the basis for the Judeo-Christian doctrine of creation out of nothing. Some scholars still support this reading, but most agree that on strictly linguistic and exegetical grounds this is not the preferred option, and that the authors of Genesis 1 were concerned not with the origins of matter, but with the fixing of destinies.