What Is the First Word in the Hebrew Bible

First verse of the first chapter of the Book of Genesis

Genesis 1:1
1:2 →
The first chapter of Genesis (B'reshit in Hebrew) written on an egg in the Israel Museum.
Book	Book of Genesis
Hebrew Bible part	Torah
Order in the Hebrew part	1
Christian Bible part	Old Testament
Order in the Christian part	1

Genesis 1:1 is the first verse of the first chapter in the Book of Genesis in the Bible and the opening of the Genesis creation narrative. The Hebrew is as follows:

• Vocalized: בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ‎
• Transliterated: Bereshit bara Elohim et hashamayim ve'et ha'aretz.

1. Bereshit (בְּרֵאשִׁית‎): "In [the] beginning [of something]". The definite article (i.e., the Hebrew equivalent of "the") is missing, but implied.^[1]
2. bara (ברא‎): "[he] created/creating". The word is in the masculine singular form, so that "he" is implied; a peculiarity of this verb is that it used only of God.^[2]
3. Elohim (אלהים‎): 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 (אֵת‎): a particle used in front of the direct object of a verb, in this case "the heavens and the earth", indicating that this is what is being "created".
5. Hashamayim ve'et ha'aretz (הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ‎): "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.^[3]
6. ha is the definite article, equivalent to the English word "the".
7. ve is equivalent to English "and".

The Opening of Genesis Chapter 1 from a 1620–21 King James Bible in black letter type. The first edition of the KJV was 1611.

It can be translated into English in at least three ways:

1. As a statement that the cosmos had an absolute beginning ("In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth").
2. As a statement describing the condition of the world when God began creating ("When in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was untamed and shapeless").
3. Taking all of Genesis 1:2 as background information ("When in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, the earth being untamed and shapeless, God said, Let there be light!").^[4]

It is widely taken as the authority for the Judeo-Christian doctrine of creation out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo), but most biblical scholars agree that on strictly linguistic and exegetical grounds this is not the preferred option,^{[5] [6] [7]} and the authors of Genesis 1, writing around 500–400 BCE, had been concerned not with the origins of matter (the material which God formed into the habitable cosmos), but with the fixing of destinies.^[2]

See also [edit]

• Genesis 1:2
• Parashat Bereshit

References [edit]

Citations [edit]

1. ^ Blenkinsopp 2011, pp. 30–31.
2. ^ ^{a b} Walton 2006, p. 183.
3. ^ Waltke 2011, p. 179.
4. ^ Bandstra 1999, pp. 38–39.
5. ^ Blenkinsopp 2011, p. 30.
6. ^ Nebe 2002, p. 119.
7. ^ Clifford 2017, p. unpaginated.

Bibliography [edit]

• Bandstra, Barry L. (1999). Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible. Wadsworth Publishing Company. ISBN0495391050.
• Blenkinsopp, Joseph (2011). Creation, Un-Creation, Re-Creation: A Discursive Commentary on Genesis 1–11. T&T Clarke International. ISBN9780567372871.
• Clifford, Richard J (2017). "Creatio ex Nihilo in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible". In Anderson, Gary A.; Bockmuehl, Markus (eds.). Creation ex nihilo: Origins, Development, Contemporary Challenges. University of Notre Dame. ISBN9780268102562.
• May, Gerhard (2004). Creatio ex nihilo. T&T Clarke International. ISBN9780567456229.
• Nebe, Gottfried (2002). "Creation in Paul's Theology". In Hoffman, Yair; Reventlow, Henning Graf (eds.). Creation in Jewish and Christian Tradition. Sheffield Academic Press. ISBN9780567573933.
• Waltke, Bruce K. (2011). An Old Testament Theology. Zondervan. ISBN9780310863328.
• Walton, John H. (2006). Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible. Baker Academic. ISBN0-8010-2750-0.

What Is the First Word in the Hebrew Bible

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_1:1

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