In the Beginning

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.

3 And God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. (Genesis 1.1-3; Revised Standard Version)

The Bible’s first three verses are ambiguous.  They are inexact.  Language scholars with advanced knowledge of Hebrew syntax tell us that these first words of Genesis can be taken in different ways, and are open to several interpretations.  

I’m not saying something obvious like “everyone who reads these words takes away his or her personal meaning.  I’m saying something more unsettling.   What I am saying that the Hebrew syntax of the Bible’s opening sentences yields different statements and can be translated into English or any language differently. 

What could be more essential to our idea of our basic condition than the idea that God made the world?  But like much else in the Bible, we receive not a simple declaration here, but a chorus of voices singing different parts. 

We can take the original Hebrew in at least 3 different ways.  But the English translation of the original language can only express one of them.  Translators must choose one. 

Case in Point: the NRSV Bible

I’ve seen this multivocality in my own life and as the minister of Christian congregations.  Through laziness more than anything, the Bible translation that sat on my desk for four decades was the Revised Standard Version (RSV).  I assumed that any updates would be cosmetic and unnoticeable.  So I never went to the trouble of getting the updated version.

But when the 1989 issue of the New Revised Standard Bible came out, it made a substantial change in its presentation of Genesis’ first verse.   

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters…

New Revised Standard Version

Only recently have I appreciated how important these changes are and how other legitimate English sentences could be used to translate the original Hebrew text.

There are only a small percentage of scholars whose language skills are deep enough to evaluate how readers should read and interpret these verses. 

I am not among them. 

But I have read the discussions of several Hebrew language specialists and I’d like to venture four paraphrases of Genesis’ first three verses as a way of putting this important issue in front of non-experts. 

I’m not pretending that these sentences are precise translations of the Hebrew original.  What I’ve concocted are sentences that amplify the differences and implications of the original’s ambiguity.

My top three resources are:

Fretheim, Terrence:  God and World in the Old Testament. Loc 986 (Kindle Edition)

Eichrodt, Walter: “In the Beginning: A Contribution to the Interpretation of the First Word of the Bible,” in Bernhard Anderson’s, Creation in the Old Testament p. 65.

McClellen, Dan: “In the Beginning.”   (Data Over Dogma Podcast).

Various Ways to Look At Genesis First Three Verses

If I’m understanding these commentators, I would paraphrase the first three verses of Genesis in four different ways:

1. To begin with, God said, “let there be light.”  At that point, the world was nothing but a fluid mess over which God’s Spirit hovered.  Anyway, light happened.  That was day one.
2. God’s creation of the world got its start with God’s Spirit hovering over the chaos.  Then God said, let there be light.  And there was light.
3. Everything took its beginning when God created the heavens and the earth.  Next God’s spirit hovered over the new-created watery chaos.  Then God spoke: “Let there be light.”  And there was light.
4. God Creates the Heavens and the Earth. First, the earth was chaos and God’s Spirit hovered and brooded over it and said: “Let there be light.  And light came.  Then on the second day…

Discussion

1. The most serious issue here is whether the Chaos existed before God started to create.  The existence of something before creation then leaves us with a question. Do the parts of chaos that remained uncreated come under the seven divine declarations that the work of Godself was “good.”  God pushes chaos up and down and horizontally.  Could we say that the waters above the sky or firmament are “good?”  These appear to flood back over the world in the Genesis Flood story, which is a result of God’s judgment on what has become of Creation by Genesis 6.  Are these waters “good?” 
2. If we favor Paraphrase 3 (Creation from Nothing), then the most fundamental act of creation is the Creator’s bringing chaotic raw material into being.  Traditionally labeled creatio ex nihilo, this scheme would be a solitary act by a transcendent God.  To overstate: the creation is complete after the first verse.  Everything else is “redemption,” namely fixing and improving what God has brought into being. 
3. A variation on Paraphrase 3 is the fourth paraphrase.  Here the first verse acts like a chapter heading.  This is why I presented the first verse in bold type, so it looks like a general description rather than a first event.  Seeing the first verse as a kind of heading serves to summarize all that follows as instances of “creation.” In this framework, creation and redemption merge.  Additionally, the use of a summary statement doesn’t disrupt the 7-day scheme which works nicely if the creation of light is the work of the first day.
4. Running through all the renderings is the question of how human-like God is.  If, at first, only the Creator existed and willed or spoke everything into existence, and spoke light and the firmament into being, then the emphasis is on God’s transcendence or otherness.  Humans can manipulate what God has created, but only God has that ability to speak or will things into existence. 
5. On the other hand, if God makes the heavens and the earth by organizing pre-existing material, then God’s creative labors are similar in quality to that of humans and even nature.  When the Creator delegates to humans the responsibility for advancing Creation, we can see a companionate relationship between the Creator and the creator-like humans.

Creation Throughout the Bible

When we think about creation in the Bible, we need always to bear in mind that creational language and theology runs through the entire canon.  Genesis 1, the focus of this essay came into its final form around the time of the reconstruction of Jerusalem Temple following the Exiles.  Scribes committed Genesis 2 to written form 500 years earlier in the reign of Solomon.  There are around 200 passages that speak of creation directly or allude to it that come before these words.  We need not place a burden on these first three verses to give us the definitive “biblical teaching” on the world’s origin story.

Many Voices

Finally, the pregnant ambiguity of these opening words of Genesis are one more example of the multiple voices that speak to the reader in the Biblical texts.  The Bible simply refuses to allow us to pin it down to simple declarative truth claims.  Even seemingly indispensable passages slip out of the grip of the dogmatic preacher or positivistic theologian.  We have four versions of “the gospel.”  Okay, we must be “born again.”  But what precisely do those words direct us to do?   We could with equal credibility translate the Greek here “born from above.” 

Many voices.  It keeps the scriptural message ever fresh, and it embraces many more people.