“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1 – ESV 2010). With that sentence opens the story that the Bible tells us about God and man. Although it seems like a simple sentence that explains the relationship between creation and creator, there has been debate over the centuries as to how the verse should be read. Even today, there is no unity among Christian theologians on how the verse should be read. According to Genesis 1, did God actually create the heavens and the earth or did He merely order them in the chapter? And what is actually the function of Genesis 1:1? And with these questions answered, what is the meaning of the verse for a Christian?
The problem
Over the centuries there has been much debate about how to read Genesis 1:1, and there are also disagreements among contemporary Christian theologians. The sentence (and the following two verses) with which the original Hebrew text opens the Bible can be read in four ways:
- ,In the beginning, when God created the heaven and the earth, the earth was without form and empty…, (verse 1 then indicates when the situation of verse 2 occurred)
- “At the beginning of the creation of the heavens and the earth (when the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters), God said, …” (verse 1 indicates then indicate when verse 3 took place, verse 2 is a text that provides some additional information)
- “In the beginning God was the creator of heaven and earth” (verse 1 is a kind of title or introduction added later to the story)
- “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (verse 1 directly describes God’s first act of creation)
In the first three translations the assumption is made that before God acted creatively there was already chaotic matter. The fourth translation is the only translation that does not assume this. All matter that exists was created during and after the events described in Genesis 1:1. In the fourth translation, God is seen as the creator of the chaos, which He orders in the first chapter of Genesis.
Origin of the various translations
The fact that there are such different translation options for the first verse in the Bible raises the question of who came up with the different translations and how they arrived at them.
Abraham ibn Ezra
The first translation was suggested by Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra (1089-1164). According to him, the Hebrew word bara , which is translated as ‘created’, could never mean a creation ex nihilo (creation from nothing), because the word is also used to describe the creation of man, who was created from dust ( Gen. 1:27; 5:1). According to him, the word bara means something like ‘cutting’ or ‘cutting off’, the determination of limits and boundaries. This can be seen as bringing order to chaotic matter, making life possible.
Rashi
The second translation was proposed by Rashi (A Hebrew acronym of Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchak – 1040-1105), because there is no definite article in the original text for the word bereshith , which is translated as ‘in the beginning’. In such cases, the words bereshith and reshith (beginning), as is the case throughout the Old Testament according to Rashi, should be read as a status constructus. That is a noun (or adjective) that is the object in a possession relationship. The beginning is then not the beginning of time, but the beginning of God’s creative action.
Title
The third translation arose from the position that Genesis 1:1 should be read as a main sentence, but that the sentence can never mean that God actually created the earth. If one accepts this, it would mean that God created chaos. Something that according to many modern theologians cannot be true, because Isaiah 45:18 states that God did not create the earth to be waste, but so that people might dwell on it. God only creates order, not chaos.
The traditional Christian interpretation
The fourth translation is the traditional interpretation of Genesis 1:1 among Christians. This translation can already be found in the Septuagint translation from the third century BC and at least until the tenth century this interpretation was the standard interpretation according to Wenham (source 4). This antiquity is an important argument, because of all known Bible translators, the Septuagint translators were closest in time to the composition of the book of Genesis. It may therefore be assumed that of all the translators whose translations we have available, these people were the best informed when it came to the interpretation of the Old Testament.
There are other arguments as well. Like the theologians who read Genesis 1:1 as a title, the traditional interpretation assumes that the verse contains a main clause because it is the opening sentence of the story of God and man. The traditional reading is also supported by New Testament texts (1 Cor. 8:6; Col. 1:15-20). Furthermore, according to Matthews (source 2) and Spence and Exell (source 4), the word bara is used in the Old Testament to describe the creation of new things (that did not exist before) or new activities (that had never been performed before). In addition, the term is used to indicate restoration of things, as in Psalm 51:10. Also, the term is only used to describe God’s actions. The word bara can therefore indicate a creatio ex nihilo , although this is not always the case.
What is the correct reading?
The common view among contemporary Christian Bible commentators is that Genesis 1:1 should be read as a main sentence. Ibn Ezra and Rashi both never found much support in their interpretations of the verse and their arguments are not strong. Ibn Ezra’s idea that bara cannot refer to a creation ex nihilo need not be true, because the word can have multiple meanings. Furthermore, there are Bible texts in which words that are similar in meaning to bereshith , including the word reshith , are without an article, but are not read as being in the form of a status constructus (such as Isa. 40:21; 41:4, 26; 46:10), making Rashi’s interpretation unnecessary. Genesis 1:1 thus appears to be a title or to describe an act of creation.
Title or first act of creation?
The arguments for the reading of Genesis 1:1 as the title of what follows do not seem strong, because in that reading the title and content contradict each other. After all, the title states that God created the heavens and earth, while it is assumed that the earth existed before God’s creative action and this is also read in the rest of Genesis 1. In addition, the text in Isaiah 45:18 does not mean that God did not create the earth as a may have created a chaotic thing. Isaiah 45:18 only describes the purpose of the creation of the earth, a purpose that is achieved in Genesis 1. The intermediate step of creating a chaotic event is not excluded in the verse. However
, a traditional Christian reading also faces a problem. There are multiple sources and layers in the Old Testament stories that relate to creation. A number of texts from it (Job 26:12; Ps. 74:13; 89:11), according to Berkhof (source 1), give the impression that the world arose from the battle between God and the primordial sea monster Rahab that He subdued (that ‘ pride’ and was also used as a symbol for Egypt). However, the creation story in Genesis 1 and the traditional way in which the story is interpreted say nothing about this.
However, this problem is not as big as it seems. The texts about God’s battle against Rahab do not tell in what context this battle was waged. It is also not stated whether this was a difficult battle and what the consequences of this battle were. The traditional reading therefore has the strongest credentials. There are many reasons to see this as the correct reading and no major problems with it.
The meaning of Genesis 1:1
If one assumes that Genesis 1:1 is to be read in the traditional way, then the only question remains what exactly the verse means. Berkhof (source 1) says the following seven things about this that summarize the meaning well:
- The created nature of the world means that everything in it and about it is good and important (Gen. 1:31).
- It means that nothing in the world is absolute. The world is nothing more than God’s creature.
- It means that the world is a fundamental unity. More fundamental than the diversity of races, peoples and cultures. More fundamental than the distinction between matter and spirit, body and soul.
- It means variety that is real. If the world itself had produced everything, then all variations would have to be traceable to that world. However, being created does not mean having your ground in the world, but in a creator. As a result, there is a distinction between people and animals, plants and animals and between spirit and matter.
- Being created by a God of love means that the world is reliable, lawful. We are not in some kind of haunted house where the laws of nature can suddenly change.
- However, it also means that reality is open to God’s purposeful intervention, the miracle. It is not a haunted house, but it is not a bunker either.
- Creation by the God of revelation decides the purpose of existence. The world is meant to be (Berkhof deliberately writes it that way). She is a purpose in herself (God intended to create her), but she also has another purpose.
What is the purpose of creation, where it should all go, is a question that requires the believer to read the rest of the Bible.