Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Kevin P. Edgecomb" <kevin AT bombaxo.com>]

Personally, I've always read BR)$YT as an adverbial phrase.  In translation 
to English, we can't really use a literal adverb "Beginningly,..." as it is 
simply awful English. On the other hand, "In the beginning..." is a fine 
enough gloss, since the alternatives have always seemed to focus on the 
indeterminancy of the timing for whatever other reasons, be they logical or 
related to parallelomania. "In a beginning..." is just wrong in English as 
well, leaving open other "beginnings," which is illogical.  One might go with 
"Firstly,..." but that's simply not on the traditional translational radar, 
so to speak.  Keeping some relation to the classic King James Version's 
phraseology seems expected, by including "beginning" somehow.  

Consequently, I've seen the whole issue related more to a matter of tradition 
on the part of translators and the particular limitations of English in this 
instance.  The Hebrew itself is perfectly clear.

Regards,
Kevin P. Edgecomb
Berkeley, California