Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Christian <jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>]

> The  form
> brwyt has traditionally been translated as 'In the beginning' following
the
> Greek ἐν ἀρχῇ and the Latin 'In principio'. It has been suggested (does
> anybody have the reference for this?) that this is a mistranslation and
> that
> the sense is not of an ultimate beginning but merely of a declaration of
> the
> initial state of things before Elohim set about creating stuff.
>
> Most creation myths from around the world (so I’ve been told, and a few
that I have seen) start with pre-existing matter that the gods then form
into the world. Hence the belief.

However, ראשית R)$YT has the meaning of first, beginning, used also of the
first fruits of the harvest. There is no mention of pre-existing matter
Hi Karl,

This comes from R)$ meaning head, right? This is where we get the
association of a start from, right? We see a similar double meaning (head
(not in anatomical sense), start) in Greek with ἐν ἀρχῇ, right?

But where do you get this idea of the first fruits of the harvest from? I
though this form only occurred once in the Tanakh? Does anybody know of any
similar forms in cognate languages? How do the targums handle this term?

In favour of an 'In the beginning' translation I see the following points:

1) Jerome who claimed to have learned Hebrew in Isreal in the 4th century
translates the term as 'In principio' (the possibility exists that he is
just following the Greek though)
2) The LXX tranlators rendered the term ἐν ἀρχῇ which almost certainly has
this meaning.
3) The author of the Gospel of John began his gospel with ἐν ἀρχῇ. The
implication seems to be that he is calling readers attention to BR)$YT and
that his understanding of the term BR)$YT was Greek ἐν ἀρχῇ
4) The term BR)$YT is related to R)$ which basically means 'head'. It is not
a massive leap to see the connection to the sense of 'start' or 'beginning'.

Lines of evidence we have not yet considered:

1) Examples from cognates
2) The targum rendition of the term
3) The traditional Jewish understanding (does the Talmud say anything on the
subject?)

James Christian